Dune 2000
1-Click Install (Westwood 1998) |
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The Game
Dune II was one of the best games of the 90s. Not only did this classic introduce players to the real-time strategy game, but it also managed to deliver all of the feel of Herbert's Dune universe in the process. The units were well balanced, the missions helped players ease into this strange new world by teaching them the basic skills they'd need to survive. Since then the real-time strategy world took off, first with Warcraft and Command & Conquer, and later with waves of copycats. This surge of releases added a great deal to the genre, from multiple unit selection, to waypoint control, and eventually 3D units and terrain. It was into this background that Westwood's remake of Dune II was tossed.
The FMV footage in this game is spectacular. All of the game's characters look as if they crawled straight off the set of Lynch's film, and the acting is superb throughout. As the game continues, you'll be treated to movies that help push along the plot, which in the case of the Atreides and Harkonnen pretty much follows that of the books and movie, but with the Ordos actually offers up an entirely new race and story. All of the graphics within the game are similarly entertaining -- each of the different buildings and units looks exactly like you'd imagine it would. In fact, the entire feel of the game is excellent.
Dune 2000 is similar in style to Red Alert, which makes sense, seeing as that's the engine that the company used. Players have all the basic options that you'd expect from that era, from unit grouping and map location hot keys to a scatter hot key and a guard building option. Like any other game, players receive a briefing at the beginning of the game, most of which involve mining a certain amount of spice or utterly eliminating an opponent, and then they go to the play screen to actually tackle it. These single player missions are fairly well designed, and once completed offer gamers a couple of choices over which mission they're going to take on next. The whole structure is very simple and even the most basic strategy gamer should have no trouble at all sorting out what they're supposed to be doing.
In short, with smooth visuals, superb sound, strategy and replay value, Dune 2000 is a real winner.
Note: My compatibility CD does not alter the retail game or bypass copy protection. It allows the original media to install and run correctly on any recent version of Windows.