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Review
By: |
thea “codewarrior” prum |
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Date: |
13/08/2001 |
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Released: |
06/12/2001 |
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Publisher: |
EA Games |
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Developer: |
Westwood Studios |
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Platform: |
PC |
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Rating: |
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"Emperor: Battle for Dune" is a sci-fi Real Time
Strategy (RTS) game based on the movie "Dune". In fact, it even uses some of the
characters from the movie to star in the cinematics that unfolds the story of Emperor.
As expected, it's a complex story full of political intrigue, espionage, sabotage,
alliance building and empire building as each great houses relentlessly pursue to
dominate the others and the galaxy. The game's graphics are absolutely amazing,
especially the terrain, the story is absolutely compelling, the sound track is
moving, but the guns and weapons sound could use much improvement. The result is an
amazing RTS game with an addictive gameplay.
And the key to galactic domination is thru control of the spice on Arrakis
(another name for dune) thus setting the stage for our conflict. At the center of
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the conflict is planet Arrakis, and center stage
players are house Atreides, House Harkonnen and House Ordos. To add a major twist to
the genre, they've added 6 smaller houses with only limited units but each with very
special abilities that may turn the tide of the conflict for you. These smaller houses
serve another important purpose: that is, it serves to balance the weakness of a
particular great houses thus making all 3 houses playable. And of course, the sand
worms of Arrakis adds the twist of all twist, that is chance, by chance you could lose a
major part of your attack force. And one of the smaller houses, the Fedayin unit of
House Fremen can even control and ride the worm to wreak havoc on enemy forces.
I should know, some jerks online did that to me, I had one hell of a time stopping him,
hehehe.
As expected, all 3 houses have their strengths and weaknesses and each has plenty of fun and
interesting units that you can combine for strategic purposes--the core purpose of an
RTS game. House Atreides has a well balanced arsenal of defensive and offensive units
and structures especially experienced infantry since they can return to the barracks to train
other experienced infantry. House Harkonnen is also well balanced with slightly superior
air units allowing them to gain air superiority. House Orodos siege units are really cumbersome
to deploy since they have to siege into an immobile form for them to fire effectively, but
they make up in their mid-range technology like the laser and deviator tanks. Most mid to high
tech Orodos units benefits having shield allowing their units to last longer. Emperor goes
much farther than previous RTS games like Starcraft, it includes innovative features, like terrain can
provide cover especially for infantry, height gives your unit sight advantage, units
gain experience making them fight better and live longer thus encouraging players to preserve
their unit. And the greatest feature of all is the game is completely 3-D, you can control
your units and watch the battle from any view you want: up close and personal or from a
general's view from the sky above.
As with all great RTS game, your build order is important, your resource collection and control
is key, and micromanagement of troops and research can pay off big time on the battlefield.
One of my favorite strategies is to hunt down enemy harvester to slow down my opponent's
resource collection. Playing as House Atreides, I make about six Ornithopters and one air drone
and send them to kill enemy harvester and enemy carryall, and stealth plays an important role.
If he's not careful, I load my APC full of engineers and drop them behind enemy line with my advance
carryall and steal crucial buildings. Or I can sneak up on my opponent with cloak infiltrator units
to blow up key structures or to spy on him. Spying is a critical part of the game so I don't
get surprises by my opponents and for that, I employ scout, air units or cloak units. Researching is
key to gaining more advance units and structures to improve your resources and your war arsenal.
Once I am ready to attack, that usually means I got a dozen or so long range bombardment units
like the Minotaurus, Devastator, or Kobra units. and it also means I got numerous other units like
repair units, infantry, tanks and air cover support for my major weapons. I love the Blitzkrieg
strategy of swooping in with large group of Ornithopters or Gunships to take our enemy siege weapons
and then move in for the kill with my own. It is so rewarding to stand victorious on the battlefield
reaping the fruits of your superior strategy and tactics. A few special units like the Atreides Sonic
Tank or the Harkonnen's Inkvine Catapult can single handedly turn the tide of the battle for you or
really ruin your day if you're not careful.
There are two major flaws that I find with the game however. One of them is building multiple structures
do not speed up the unit production. For example, if you build five factories, your tank production
rate is the same as if you had one factory. This seriously punishes advance RTS players since there's no
incentive to expand and no reward for power players. But of course this levels the playing
field dramatically between novice players and makes it more enjoyable for them. Another flaw with
the game is that it is extremely resource intensive, it takes more than a minute to load even on my
1.3 Ghz Pentium 4 system, and some of the cinematics are choppy despite the fact that I have a 64MB GeForce2
ultra video card.
In conclusion, because of its innovative features, compelling story and awesome gameplay, Emperor is a
must for all RTS fans and a great start for an RTS gamer wannabe. It's not a 5 planet game because
of the two flaws I pointed out but definitely a 4 1/2 Planet rating game.
Yacka's Rating:
4 out of 5 Planets
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Emporer: Battle for Dune>> |
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Buy it @
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