Dune 2

Game developer: Westwood Studios
Game publisher: Virgin Games
Game release date: December 1992 year
Game status: Released

As far as genre defining games go you won't get any better example than this one. Dune 2: the Building of a Dynasty is a real-time strategy game where you can built and control your units directly into battle against your enemies. Not only units but you will have to built power plants and factories that can manufacture vehicles as well as gather money to build it all. The entire game takes place on dune a planet that is a huge desert and the only place in the universe to contain spice which is used for space travel. Now you must fight against two other houses for control of dune and whoever controls dune controls the spice and the entire universe.

You can select from three houses to control: the noble Atreides, the insidious Ordos and the evil Harkonnen. The Harkonnen prefer heavy weapons and weapons of mass destruction, the Ordus prefer sabotage and small but fast weapons and the Atreides use air power and tanks that use sound as a weapon. Each has their own strategies and you will have to use their special weapons to their fullest to win. Things don't start out so hectic though and the first thing to do is collect some credits for you house. Credits are made from collecting spice with a harvester and then returning it to the processing plant. You'll first have to build a power plant to be able to build any other buildings. Later when you go on the offensive you will get troops and quads and when things get nasty tanks and missile launchers. These will come gradually so you will not be overwhelmed with new units each level. At later levels the house's special weapons will come into play and they have to be deployed with care because there are a maximum of 25 units you can make.

The first two levels only require you to harvest spice but all levels after that require you to destroy all enemy units on the level. Sometimes this requires a bit of searching as a single soldier hiding in the desert is enough to stop you from completing the level. Before a level begins your mental or instructor will give you the lowdown on the level and present any new units that you can manufacture. During a level you can ask him for some basic advice and also information about structures and vehicles. The building of the base and structures falls entirely in your hands though and there are plenty of things that you need to build. Along with the standard constructional facilities you can also build walls and turrets for defence. Later on you can build a mobile construction yard that can function autonomously from your main base should it be destroyed. You can only build on land but spice is only available in patches on the sand so you'll have to find it. The bad news is that the Shai-hulud, the giant sand worms, also live there and they can easily eat an entire vehicle in one gulp but sadly there is no real defence against these beasts so you'll just have to hope for the best.The Harkonnen and Atreides are quite evenly matched but the most difficult house is without a doubt the Ordos, they cannot build rocket launchers at all and they will have access to quads and tanks later than the other two houses. By using a star port to buy some helps a bit but they still have a disadvantage in my eyes.

Dune 2 is a fantastic game and all real-time strategy games still take the basic idea from this one. There are however numerous bugs and exploits that both you and the computer can use the most obvious of which is that the computer has an endless supply of credits. Others are quite strange like setting the game speed to lower/faster will change the range of the Atreides sonic tank which can be used by you both for advantage when attacking as well as when an enemy sonic tank attacks you. Dispute these bugs the game is still very enjoyable, it might not be as polished as later RTS games but this is the one that started it all. No gamer should be without this game.

Game genre: Strategy Games, Real-time Strategies, Space Games
Platform/System: MS-DOS Games, Amiga Games