Review: SteamWorld Dig (PS4, PS Vita)

The big push in indie gaming over the last few years has proven to me that I will always gravitate to functionality and game design over visual/auditory design. On the rare times that you get the entire bundle, it's a gem worth picking up. Steamworld Dig definitely fits well in both categories, being a well-designed and implemented game but still pretty to look at and appreciate.

You play the robot prospector Rusty who has been given his Uncle Joe's mine and trusty pick-axe (well, not so much given as picked up of his corpse… but that's neither here nor there).

The town of Tumbleton above thrives and grows based off of the minerals that you can pull from the mine.  As you dig deeper into the earth, you uncover more valuable materials and more dangerous enemies to overcome. No reward without risk, right? Your hard-fought windfall can be spent on better equipment and upgrades, which in turn allow you to dig deeper into earth… THE CYCLE OF ADDICTION DOES NOT STOP! Minerals are traded in for gold, and the other major resource are orbs which are a must have for most upgrades. Besides the purchased upgrades, you will come across upgrades that your Uncle Joe has left for you which will add extra skills to your repertoire.

Most would consider the primary enemy to be the random toadies that you come across. However the most merciless enemy is time; you only have a finite amount of time in the mine before your light source runs out. This necessitates another trip to the surface to regroup. Think one part Dig-Dug and one part Pitfall (the later one, not the original Atari version).

With the unofficial timer on each trip in the mine, you'll find yourself pressing more aggressively to keep up your success at the expense of common sense. Death may be fleeting in the game, but each death will cost you half of your available cash… and your loot will be in the spot that your corpse was piled up. Because of the rarity of naturally occurring transporter positions, you'll either find yourself spending a significant amount of time backtracking to the last position or spending your valuable resources on your own transporter pads – and considering how tough getting some of those orbs can be it can be a tough decision on whether or not to spend them. As a result, the game time is artificially increased by spending half the time in the mine running back to your last transporter position.

Visually the bright animation style for the characters is very cute and welcoming – so much so that the majority of the review was done on my Vita as my girlfriend took over my Playstation 4 to play.

This leads me to my last complaint – no cross-play enabled… this was THE PERFECT GAME for it. Instead, I've got a half-finished game on the PS4 waiting to be finished and two completed ones on my Vita.  A playthrough of the game will definitely vary by style – a grinding plodding approach will extend a single playthrough to around 8 hours. Whereas a more aggressive devil-may-care approach allowed me to beat the game on second playthrough in less than three. Either way, this is a little too short of a game, even if the game is randomly generated.

All in all, despite the few shortcomings Steamworld Dig is easily one of the better download games available on PSN right now and is definitely worth a pick-up.

- Tazman

Follow @Tazman6666AE

The Good:
- Exceptionally addictive little game
           
The Bad:
- Little too short
- A lot of time is wasted backtracking
- Cross-play enabled would have been awesome…

Score: 9.0 / 10