Celebrating Westwood Studios’ forgotten RTS.
Imagine a universe where Patrick Stewart charges into battle holding a pug and firing sound at people, where Sting plays a ginger psycho lubed up with baby oil, and where Freddie Jones is forced at syringe point to suckle milk from a cat—all whilst under the watchful eye of a gigantic spice-puffing space vagina.
I am of course talking about David Lynch’s 1984 film, Dune, the adaptation for the big screen of Frank Herbert’s epic sci-finovel.
Dune is an intriguing and complex story about time and space, bravery and betrayal, and ultimately about one young man’s destiny to unite a universe. Set in the year 10191, the story sees two great houses battling for control of the desolate sand planet Arrakis. The planet’s mysterious spice is harvested to fund war, giant tank-eating worms roam its surface, and its indigenous Fremen warriors hold a great secret.
The Dune universe first came to PC in Cryo’s modest 1992 adventure game, however it’s undoubtedly Westwood Studios’ 1993 masterpiece, Dune II, for which the universe is best remembered on PC. Dune II: Battle for Arrakis, or Dune II: Building of a Dynasty as it was known in North America, played a pivotal role in the formation of real time strategy as a genre, and laid solid foundations for the beloved Command & Conquer that came a year later.
Then, in 1998, and in the shadow of both Command & Conquer and Red Alert, Westwood and Intelligent Games released the now largely forgotten Dune 2000.
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Denne historien er fra September 2019-utgaven av PC Gamer US Edition.
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YELLOW CARD
Flawed deckbuilder DUNGEONS AND DEGENERATE GAMBLERS rarely plays a winning hand
GODS AND MONSTERS
AGE OF MYTHOLOGY: RETOLD modernizes a classic RTS with care
SPACED OUT
After a strong first impression, WARHAMMER 40K: SPACE MARINE 2 runs out of steam
SLIDES RULE
Redeeming a hated puzzle mechanic with SLIDER
DINER HARD
Rewriting the rules of horror in ALAN WAKE
"Kay Vess, galactic tomb raider"
Feeling like Lara Croft in STAR WARS OUTLAWS
LETHAL COMPANY
A return to some explosive post-launch patches.
MARVEL: ULTIMATE ALLIANCE
Enter the multiverse of modness.
TRACK GPT
Al's teaching sim racers to improve-what about other games?
FINDING IMMORTALITY
Twenty-five years on, PLANESCAPE: TORMENT is still one of the most talked-about RPGs of all time. This is the story of how it was created as a 'stay-busy' project by a small team at Black Isle Studios