Dig Dug (Atari 5200 review)

Developer: GCC
Publisher: Atari, Inc.
Released: 1983

Dig Dug is an action game that was initially released in the Arcade in 1982.

+ Provides a two-player turn-based option (as well as a stage select), and there's a perfect difficulty curve to ease you in.

+ Offers a wide variety of level arrangements to keep things interesting and the collectable vegetables add risk-reward.

+ Quickly diagnosing layouts and planning a method of attack during the pre-stage jingle is both entertaining and stressful.

+ Craftily, you earn more points by defeating foes lower down the screen, and luring them into falling rocks is fiendishly fun.

+ Though you'll often get sandwiched between enemies, it's neat alternating hits to keep them at bay until they explode.

- There's an unfortunate amount of sprite flicker in higher stages, which can cause confusion when two enemies overlap.

- Controls aren't tight enough and many times you'll lose a life due to overshooting your intended target by a small amount.