Let’s Play The Dig! 
Going from a game with an ineffectual story to one which serves up one of the greatest stories ever told through video game, particularly in the hard sci-fi genre which admittedly doesn’t have a ton of competition, The Dig is one of my favorite games of all time.
Let’s Play the Dig:
I have great memories playing this with my brother years ago, working through it for the first time trying to figure out the story for the first time. It’s sad because I don’t seem to have the patience for these kinds of games anymore, or maybe I just haven’t played a good one in awhile.
Actually, strike that. Now that I think about it, it’s definitely because I haven’t played or tried a good one in awhile. If I could play something today which meant as much as The Dig did to me the first time, I’d certainly give it an honest look.
The game was reportedly conceived from an idea from Steven Spielburg, and with him being tight with George Lucas, the idea somehow happily made its way to LucasArts Games instead of the big screen. As much as I love the game, I think it would make a fantastic feature length film, and truth be told I think about casting from time to time (Chris Waltz as Brink, anyone? I figure it would either be amazing success or a firable/never work in this town again offense for the casting agent).
The story revolves around three specialists who are charged with the task of blasting into space to precisely set detonators on a newly arrived asteroid which is threatening to destroy Earth when before the imminent collision occurs.
SPOILER ALERT
The team soon discovers that the rock isn’t an asteroid after all but a disguised space ship which they inadvertently activate, sending them off to a foreign planet on the other side of the universe. Finding the planet nearly completely deserted for what seems like thousands of years, they must learn the foreign technology of this long dead race in order to even having a shot at returning home to Earth.
This is a good ass game from the fantastic script which comes alive through wonderfully executed voice acting and beautiful visuals. The soundtrack is another strong aspect of this game, rife with ethereal pieces which transport you across the galaxy and make you experience simultaneously the loneliness and splendor of this alien world so far from home.
Between this and Full Throttle in particular, LucasArts Games was on top of their game in the mid 90’s.