Dune 2000

Dune 2000 is a RTS developed by Westwood Studios and Intelligent Games and was released in 1998 on Windows and later ported on the Playstation. The game is based on Frank Herbert's Dune universe.

Emperor Corrino has issued a challenge that the House which can produce the most spice will control its source, the desert planet Dune, with no rules as to how the Houses can achieve the goal. However, when you're playing with the Harkonnen (the evil House), the Emperor will eventually team up with the Atreides and tries to destroy you, how ironic. Meanwhile, Lady Elara of the Bene Gesserit and bound concubine to the Emperor, secretly takes the commander (you) into one of the Heighliners, a person whose bloodline and future the Sisterhood had checked. According to Elara, they saw many visions of the commander dying many times and only in one vision does the commander live and even rise to control massive armies and bring peace to Arrakis.

I will explain the three Houses below, as taken from the intro.

House Atreides- Hailing from the water-planet of Caladan, the Atreides have a strict loyalty to their Duke and follow him with zeal. The Duke's famous Mentat, Noree Moneo, advises and resides over the Duke's forces on Arrakis. The House's fleets of ornithopters ensure their superior air power. The Duke also wishes to develop an alliance with the Fremen, the native warriors of Dune.

House Harkonnen- The Harkonnen are ruled by the wicked Baron and come from the volcanic waste-planet of Giedi Prime. According to Lady Elara, the only thing human about the Harkonnen is their genetic makeup, as all humanity was abandoned long ago in favor of brutality and maliciousness. The Baron's Mentat, Hayt De Vries, was born from the flesh of a dead man in the Tleilaxu Flesh Vats.

House Ordos- The Ordos originate from a frigid, ice covered planet unnamed in Dune 2000 but later called Sigma Draconis IV in Emperor: Battle for Dune. As they import their goods from nearby star systems, House Ordos relies on their skills as merchants to make their profits; however, their wealth has made them increasingly paranoid. According to the manual, House Ordos buys all of its units instead of constructing them themselves. Unlike the other two houses, House Ordos is not mentioned in any of Frank Herbert's Dune novels.

There are also four non-playable subfactions: House Corrino, the Fremen, the Mercenaries and the Smugglers.

Spice is the main resource in the game, which you have to collect with harvesters. It is advised to regularly check where your harvesters are, because there are always giant worms around, and those worms sometimes consume your harvester. You'll know that a worm is there when you see sparks coming out of the ground. With spice you can purchase everything ranging from infantry to building upgrades. Before placing a building you'll have to place concrete, because otherwise it's health is not at 100% but will decrease to a certain point over time. You'll also need to build energy sources, Wind Traps. If you don't have enough energy the training and building process is slowed down and your missile turrets and your radar won't operate. Your most valuable building is the Construction Site. If you lose this building you won't be able to construct other buildings, unless you're able to build or order a Mobile Construction Verhicle from a Starport. When playing the singleplayer campaign I recommend you to seek and destroy your enemy's Construction Site before destroying the other buildings, because otherwise they'll just rebuild the buildings they've lost.

Although each house has many common units, such as infantry, Wind Traps, and Mobile Construction Vehicles, each House also has its own set of units, such as the Atreides Sonic Tank, the Ordos Deviator and the Harkonnen Devastator. Houses Harkonnen and Atreides share the Trike, while House Ordos has an upgraded version, the Raider. Like many games of the Westwood franchise, a player can gain access to other Houses' special units by capturing an enemy building and manufacturing the desired units.

The graphics of this game aren't that special, but I think they're good enough for a game from 1998. There isn't really much to say about the level design, because you play on a desert planet and everything looks the same. This game received a lot of criticism from the hoax called GameSpot, because they thought the game's production value was 'drab' for 1998 standards. Whatever they thought, I, on the contrary, had a lot of fun with this game. I spend many hours playing this game, it can be very challenging at times.