Well the wait is finally over. After many delays, Dune2000 [sic] has finally arrived. A quick history lesson for all you kids who think that Command & Conquer was where real-time strategy games were born: back in 1992 Westwood released a game based on the Dune books called Dune2 [sic]. This game used a revolutionary new style of play that focused on collecting resources to build units and buildings in order to overwhelm your opponent. Thus the real-time strategy genre was born.I'm not going to dispute this because there's many possible "first RTS ever" candidates and I personally side with Dune 2.
It's understandable why Westwood would try to cash in on this classic and do a remake - it's a sure sell just based on name recognition alone.Really? How well has DUNE sold? "Released in 2001 [...] the game was not a commercial [...] success, and Cryo subsequently filed for bankruptcy in July 2002" [Source: Wikipedia
]. (I really wanted to play Dune: Generations... and Dune: Alliances).
But it's a double-edged sword because they also risk committing a travesty by "ruining a classic" and alienating some of their oldest fans.Anyone who hated Dune 2000 because it didn't play like Dune 2 hated Command and Conquer and knew it'd be mainly CnC-ish.
I was expecting big things from this game when I first heard it was in the works. I can remember many a late night cursing my computer as I fought against hopeless odds on the last level of Dune2 (you know what I'm talking about if you have played that game). Needless to say after a quick and painless install it didn't take me long to realize that Dune2000 [sic] was NOT what I had expected.What had you expected?
The Dune story goes something like this: three different groups (called "houses") compete on the planet of Dune for precious spice (read : tiberium)That's a bit like saying the League of Nations is a rip-off of the United Nations. In a discussion of Non-Governmental Organizations.
which is harvested and used to build or buy units and buildings. The planet is ruled by an emperor who decides to settle the matter of the arguing houses by declaring a free-for-all with the winner gaining control of the entire planet and subsequently the spice.A visit to Westwood's D2K site (http://www.dune2000.com) provides a breakdown of the features of the game, so I decided to break down their list and translate their marketing gibberish into plain English.Westwood says...Three distinct Houses to choose fromDToxR says..."Touch your nose!"
How the hell do you come up with "distinct"? Yes there are three houses to choose from but they all have the EXACT SAME UNITS for the most part. The only difference between the houses units is the inclusion of 1 or 2 "special units" that are unique to that particular house. Now back in 1992 this wasn't a big deal, but it's not 1992 anymore... WAKE UP WESTWOOD! You think people who have played Total Annihilation, Starcraft, and Age of Empires are going to be satisfied with the same small handful of identical units?The majority of RTS games around that time had no side differences. Let's look at the differences:
Trike/Raider/Stealth Raider
While AT/HK get a standard scout bike, OR get scout bikes better suited for combat (they can build stealth versions in multiplayer).
Atreides/Harkonnen/Ordos Combat Tank
AT: Armor.
HK: Damage.
OR: Speed.
Sonic/Devastator/Deviator Tank
AT Sonic: Powerful, but shoots through units.
HK Devastator: Nuclear Mammoth Tank.
OR Deviator: Converts enemies to your side.
Fremen/Saboteur/Sardaukar
These guys are your Commandos. Actually, they're sort of just reskins of each other.
Grenadier
Finally, IIRC, Atreides gets Grenadiers and the ability to build Ornithopers earlier on.
Now yes, that's only 3.6 unique units per side (counting the Commandos only once). But that's 11 side-specific units out of the 24 in the game. 45.83% of the units are unique. Besides, this was a remake, not a reimagining. They sold Command and Conquer in VGA for 50 or so bucks (40 after discount if you had the DOS version). They could have done the same thing here, just updating the controls and visuals and adding multiplayer (doubt that that many people would buy it, but the lack of work required might make for a good return on investment anyway).
Having said that, the units that you CAN choose from are easily identifiable and you will be spotting all the classics in no time. I guess Westwood wanted to be able to put a "ALL NEW UNITS" sticker on the box so they went ahead and added C&C's engineer and artillery units to the mix.Don't forget the Thumper and the Grenadier.
LAN and Internet multiplayer modesHi, welcome to the 90's. Network play is no longer a "feature", it's a basic part of any game, especially a RTS game.So you mean it's an essential feature? Hello, welcome to the late 90s, where it was becoming an essential feature and not every game had it. It's why Xbox games have "1 to 2 Players" on the back of them. Coop is pretty much required in an FPS now-a-days, and not even GE Wii had it!
