MobyRank MobyScore
Amiga
...
4.0
DOS
...
3.9
Sega CD
...
3.6

Description

Based on the legendary Frank Herbert novel of the same name and visually inspired by the 1984 David Lynch movie, Dune is a strategy-adventure hybrid where the player takes the role of young Paul Atreides, the son of Duke Leto. The Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV has given the Atreides House the rights to manage the extraction of the most precious substance in the entire universe - the Melange, commonly known as Spice in the desolate desert planet Arrakis (Dune), the only place in the universe capable of producing the substance. While everything indicates the offer is a trap orchestrated by their enemies the Harkonnen, the Atreides family agrees on moving, as he who controls the spice, controls the universe.

The player arrives in Arrakis with the mission of contacting and convincing the Fremen tribes residing in sietches (desert settlements) near the Atreides palace to harvest the spice. Harvesting is the most important part of the game, required to purchase equipment from the smugglers and appease the emperor. To speed up the process of harvesting, the player can equip the tribes with harvesters to increase production and ornis to protect them from the gigantic protectors of the planet: Shai-Hulud - the sandworms.

However, the spice doesn't last forever and new sietches must be prospected before having a mining crew assigned, but the player cannot run Southwards forever, as the Harkonnen enemy controls the North of the Planet, dangerously close to the Atreides Palace. Soon after the initial batches are sent to the Empreror, the player will have to actively deal with the Harkonnen, who will try to take control of player Sietches. For those, Fremen tribes can be assigned to military training with Gurney Halleck, but before doing such work Paul must have a certain reputation, gained by the control of Arrakis.

As the game advances, the player will untap Paul's latent powers, as well as meeting other characters from the Dune universe, such as Duke Leto, Jessica, Thufir Hawat, Duncan Idaho, Harah, Chani, Stilgar and Liet Kynes, the mastermind behind the ecological plans on Dune - the ultimate goal.

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User Reviews

Best Dune to date, and very impressive as a game DOS Luis Silva (11328)
A classical masterpiece DOS MAT Bronze Star Contributing Member (34668)
Strangely addictive, yet far from perfect... DOS tbuteler (3049)
An underrated classic. DOS Tomer Gabel Bronze Star Contributing Member (4495)
If you can find it anywhere - go get it! DOS Gothicgene (83)
Possibly the best media conversion to date, which also makes a challenging game. DOS Mickey Gabel Bronze Star Contributing Member (349)

The Press Says

Just Games Retro DOS Jan 20, 2008 84 out of 100 84
The Good Old Days DOS Mar 20, 2001 5 out of 6 83
Top Secret DOS May, 1992 4 out of 5 80
Game Players Sega CD Feb, 1994 65 out of 100 65
PC-Spiele '93 DOS 1992 6 out of 10 60
Power Play DOS Jun, 1992 38 out of 100 38

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Trivia

Dune was Cryo's first game.

The game should not have existed : during the end of 1990, the project was officially abandoned by Virgin Games, who then hired Westwood to work on a Dune license-based strategy game... A few months later, Cryo, who had secretly continued working on it, succeeded in convincing Virgin to release it (although the game was then much simplified on Virgin's request). That's why Dune & Dune II have nothing in common...

The battle images were inspired by the worldly famous CNN pictures of the Gulf War (green skies with explosions...).

Many Fremen pictures were inspired by real famous people like Kadhafi, Khomeyni, Salvador Dali, Salman Rushdie.

Very much more details about Dune's creation can be found in French journalist Daniel Ichbiah's book, "La saga des jeux vidéos". If you were interested by the informations above, I suggest you to buy this book which is very well documented and pleasant to read.


This entry was contributed by Tomer Gabel Bronze Star Contributing Member (4495) and MAT Bronze Star Contributing Member (34668)
 

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