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Emperor: Battle for Dune

Emperor: Battle for Dune

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: This game would be fun.. if I could play it...
Review: I'm sure this game would be great, if it would run on my computer. I have windows ME, a pentium 4 1.7, a geforce 3, 256 ram, sblive, latest drivers... and for some reason, westwood (the developer) couldnt bother to test it on a new system? I've tried costumer support, no help there, but i did discover pleanty of other problems other people have had with the game. Also, the minimun requierments are far short of what you really need, this game requires a lot more then they say, not to mention that if you have an athlon processor, it wont run. And system requirements are the irony where my problem lies with this game.. because I have one of the only systems that would run the game in all its visual glory.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: a good game
Review: This game is very good. it may be impossibble to beat though. You have to capture all the territories of a mjority of the planet and capture the planet. It is like commmand and conquer but you must make you own alliances,(and lose them)defend territories,make sure you don't retreat or forfeit to much or you will be executed. It is slightly corny that some of the charecters from the movie/book are in this with different names. overall this is a very good 3-d strategy game

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Okay game but choppy on some computers
Review: this game is kinda cool it is similar to starcraft but much faster peace as in you don't have to build up your city or what ever you want to call it as much.

I'm running a penutm3 550 and 192 mags of ram and dsl connection. The game freezes. And when theirs a bit going on it gets choppy malti player games are pointless playing the menus don't even run smoothly. So maybe if you got a newer computer it might be worth buying but if you got like a 550 mhz or something you might want to think about it

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Better than Dune 2000 by far thankfully! =)
Review: This is a pretty good game, especially if you are a Dune fan. They tried pretty hard to add in stuff from the books, most of the time they do a good job. The thing I (still) don't like is the inability to build two units at the same time if you have two of the same buildings (3 if you have, etc.). You were able to do that in Dune II, but Westwood took that away starting with C&C and never put it back in. Overall, not a bad RTS; I am not sad I bought this.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good Game Gets Old Fast
Review: I was initially quite excited when I first started playing this game. The graphics are excellent, the storyline is excellent and there are a variety of interesting and novel tactics to employ. The game however can be difficult to get running and requires a high end machine, with the latest video drivers.

The RTS gameplay is just an extension of Westwoods other RTS games such as Red alert. Moreover the units available to you are fairly standard, infantry and tanks, with some air units thrown in almost as an afterthought. As such, success in this game is not very different from command and conquer or red alert: control resource production. One must defend your spice harvesters and attack the enemies harvesters.

Although buildings fall very quickly in this game, usually there is only one or maybe two entrances to your base, which can be heavily defended. All structures are confined to rocks jutting out of Dunes desert landscape. It is possible to air drop saboteurs or engineers into the enemies base to capture buildings, but after a little experience this can be defended. Because the enemy bases can be difficult to take out with a simple rush, most skirmish games seem to result in a war of attrition, concentrating on destroying the enemies economy.

The war of attrition makes it important to choose your allies wisely. I believe this has actually introduced a race imbalance in the game, that will eventually manifest itself in multiplayer games (assuming they overcome their current multiplayer problems). One of the sub-houses, the Tleilaxu, can infect enemy units and convert them to yours. Infecting enemy harvesters prevents them from being picked up by airborne carriers, greatly impacting the enemy economy, making in my opinion, an overwhelming advantage. Especially after the harvesters die and turn into more Tleilaxu. There is also a race that has mobile, cloaked land-mines, that can also be used to [get] harvesters. They do not seem to be nearly as powerful as the Tleilaxu in my opinion.

I would have rated this game a 4, however the multiplayer servers at the westwood site clearly have a problem. In 5 attempts to play a game, every game was terminated due to one or more players disconnecting, within a span of 5 minutes. You will find therefore the multi-player game rooms largely empty, because it was (at the time I tried) impossible to ever finish a game.

Once the basic tactics are understood, most of the missions and skirmish modes boil down to the same basic thing, a war of attrition. For this reason the game does not have the re-playability as say Age of Empires II, with its varied races and endless unit mixes, or even as the venerable starcraft series, whose controls are more intuitive and large scale battles more intense. I think in my opinion this game will prove much more enjoyable if they overcome their multiplayer bugs, since human opponents will offer more variety and a chance to employ special units for unusual strategies.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Wonderful game except.....
Review: Emperor Battle for Dune is a wonderful game except the steep system requirements and the extremely laggy online play. If you are famaliar with the Dune Universe than this is a must have, if you are a fan of 3d rts games, then this is a must have. If you have a 56k or less modem try to avoid online play. The campaigns are very in depth, and you can always rely on the wonderful cut scenes by westwood actors and actresses. This game is worth its cost and is a must have for most gamers.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: RTS redefined
Review: The game that started it all is reinvented in Emperor. Even though the name and general play of the game is fairly identical to the classic Dune, the houses hand plot have both advanced to their own level. Each house has its distinct advantages and disadvantages. Units are balanced well so that many different stratiges may arise. The rush strategy, which pretty much killed any real stragety in Starcraft, is completley useless in Dune. I've seen wave upon wave of units die at my defenses and only those that are cunning enough actually make it through.

An Excellent game with an excellent story backed up by great gameplay and graphics and a strategy that works. Westwood even managed to take some of the cheese out of its movies. Very good.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Well done... but few flaws
Review: I have been playing RTS since Dune II was released, so I know what I am talking about when it comes to RTS.

This game retains the nostalgic elements of Dune II, although the concrete slabs are now gone ;). The world Westwood created through the novel is very believable and well done. The graphic is very spectacular even at the minimal setting, but it is a very demanding game. I have 750 Mhz Athlon with 128MB Ram and a Geforce2 MX card, and it tends to slow down when the screen gets intense. The music brought back memories from the original Dune II, which is excellent.

Gameplay is good, but not revolutionary. IMO, unit controlling could be better. After playing Starcraft, I was disappointed with lack of many commands.

It seems like Westwood is having problems with their server as of writing this. I have DSL and I either get kicked or get very poor ping. Hopefully, this will be remedied soon.

Besides the minor quirks, this game is very entertaining.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: If it's going to be Dune, it should at least be Dune!
Review: After having read this description and seeing a gameplay video, I am very disappointed at this game. It calls itself Dune, but so much is incorrect about it. The actual game itself is a prettier version of Red Alert 2, which was excellent. I guess if you want that cozy feeling that you are playing a Dune game, not pretending you are, than you should get this game. I find the faster paced strategy games to get rather obsolete faster (how ironic). Spice takes a long time to get a full load, as demonstrated in Dune II, but the faster the mining is the more unrealistic it gets. Your best bet is to find another strategy game, but if you want Dune than you can get this.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good Effort
Review: Westwood did a good job with this one. It helps to be familiar with the Herbert Books, as there are many referenses to characters, places, and creatures. The three houses you are able to choose from are unique enough to make playing each one enjoyable and different. The graphics are unmatched. They are so high-end that even though my 16MB memory card should be good enough, I need to upgrade. My only faults with the game are with some of the gameplay itself. I think the Blizzard games (Warcraft and Starcraft) do a better job with upgrades. Units in Dune are as strong as they will ever get once you create them. I like having several ways to improve units. The gameplay in Red Alert II offered far more ways to vary your forces. Its almost as if Westwood sunk most of its effort into plot and not enough on the interface. The story line is rich however, it will imerse you in Herbert's world for hours. Overall, worth the money and time spent playing.


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