Download Emperor Battle For Dune Full Version
Cherie Trojak
The player commands one of three Houses and must fight for control of the spice mlange on the planet Arrakis. The player harvests spice, builds a base, and trains units to destroy one or more enemies similar to the gameplay in previous real-time strategy titles produced by Westwood Studios. Battles begin with a black shroud obscuring unseen portions of the map, and a grey fog of war will gradually obscure portions of the map that are no longer within the sight of the player's units.
Each House is given a unique set of units tailored to the character of the House, with the Atreides featuring mechs and sonic weapons, the Harkonnen utilizing tanks and flame weapons, and Ordos units benefiting from energy shields and self-healing. Players can gain access to another Houses' units by capturing an enemy building that can manufacture the desired units. Sub-factions like the Fremen, Ix, Tleilaxu, Guild, and Imperial Sardaukar are introduced during the campaign that may ally with the player, allowing them to build special units. Unlike in Dune 2000 where the campaign map only impacted the design of the next mission's battlefield, in Emperor players are presented with options that could attract or anger sub factions, as well as impact the progression of the overall story.
Each of the three main factions is given a single player campaign with full motion video cut scenes. Multiplayer was also available online, through local area networks, or as skirmish battles against computer opponents.
The Spacing Guild has presented the three remaining Houses (the same as those in the previous games: House Atreides, House Harkonnen and House Ordos) with a unique challenge: a war of assassins on the planet Arrakis. Whichever House wins the war will become the new leader of the Landsraad, and its leader the new Padishah Emperor, Emperor of the Known Universe.
During the campaign, the Tleilaxu are scouring Arrakis with hidden motives, with various probes spotted collecting flesh samples from dead sandworms. After the last battle with any one of the opponent Houses on their home planet, the Spacing Guild leaves the victorious House stranded on the enemies' conquered homeworld, attempting to control Arrakis with House Tleilaxu by genetically engineering an Emperor Worm with immense psychic powers empowered by Lady Elara. They release a mind influencing drug in the remaining forces' water supply on Arrakis to make them slaves under the Guild. A last-ditch attempt must be made back on Arrakis to destroy the Emperor Worm before he awakes, by using the Smugglers Guild to get back to Arrakis. The Emperor Worm is destroyed, and the Guild's plan is foiled. The victorious house regains control of Arrakis and the spice melange and proclaims their side's leader Emperor of Dune.
House Atreides' campaign involves regaining the trust of the Fremen, with whom they have had an uneasy relationship due to unspecified past events. Many of the starting missions revolve around forming an alliance with the Fremen. Later on in the campaign, a party of Fremen diplomats are sent to Caladan, where they and the Duke Achillus are under attack by Tleilaxu soldiers. This attack is eventually thwarted and the Fremen pledge their allegiance to House Atreides. The general benevolence of House Atreides is apparent in their motivation for each map's campaign and they have little to no ulterior motives in lending assistance to any of the factions on Arrakis.
House Harkonnen's campaign revolves around the ailing Baron Rakan and his two sons, Gunseng and Copec, who both vie to take the Baron's place upon his death. Copec and Gunseng are at each other's throats, competing for the Baron's favor as the former's grew larger and the latter's days grow shorter. Gunseng eventually goes to Arrakis to oversee the spice mining. Copec grows impatient, however, and poisons Rakan's food. Copec assumes the title, and goes to Arrakis to have his brother swear allegiance to his new baron. Believing that Copec has usurped the title, Gunseng openly rebels against him. The player character chooses to either side with Gunseng or Copec, and both opposing factions battle on Giedi Prime. Depending on who emerges victorious, the game will then feature Gunseng or Copec as the reigning baron of House Harkonnen.
House Ordos' campaign revolves around their ability to create gholas. The house eventually creates a ghola of the deceased Emperor Shaddam Corrino, who will serve as a puppet emperor subservient to House Ordos. Ordos motives are typically insidious in that they attempt to manipulate many of the subhouses (Fremen, Sardaukar, Smugglers) into conflict with the major houses they are fighting, using gholas and other forms of treachery to thwart any attempts at alliance among their enemies and secure alliances for House Ordos. The Ordos are led by the Executrix, four beings that share a single mind and communicate only through a creature known as the "Speaker". The Ordos are calculated in their thinking, almost machine-like. Advising the "Commander" (player) is the equally cold female Mentat Roma Atani.