Dune2k forces you to use Westwood chat for TCP/IP play. Of course Westwood isn't the only company guilty of this, but that's still no excuse. Don't they ever consider that not everyone uses IPX on their LANs??? [sic]Well does it make you cry, make you break down, shatter your illusion of love?
...No one will get that reference, will they?
I wasn't able to test WChat play because D2K isn't a "supported product" yet but based on past experience with it, I think it's safe to say that once you go through the hassle of downloading and registering their special chat program the gaming should be lag-free and relatively easy.To sum up that paragraph, he managed to complain about it having multiplayer.
New game interfaceUhhh, new to who? This is the exact same interface that's been in every single RTS game since Dune2.
Are you kidding me? Play Dune 2. I dare ya! You almost can't! The interface is horrible! It was massively improved with the Genesis version, then branched off into the Westwood style, used in the Westwood games, about half the EA CnC games, and Command And Destroy, and the Blizzard style, used in pretty much everything else.
Overhead map on the top right, unit selector on the lower right, map view on the left. Same mouse cursor and unit selection system as C&C. Nuff said.You mean the one Dune 2 lacked? Did you not play the game?
On the same note as game-interface, these graphics are 100% rehash. It's C&C Gold all over again. Even the animations of the little soldiers shooting looks like it's been totally recycled from the C&C series.There are two ways of interpreting that; the first is that they reused the game graphics, which would apply only about half of the infantry (for the most part, if you're building infantry, you're doing it wrong). The other way is that they're done in the same style. In which case, screw you! That's right, screw you! Don't expect a company to overhaul their graphical style with every game. You want that to happen? Offer your graphical services for free. Until then, sod off.
The one thing that I did notice that had changed was the explosions... They've added a nice glow effect that looks pretty good. Sound is also standard C&C fare, nothing new here.All missions have been updated and refined with new script and story to enhance the gameOK, Westwood was smart to take a cue from Starcraft and put some effort into storyline. D2K uses a similar system where you see cutscenes between each single player mission. |
Additional Arbitrary Tiberian Dawn Video
Red Alert First Soviet Briefing
Instead of Starcraft's 3D-animated scenes, they chose to go with live actors instead.Like they did for the last two games? Either this guy didn't play Red Alert, or he pirated it.
Personally, I'm not big on the cutscenes anyway - it's the action that counts."I'm glad they put in cutscenes, but I don't give a damn that they did."
From what I did see of the single player storyline, it was definitely adequate but nothing to really get excited over.New cinematics, special effects and musicThe one feature I really liked was the new music. The tracks were very well suited and did a great job creating atmosphere. As in C&C, you can play the tracks anytime you want through the game menu system. By "special effects" I can only assume they are referring to the "3DFX-like" coloured [brit] glowing explosions and projectiles.As I mentioned earlier, these are fairly well done and are certainly a welcome departure from the weak explosions (more like implosions) in C&C.As a whole, there is nothing particularly *BAD* about Dune2000 [sic]. On the other hand, there is really nothing outstanding or innovative about the game.Well, how much was innovative about DawnOfSouls? About Pokemon FireRed? About most any remake? I mean, sure; you can complain about things like Half-Life: Source, where they're done next to nothing to update anything, but that's the exact opposite of what happened. They updated the game to make it playable on Windows 95 (Like Madden, things pre-2000 loved to be called "BlahBlah 2000").
This isn't 1992 anymore and the RTS category is very competitive nowadays; you really have to do something significant to stand out from the crowd.How about improve their unique playing style rather than using the same weird interface almost every other RTS uses.
Westwood, I sincerely hope you pull out all the stops for C&C2 because this effort just doesn't cut it."This remake of a 1992 game isn't up to the creative standards of 1998. A completely new game you've been designing for the past 3 years better be!"
Really, I liked D2k more than TS. Probably because TS was rushed like hell...
Graphics - 12 / 20Sound - 11 / 15Gameplay - 23 / 30Fun Factor - 10 / 20Multiplayer - 3 / 5Overall Impression - 6 / 10Overall Score - 65In conclusion: A remake of Dune 2 on the Red Alert engine plays like a mix of Dune 2 and Red Alert?
Reviewer is a pirate: -5 / 3
Critical Research Failure: 5 / π
Overall review score: -25 / Function of a vertical line
