Then scour through the fog of war on the map to find and destroy the enemy. Use the spice to pay for better structures and units to consolidate your military. Build wind traps (power generators), refineries for gathering spice, and some basic defenses. The invasion is structured around more or less the same three-part gameplay loop. At the start of each mission a Mentat gives a briefing to move the story along and presents a choice of regions to invade. You control one of three houses - Atreides, Harkonnen, or Ordos (the last of which is not part of Herbert’s canon) - in a race to conquer Dune. Unlike Cryo’s Dune (1992), which loosely followed Paul’s story in a strategy-adventure hybrid, Westwood Studios’ Dune II (also released in 1992) opted for an original plot and a simpler approach. It’s a rich tapestry, one whose potential was clearly recognised by Cryo Interactive and Westwood Studios. Sandworms replace the dragons found in high fantasy fiction the Fremen are based on the Bedouin and San peoples, rather than the usual Nordic tropes specially trained humans called Mentats take the place of computers and AI - amongst many other curious customs, guilds, and concepts. What sets Dune apart from other coming-of-age power fantasies is its unusual world. As the Atreides take over spice production, they are betrayed, Paul flees into the desert to join the Fremen, and he eventually leads them in sandworm-powered revenge. Found only on Dune, spice enables faster-than-light space travel, which makes it the most precious commodity in the universe. Later, when I became obsessed with Dune 2000 and Emperor: Battle for Dune, I couldn’t imagine that the series would fall dormant for 20 years.įrank Herbert’s Dune (1965) tells the story of 15-year-old Paul, heir to the noble House Atreides, who travels with his parents to the desert planet Dune, home to the indigenous Fremen, giant sandworms, and a drug known as spice. I was oblivious to the fact that it was based on one of the richest, strangest, and most successful science fiction universes ever and would define the design of RTS games for more than a decade. The game was too complex for a controller, I was seven, and I didn’t speak English, so I didn’t have a clue what was going on. I remember playing Dune II on my Sega Genesis around 1995.
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