Dune

DOSBox, Dune (1992) game

'Dune II: The Battle For Arrakis' was, and remains, one of my favourite games of all time, up there along with 'The Settlers,' 'UFO: Enemy Unknown' and 'Age of Empires' I and II. The fact that it was a sequel naturally intrigued me, and for many years I was curious to play the original, knowing only that it was similar to the sequel, but with added RPG elements to, ahem, 'spice' up proceedings, shall we say? Of course the 'Dune' series wasn't merely a computer game, but originated with Frank Herbert's science fiction opus of the mid-20th Century, which itself had spawned a film version, but to me it will always be associated with Harvesters mining the orange spice Melange, and the various Houses battling for supremacy on the desert world of Arrakis. First thoughts were that the familiar style of 'Dune II' characters and locales was in evidence, if a little more stylised, but although I was impressed with the visuals of this early nineties game, I soon found myself dealing with the laborious game mechanics where everything had to be done in specific ways, clicking this or that, waiting for a troop to get here, there were no shortcuts, and no amount of beautiful pixellated renditions of people and places could disguise the fact that it was far less accessible than its lauded sequel.

Perhaps I wasn't taking into account that these games pretty much invented the Real-Time Strategy genre, so it should be expected the first attempt would be cumbersome and labour-intensive, with lots of things to get to grips with. In that respect it mirrored your character, Paul Atreides', own experiences, arriving to be confronted with prophecies and plans for him, then thrown right into it. Alright, so the graphical detail helped assuage the impression of hard work, especially when you start travelling around by good old Ornithopter, an item I well remembered from my 'Dune II' days, with the desert ground speeding beneath your wings in a three-dimensional representation that must have been rather impressive at the time. The well-animated screens would soon grow tiresome - seeing the Orni lift off or land lost its novelty quite quickly considering the number of times you had to do it. Fortunately the travel could be skipped so you arrive at your destination without trawling through the wasteland, though the Orni takeoff, or the later harnessing of Sandworms, could not - they must have spent some time on the excellent animation, however, so I didn't feel too irritated, and indeed, you need to sit back and accept a slower, more guided gaming experience than later generations of games would relax.

Except that, although it could be slow, you soon find yourself under pressure, having to fly around to be in a radius sufficient to communicate with your Fremen troops, and far from the experience being linear you're pretty much left to make your own mistakes. Fly too near the enemy Harkonnen space and you'll get shot down with the accompanying graphic death, fast-forwarding through your body's decomposing to dust and bone to rot on the planet's surface; lose too many troops; fail to send Emperor Shaddam IV his demanded shipment of spice and his Saudaukar warriors will finish you off. From one perspective this freedom only adds to the tension of the game and the reality of your position, reality hitting home even harder due to the allowance of a mere two save logs, meaning you can't save every few minutes and jump back to an earlier file if you get to a point of no return. Twice that was very close to forcing me to restart from the very beginning (an era where games were far less forgiving, and rewards had to be earned!). When Chani was captured during her stay with troops, curing them from a mystery illness, I had already taken out most of the Harkonnen Fortresses so was unable to use Espionage to track down which remaining one she was held within, nor could I hope to attack the remaining few since they were heavily armed and my men's motivation had dropped so much with her kidnap.

It was handy, then, that I had a log to go back a good few days, which enabled me to take alternative action, pulling back so an easier fort would be the one to hold her. But it was a close run thing. The same happened towards the very end as I didn't realise the goal was to capture all the Fortresses and I assumed there were many more I had yet to discover, but no way to find them with Espionage failing from all the furthest caves (sietches), I'd liberated or located and no other way to unearth more. The Globe screen with its results of both House Atreides and House Harkonnen didn't appear to have any bearing since its data indicated a massive enemy presence on the planet, spice mining going up, despite me only being able to locate a few final forts. I had enough spice for about one more good shipment to the Emperor (a requirement for the game to continue - he might give a day or so's grace, but eventually you'd die if you didn't fulfil his demands), when I just happened to take the last fort without realising it was such, and on returning to my home palace to find out how much longer I had until the next shipment was due, Duncan Idaho, my trusty business manager, said I had 255 days left! I thought it was a glitch, but I'd take it at this point! But no, the requirement had been met and the last assault was all that was needed for completion, to my relief. As you can see, to lose the ability to complete the game so close to the end would have been a sore trial.

It would have been useful to have been able to automate tasks so that I didn't personally have to sort out everything - after all, I'm supposed to have loyal servants and subjects! Idaho could have been instructed to send the Emperor what he asked for on demand, or 50% more, or whatever I chose, rather than having to make sure I could track back to the palace within the day it was due, to avoid the Emperor's wrath (not having read the book, I don't know if he was an established character or a contemporary addition: the Gulf War and Saddam were at the forefront of consciousness in the early nineties when this was released, and here we have an evil Emperor Shaddam on a desert planet…). But then that would defeat the object, which was to present a world in which to keep the tasks running to accomplishment, you had to be visible and make contact, juggling the various responsibilities entrusted to you. Plus, it would have stripped out a chunk of the game! 'Dune II' would be such a vast enhancement of the concepts in this game as to be virtually separate, but it was nice to see familiar terms from the later game appear: windfarms, Fremen, spice, the Saudaukar, not to mention the Houses or the Emperor, things that I spent so long with in the 1990s.

I was also pleased to see a proper ending, with a little time given over to a proper conclusion, rather than a 'The End' sign coming up when the Harkonnen palace had been stormed (unlike 'Armorines,' the game I played prior to this!), with all the main characters converging on the palace to have it out with Baron Harkonnen, the making of Paul as the new Emperor and faithful Chani, Empress, then showing each main character in all their beautiful artwork as a sendoff, like the end of an old film, taking you back to each person - I love it when a game puts that kind of detail in. They even had 'Dune II' planned since it ends with a message saying it was coming soon! Yes, the toiling between sietches, the slow improvement of Paul's powers (getting to ride a Sandworm, communicating across greater distances, rallying the Fremen, and eventually getting the ecology of the planet off to a good start), and the gradual advancement of troops and expansion of the map, all dragged the game out, and I was really going to be hard on the game when it came to review time, but as I went on I found I was enjoying it, having mastered the various tasks, finding improvements that eased the pain (the main one being the ability to contact troops anywhere on the planet), and the constant visual appeal, whether that were the map view, the 3D travel or the pearlescent visions which served as communication for Paul (why he couldn't contact Idaho in return, I don't know!).

The music was also good, and the characters were an interesting bunch. There was humour, such as the situation of two female characters becoming jealous over you, and the gradual additions to your forces were inspiring. The story element wasn't quite as big a deal as I thought, with the occasional quest or clue to be interpreted, usually as simple as taking someone somewhere - it was certainly no 'Monkey Island,' but it worked and as an old game it was certainly a good one. That they improved the mechanics and design so much with the sequel shows how far the concept could go. I've never played 'Dune 2000,' but I'd be interested to see where that went with that one, and whether further improvements were the order. One thing's for sure: it gave me the wish to delve deeper into the 'Dune' mythos: to revisit 'Dune II' again, even though I played it through to death, winning with all three Houses back in the day; to read the books; maybe even see the film again (which I wasn't keen on upon viewing it a few years ago). It certainly wasn't a waste of time as it first appeared, but a worthwhile exploration of the precursor to a gaming classic which held a satisfying challenge and an interesting history. There's even the replay value of trying to win the game in a shorter number of days (I took 137!), which could potentially draw me back in future.

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