There are also subplots within subhouses and factions on Arrakis. Ix and the Tleilaxu have made it clear that they cannot be united, and force the player to choose one or the other, though it is possible to have the support of two. A Sardaukar coffin containing a trooper in suspended animation can sometimes be found in the battlefield. These troopers usually ally themselves with the faction that awakens them.
Jason Kapalka of Computer Gaming World reviewed the game, saying it had "nice graphics, fun cinematics, some interesting units, and a fun interactive campaign map", but panned it for having "outdated graphics, iffy AI and pathfinding, crummy multiplayer, and an overwhelming sense of deja vu" as well as a lack of then standard control features in similar real-time strategy games.[4] Star Dingo of GamePro said, "Emperor brings some cool little ideas to the table, but the game still feels more like a nifty 3D Dune-themed add-on pack for C&C than a whole new Westwood world. The game is well-polished, fast, and fun, however, even if it's not particularly original. Don't mess too much with a good thing, the House Westwood mantra goes."[16][a] Jason Samuel of NextGen, however, said, "Fans who can't get enough of Westwood's particular brand of RTS or anyone who has missed a Westwood title from the past three or so years will enjoy Emperor: Battle for Dune. Everyone else needs to decide if they want more of what they've seen before."[13]
Although it's odd to start a review with a history lesson, such an approach is entirely appropriate when you're dealing with a new game as archaic as Emperor: Battle for Dune. For while the title in question is just hitting stores today, the gameplay concepts are as old as dirt. Or at least as old as the dust blanketing that closet-consigned P75 you once used to play Command & Conquer. Those were the days, my friend. We thought they'd never end.
But they have. And someone should tell the good people at Westwood. While the rest of the gaming world has moved on to bigger and better things, this formerly innovative company has simply been repeating the real-time strategy past. Their latest looks all the way back to 1992's Dune 2 (often cited as the first RTS ever developed) for its inspiration. All of the basic concepts that fueled both that classic and the subsequent Command & Conquer series have been recycled again and again. Emperor adds a true 3D engine to the mix for the first time, but aside from that and a few other noteworthy and not-so-noteworthy tweaks, this is the same game as Dune 2, Command & Conquer, Red Alert, Tiberian Sun, Dune 2000, and last autumn's Red Alert 2. Swap the cornball commies and Kari "Sliders" Wuhrer's patented breasts for Sandworms and Michael "Worf" Dorn's patented glower and you'd be hard pressed to find any significant differences between the last two Westwood efforts.
Emperor certainly looks the part. The game comes dressed up in all the expected full-motion video accoutrements that Westwood has been using since it was still acceptable to do so, in the middle 1990s. Like Red Alert, the plot is detailed in lengthy, gaudy film clips featuring a number of professional actors. Some are recognizable stars, such as the aforementioned Michael Dorn of Star Trek fame, while others are nobodies, but they all share the same uncanny ability to chew the scenery. Almost every scene has a few unintentionally hilarious moments, due to hammy acting, poor scripting, or a combination of the two. Everything is rendered even more ludicrous by the way that the actors address the gamer directly, breaking the fourth wall during mission briefings to inform the player that, yes, all is riding on what he or she is about to do. This isn't any more effective here than it is in the Red Alert games. The video sequences are so unlike the actual game that you have to make a conscious effort and remind yourself that the two are supposed to be related. Most of the time, however, you'll just sit back and gawk at how much better Michael Dorn looks without that rubber turtle on his head.
Other visual aspects of the design take Emperor into the present, however. As noted above, this is the first Westwood game to feature a gameplay engine that works in all three dimensions. It may be a little behind the times in this regard -- particularly considering that just about every other RTS developer hopped aboard the 3D bandwagon last summer (Activision with Dark Reign 2, Sierra with Ground Control, SSI with Earth 2150, etc.) -- though the implementation here is quite good. Visual quality still isn't up to that on display in the likes of Dark Reign 2 and Ground Control. Units seem a little jagged in comparison to their cousins in those rival titles, and animation is also a touch stiffer. Another damaging factor when weighing the pros and cons of sheer beauty is that the camera here cannot be focused directly on an individual unit. Where you could go so far as to zoom in on the glutes of the curvaceous Psitech covert ops specialists in Dark Reign 2, here you're stuck at a distance where it's often difficult to tell who's who, at least where infantry units are concerned.