“And that day dawned when Arrakis lay at the hub of the universe with the wheel poised to spin.”
– from “Arrakis Awakening”  by the Princess Irulan (excerpt from the novel Dune by Frank Herbert

The Emperor is dead, the throne is vacant and three cultures stand poised to battle for the planet, control of the spice, throne and universe.

Welcome to Emperor: Battle for Dune, the latest real-time-strategy PC release from Westwood Studios, a division of Electronic Arts. The game is something of a first for Westwood. Though there have been other Dune titles in the storied past of the company, this is the first RTS in 3D.

So, how did they do? Exquisitely. The game is not just a foray across the sandy desert world, but it also crosses the bridge of space to land game players on Draconis IV (the ice world of the House Ordos), Geidi Prime (the raped industrial planet from which House Harkonnen embarks) and Caladan (the lush, green home world of House Atreides). The game has 50 missions per house, with the game – from the perspective of each house – on three separate disks. Depending on which house you choose to battle as, that sets the game frame for your single player forays.

Each House is varied, running from what might be called evil to the sublime. House Ordos could be considered a cross between the Borg and Ferrengi (of the Star Trek universe). The House crosses the line of moral consciousness, employing whatever means – including resurrecting and reprogramming the bodies of its fallen foes and genetic cloning for expendable soldiers – necessary to accomplish its ends. There are no words for mercy in the Ordos vocabulary, but there are more than 300 for the concept of profit.

House Harkonnen is known for its malevolence, hatred and brutality. The head of the house has two sons, vying for power and position and eagerly awaiting the day their father dies. House Atreides is as pristine as the planet it hails from. Loyalty, honor and the extended hand of kinship are at its soul. This is the House that has made friends with the Fremen, the inhabitants of Arrakis. But that fragile treaty has been broken, but must be made whole again if the House Atreides is to rise to power.

“Who controls Arrakis controls the spice, and who controls the spice controls the universe.”
– the Reverend Mother of the Bene Gesserits.

With the emperor gone, and three Houses vying for the throne, it is determined that a ‘War of Assassins’ shall be waged on Arrakis, the desert world known also as Dune. Players select the House they wish to represent, then deploy onto Arrakis for the battle. Fraught with cutscenes that are intricate (sure, the acting seems a little strained at times) and give the storyline a great flavor, the game is then played out in what amounts to typical RTS style. You are given objectives for each scenario, the fog of war shrouds the battlefield until you uncover what lies beyond the next rock outcropping, and you must deploy your forces, either wait for reinforcements or use your construction building to manufacture war machines and your barracks for soldiers, while mining spice on the desert floor to keep your finances up so you can afford the extra armed forces.

After the first battle, the game takes on a look reminiscent of Risk. A game board is displayed and you must decide what section of neighboring enemy terrain you are going to attack next.  Of course, you don’t know what awaits you there, but one thing is certain, worms are definitely in that configuration.

If you aren’t familiar with the Dune novels, worms are gigantic animate tubes that swim beneath the sand, only erupting through the surface when vibrations (like from an army) attract them. They can devour an entire compliment of troops in the blink of an eye. Rock outcroppings are the only safe place on the planet surface. If you spend too much time on the sand, you risk a worm attack. Worms are also the source of the spice, which is the heartbeat of the universe.

Graphically the game is wonderful. Camera angles allow players to follow the action, or get a solid overview of the game. While the environmental graphics are terrific, it is the camera angles that breath life into the program. You get a real feel for the world you are on, and the battle details are excellent. Texturing is exquisite, and the game bears an excellent resemblance to the motion picture. If the graphical elements do have any downsides, it would be in lighting effects. Arrakis is the type of world that makes you break out in a sweat just looking at it. Imagine the Sahara at noon and you would have the idea. The lighting in this game, while battling on Arrakis, while bright and using the interplay of shadows to create the three-dimensional environment, isn’t quite what was expected.

Adding to the wonder of the game is the different armament sported by each House. There are some things that are standard – like the spice harvesters. But the seemingly sinister weaponry of the Ordos, the mechanical might of Harkonnen or the clean crisp lines of the Atreides armies mirror the general personality of each House.

Gameplay is solid when into a scenario. The recommended game speed is 6, but this seems too slow when you are trying to scroll around the scenario map. You will get a warning about “worm sign,” and by the time you locate all of your forces, you are likely to hear that there has been a worm attack (and you didn’t get to see it) and units have been lost.

