Game:

Dune II (1992)

Category:

Review

Duration: 9:04:20

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Huge playlist archive with Kempston Mouse games: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxOanVBhqd3tM1Ov2sGHI177WdlY0wali
This game has come a long way, it was programmed by Perestroika Software and made available in a beta version in 1997, then put away for many years, for popping up again in a newer version with a fully working and playable level 1 as participant in the "Your Game 5" contest in 2014. A fixed version was made by Demige in 2019 (added missing files v-a.obj, w-a.obj, d-a.obj, level load fixed), and in May 2021 it was made available for the public to download on vtrd here: https://vtrd.in/release.php?r=8665eca756acb5287ee6342c03bdaf3f

This is a 100% full working version of Dune II - The Battle for Arrakis for the ZX Spectrum 128k:

0:00:22 Intro
0:05:34 Mission 1 Order
0:07:14 Mission 1 Start
0:15:21 Mission 2 Order
0:16:35 Mission 2 Start
0:40:28 Mission 3 Order
0:41:29 Mission 3 Start
1:28:24 Mission 4 Order
1:29:08 Mission 4 Start
2:18:37 Mission 5 Order
2:19:56 Mission 5 Start
4:09:19 Mission 6 Order
4:10:13 Mission 6 Start
5:41:03 Mission 7 Order
5:41:48 Mission 7 Start
7:16:30 Mission 8 Order
7:18:02 Mission 8 Start
9:02:35 End of Game

Dune II is one of the most influential games in the real-time strategy genre, and originally it was developed by Westwood Studios and released by Virgin Games in December 1992 for PC DOS. In 1993 it was ported to Amiga and Mega Drive/Genesis. The game was ported to Android in 2013, and also a fan-made port for Pandora became available, based on the reverse engineered game engine

The game is based upon David Lynch's 1984 movie Dune, an adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel of the same name.

While not the first real-time strategy video game, Dune II established the format that would be followed for years to come. As such, Dune II is the archetypal "real-time strategy" game. Striking a balance between complexity and innovation, it was a huge success and laid the foundation for Command & Conquer, Warcraft, and many other RTS games that followed

Emperor Frederick IV of House Corrino is desperate for the harvesting of the valuable drug melange (also known as "the spice"), found only on the planet Arrakis, to pay off all of his debt incurred on internecine wars with family members. To achieve this, he now offers the sole governorship of Arrakis to whichever of the three Houses (Atreides, Harkonnen, and the non-canon Ordos) delivers the most spice for him. War begins as deputations from all three Houses arrive on Arrakis

You are a military commander from a House of their choice. In the first few missions, the objectives are to establish successfully a base on an unoccupied territory of Arrakis, to harvest spice, and to defeat intruders. Later, when the three Houses divide Arrakis among them, the player has to assault and capture enemy territories. When the player dominates Arrakis on the world map, the two other enemy factions ally against their common enemy. The final showdown is the battle between the player's House against three enemy sides, among them Frederick's forces the Sardaukar (an unplayable elite force whose heavy infantry are particularly powerful). The introductory, mission briefing and endgame cutscenes are different for each House, in keeping with their very disparate world views. The weaponry and units also vary from house to house

This is not a 100% accurate port, but neither is the Amiga and Mega Drive/Genesis versions (also in the Amiga version you constantly have to swap between 5 disks), and in general you have the Dune II game with most of the features in this ZX Spectrum version, even the sampled speech and the gigantic sandworm, capable of swallowing vehicles and infantry is present. Most of the intro has been ported, you can select between English and Russian language, and for controls you can choose between keyboard and Kempston mouse

The A.I. is pretty good, you will be attacked by the enemy forces and the sandworm, and if you do not plan your attacks on the enemy bases correctly, or if you come with too few troops you will get wiped out. You click on the sides of the frame for the playfield to make moderate/local scrolling, and you drag the cursor on the radar screen if you want to get fast to a distant place

It is important to notice that the spice you have to harvest has graphics that goes in diagonal right patterns, and the devastating dunes and rocky outcroppings, you do not want to get into, goes in diagonal left patterns

Some minuses is the non smooth scrolling, and the huge blue attributtes following the enemies does not look great. Also sometimes the harvesters does not take the shortest route back to the refinery, and it will be much faster to stop them and guide them manually, so you have to keep an eye on these

But all in all a very solid real-time strategy game with many, many hours of gameplay and the option for saving and loading to disk as much as you like

Rating = 96%

Download link at the top

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