Westwood was kind enough to implement band boxing to make Dune 2000 a little more modern, although unit production queues remain absent. Mounting a large-scale assault was a cumbersome matter of individually selecting each unit and ordering it to proceed to the enemy's base. The original Dune II is crude by present-day real-time strategy standards.
#Dune 2000 gruntmods full#
If only the in-game graphics stood up to the soundtrack and full motion video, at least the substandard gameplay wouldn't seem so obvious.
Many tracks are directly lifted and enhanced from Dune II others recall Toto's strange yet stirring score from the film. On the other hand, Dune 2000's soundtrack is excellent. At least each warring House has its own narrator much like in the original, who helps differentiate the three just a little. The sound effects in Dune 2000 are all subdued and weak, with gunfire, explosions, and unit acknowledgments so dry as to make the desert world Arrakis itself go green with envy. Thus, other than the occasional crashed ornithopter here and dead sandworm there, every single map looks equally boring.Īn optimistic way to describe the sound would be to say it corresponds to the graphics appropriately. And because the game takes place on a desert planet, every single map looks exactly alike. With the exception of a few unique units and structures, all three sides look identical. Otherwise, Dune 2000, even with all-new graphics, looks old and tired - like a less colorful version of Command & Conquer with tiny, plain-looking military units and drab background graphics. In particular, the spice harvester and the interstellar frigate look like they were pulled straight from the celluloid, and the new full-motion-video intro and cutscenes, cheesy though they may be, are equally authentic. Certainly, Westwood deserves credit for making the game look more consistent with the 1984 David Lynch film than the original ever did. Sure, Dune 2000 looks better than the original, but it doesn't look nearly as good as Dune II did for its time. For that reason, even those who enjoyed Dune II will find Westwood's remake disappointing, if not distressing.
Yet neither Dune II nor Wolfenstein withstand the test of time, since so many superior and similar games have emerged since then. The formula worked so well that it single-handedly gave rise to a wildly popular gaming genre, much like id Software's Wolfenstein 3D defined the first-person shooter shortly beforehand. Dune II combined action and strategy in a famous science fiction setting back in 1993. It's a remake of the original, designed to tug at heartstrings with its retouched graphics and sound, and same old gameplay. These, then, are the people for whom Dune 2000 was created. Individuals comprising the former category probably retain a fond memory of the game. There are two kinds of people: those who have played Dune II, and those who haven't.
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