Don’t look to set your attacking, or defending, squads into any kind of formation. You can group them, and have them move to a location – you can even select individual units and separate them into smaller commands – but you can’t assemble them into a formation. That results in some unrealistic battle scenes when you will have one unit firing right through another at a separate target. Fortunately, the effects of friendly fire are not taken into account in this product.

As mentioned, the game integrates a lot of cutscenes to power the storyline. Michael Dorn (who will always be remembered for his portrayal of Worf in the Star Trek universe) is cast as Duke Achillus of the House Atreides. Veteran actor Michael McShane is Baron Harkonnen. While the cutscenes are very nice, and do a credible job of reinforcing your overall mission, they seem to have little to do with the actual scenarios you must play out. There are three difficulty levels for players of any skill level, but if you have any rudimentary knowledge of tactics, though you may have not played an RTS before, the easy level is too simple.

The player interface is very nicely designed, allowing players to jump right in and go with a minimum amount of time spent in learning to control the game. The tutorial is simple and short. The programmers of this product have done an excellent job of making it accessible. After all, the goal is to play, not spend most of your time trying to figure out the controls.

One drawback is that each scenario, even on a PIII 800, takes a while to load.

Multiplayer does offer some nice diversions. This game is well supported in that department. Not only can you play the basic free-for-all, but you can hook up with another player to pursue the single player campaign as allies. Each House disk contains roughly 50 missions, which means you will spend a lot of time in this incredible universe.

This is an incredible program, and could well be the RTS that will push the genre into new heights of graphic design. Game play may be a bit simplistic, but for RTS fans, that is forgivable because it is action that is craved, and this game is packed with it. For fans of the Dune series of novels, this game will help recreate the power and majesty of Frank Herbert’s universe. For RTS fans, it advances the genre with its incredible graphics. For anyone who hasn’t played an RTS, but has thought about it, this is a wonderful introduction to the genre.

Emperor: Battle for Dune is rated Teen for blood and violence.

Install: Easy
The game only requires 590 megabytes of hard drive space and goes on relatively quickly.

Gameplay: 8.5.
This game has a host of options, which if pushed to their upper levels, can slow down the game play – even on a higher-end machine. However, scenarios are fast-paced, action-packed affairs where decisions have to be made quickly, and strategy plotted on the run.

Graphics: 9.5
The lighting elements may be a little erratic, but the overall look of this program is awesome. The game feature five different and unique landscapes, individual military units unique to each House and a myriad of environment elements that delight the eye.

Sound: 8.
Battle sounds are fairly typical for the genre, but the musical score is great, and the vocal characterizations are dynamic. The audio track supports the game very well.

Difficulty: 7.5.
At the easiest level, the AI of the game is quite simplistic. The lack of formations for units attacking becomes a problem in the hardest difficulty level. Because the units won’t go into a formation, unless you physically move them a bit at a time (and risk a worm attack), you can lose elements of your army quickly. Your attacking force swarms toward the target and can be cut down quickly.

Concept: 8.
The use of the camera to bring three-dimensional life to the game is very nice, and the mulitude of different scenarios is a plus. The game, in addition to using the three main Houses, also has five subgroups with which you can ally your forces to create a nearly unstoppable juggernaut. Bringing varied elements into play is a nice touch.

Multiplayer: 9.
Rather than just trot out the same old battle royal scenario in the multiplay option, Westwood has enabled players to team up online to play the single player scenarios. Of course, the AI gets a bit tougher (to be expected), but the game reaches new levels of enjoyment. One player doesn’t have to try to be everywhere at once. Also Westwood’s online game matching system allows players to find another player of similar ability so battles of opposing forces are not so lopsided. Of course, that requires that players be honest about skill levels or RTS experience.

Overall: 9.
This game is graphically very good. As a long-time fan of the novels (and the movie), this program brought back fond memories and expanded the Dune universe. The gameplay is not overly complex, which enables players to enjoy the worlds and cut to the heart of the RTS genre, outwitting the opposition – whether human foe or computer AI. In his novel, using the voice of Princess Irulan, Herbert wrote “God created Arrakis to train the faithful.”  This game expands the faithful to embrace fans of real-time-strategy games.