The Padishah Emperor has declared open season on the
planet Arrakis - better known as Dune. With no rules and no limits, the Houses
of Atreides, Harkonnen and Ordos are cordially invited to mine the precious
Spice from Dune's subsurface strata - and smash each other into smithereens with
any and all weapons and technologies available.
(Electronic Arts [developed by Westwood Studios], 1998)
Dune 2000 is an updated version of the Dune 2 computer game
that has been around for a few years. I'll warn you right now, and I'm only
doing this because I feel it's a valid warning...Dune 2000 is extremely
addictive. It's right up there with SimCity and the Ultima
games - proving that complex computer games can eat up just as much time as any
ultra-simple arcade-style action game.
But then I ran across the Playstation version of Dune 2000. It's an
outstanding port, almost identical to the PC-based version, but with a different
and slightly distracting grpahic look. The PC game, as seen above, has a
consistent, straight-overhead-looking-down viewpoint, whereas the Playstation
version of Dune 2000 has a vaguely 3-D perspective in which the top of
the screen is further in the distance than the bottom. The Playstation version
requires the Playstation mouse, and even then, its controls are a little too
sensitive. While it's fun either way, I strongly recommend getting Dune
2000 for the PC - the keyboard commands enhance the game and make it easier
in more intense rounds of the game. And I'll throw in three words that make the
PC version very attractive indeed: internet death matches!
The extras and perks of the game are also a bonus. Various intro movies
feature such SF stalwarts as John Rhys-Davies (Sliders) as the Atreides Mentat,
and Musetta Vander (who played the main guest role in last year's
The Disease episode of
Star Trek: Voyager, in addition to at least
one episode of Babylon 5) as the narrator of
the opening sequence of the game. The music by Frank Klepacki is also a great
motivator during play, with some especially dark, percussive pieces sounding a
bit like Evan Chen's music from
Crusade. Overall, Dune 2000 seems
to have more in common with Dune the movie than the series of
Dune novels.
I heartily recommend Dune 2000 to you, with a single caveat: you're
going to be spending a lot of time playing it. Just ask my
fianceè - she introduced me to Dune 2000, and she's had to pry me
away from it countless times, supposedly for trivial tasks such as preparing and
eating meals, bathing, washing clothes...
Rating:
One dollar - top of the line. Go trade it in for more quarters, you'll
want to play this game several times.
Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com editor/webmaster
One dollar - top of the line. Go trade it in for more quarters, you'll
want to play this game several times.
