Genesis ~ Dune 2 Review

Reviewer: Twirl

Overview

Dune 2 was one of the first real time srategy games of it's type, where you get to construct bases and units to have wars with other sides. It was first released back in 1992 by Westwood Studios on the PC and Commodore Amiga. Today it's considered as a classic.

Storyline

Dune 2: Battle for Arrakis is about 3 houses. Atredies, the blue goodie good side. Ordos, the green sort of bad side. And Harkonnen, the red evil steroid pumped side. The've all just arrived onto the planet known as Dune and are all fighting for land and a red thingy called spice. The house which destroys all other houses and collects the most spice will win Dune.

Gameplay

There is plenty of action in each mission. You're constantly being raided by enemies and you've got to defend your base, as well as expand upon it, improve your spice harvesting operations and build all sorts of military units. The fun comes in where your base is fully developed and operational, then you get to control a whole army of men, cars and tanks to destroy the enemy.

This is all hours end on end stuff.

8 out of 10

Graphics

Quite good use of colours, with 3 houses: blue, green and red, you're never confused on which units are yours.

Most of the buildings look interesting. They are all operating at once and are very detailed.

The unit graphics are all thick and bright, but they do look a bit grainy.

4 out of 5

Sound and Music

The sounds are pretty good, with realistic unit transmissions. Explosions are realistic too. You wonder what some units are firing, they sound like lasers when they're supposed to be machine guns.

There is a music track which is very repetitive and can ruin your concentration. Depressing too.

3 out of 5

Difficulty and Versatility

Learning to play the game is easy alright.

The tutorial just about tells you everything you need to know.

The real problem, is the control system. This game was meant for the mouse. Unless you have one for the Sega Genesis, you're in for a hard time. You control a cursor onscreen with a gamepad and commanding units gets fiddly at times when you're to attack or defend your base, because every unit you control is done one by one, especially when your base is huge.

One by one, one by one, one by one.

I'm telling you, it's mind numbing and pathetically sick!

The onscreen map is far too small and you're really restricted on what's going on around the base. You can't even access the radar map, which means scrolling all over the map, up, down, left right. Whew!

Frustration will eventually set in!

1 out of 5

Longevity

You're likely to be playing this game for months, with the blues, greens and reds, each with different special units.

But without a ingame saving system, and missions which can take for hours, you're going to have to find alot of time for this game! And quite honestly, this can very well put you off.

All missions only involve destroying the enemy house, but with each house getting more units after each mission, you're not going to find this game as repetitive as it may seem.

1.5 out of 5

For: Fun to build bases, plenty of blasting and killing, colourful graphics, and realistic sounds

Against: Buggering control system, no ingame saving, frustrating, grainy unit graphics, small onscreen map, too much scrolling, repetitive and depressing music.

Platform: Sega Genesis

Genre: Strategy, Real Time

Producer: Westwood Studios

Year: 1994

Runs on: Genecyst, Kgen, Dgen, Megasis

Scoring Summary

~Twirl

Gameplay: 8 out of 10

Graphics: 4 out of 5

Sound and Music:

3 out of 5

Difficulty and Versatility: 1 out of 5

Longevity: 1.5 out of 5

Total: 17.5 out of 30

Overall:

58%

Reviewer: Aluminum

Overview

This game is about 3 sides. Bad guys, middle guys and goody good sides. Their objective is to kill each other, take land and spice. Without spice you are completely screwed.

Gameplay

A little fun, but bloody hard without a mouse. Without one you're completely screwed. And even if you did have a mouse, you're still completely screwed, because Genecyst and Kgen only accept gamepads and keyboard.

6 out of 10

Graphics

The graphics are very dotty. The graphics suck. There is absolutely no way to make these graphics better, because the game is screwed.

But it is very colourful.

0.5 out of 5

Sound and Music

Sound is very good with realistic voices, but the music is complete crud.

3 out of 5

Difficulty and Versatility

This game is very hard. Without the mouse, you're gonna have to go hardcore on the gamepad or keyboard to the finish.

0.75 out of 5

Longetivity

No comment

1 out of 5