Atari Poop

Atari Poop – Dig Dug

When released for the arcades in 1982, the developers of Dig Dug had to have several key changes made to their final product just to have it released at all. As a result, they created a classic. Unfortunately, when it was ported to the 2600 a year later, gamers finally got to play the now classic game the way the developers had always intended.

As you can see from the box art above, nothing appears to be different. You still play as the titular character, Dig Dug; however, some of you may know that his real name is Hori Taizo, which is a reference to the Japanese phrase “Horitai zo” which not only means, literally, “I want to dig,” but also figuratively “I want to f**k.” This starts to make A LOT of sense when you finally see what your character looks like in this port and then think about what it is he does:

What you see above is a man sporting what appears to be a permanent erection thanks to some space Viagra and this is the point when things finally start to make sense to all of you and you collectively start to cringe. Dig Dug is a game about an intergalactic sex criminal. You don’t even need to think about it. You know it’s true. He’s like Larry Larger, but murderous instead of slightly lovable, and also an alien… or into aliens, I’m not too clear on whether or not he’s human.

So, though the 2600’s graphics are clearly inferior to what was available in the arcades, the console did give this game’s developers the “opportunity” do what they want. If Atari or retailers gave them any trouble, they could always feign ignorance and blame the lacking graphical capabilities; or, if worst came to worst, just release it as an unlicensed game. It sure didn’t stop Mystique from releasing several that way.

If you need more evidence to prove that Dig Dug is a game about a serial sexual predator made by a group of very sick people, I could always remind you that one of the enemies is called a Pooka. If that sounds like a strange slang term for a vagina, it’s because it is. This, it should be noted, does not mean that Mr. “I like to dig” is only interested in women, as there clearly has to be both male and female Pookas; the same goes for Fygars. Dig Dug is an equal opportunity monster.

More evidence? Well, I could also ask you to just have a look at this video and tell me that it doesn’t look like your goal is to have sex with everything that moves until it explodes.