A beginning is a very delicate time. So, how to start? With some dunes, which shall be stabilised by planting grass on them? With megalomaniacal visions for a cinematic realisation of a highly sophisticated science fiction novel? At the source of a flood of real time strategy games, or one step further at the archetype, which got copied ad nauseam? All of this led, on more or less direct ways, to Dune 2000, a remake of its predecessor Dune II: Battle for Arrakis, with an updated interface, strongly inspired by Command & Conquer, and aesthetics that look like taken right out of Lynch‘s take on the space opera. A melange of many great examples, but does it live up to them? Does it dare to step out of its source’s shadows? Does it offer anything new? Or is it just an unoriginal rehash, simple cash cow cosmetics for a classic game? Let’s take a look!
Sometime, the time is just right. In 1984, along with its contemporary Elite, The Lords of Midnight broke completely new ground. To really understand how revolutionary it felt, you have to take yourself back to the computer gaming world of the early 1980s. The video game console market had just crashed. Somewhat affordable computers were slowly making their way into people's homes (hence "home computers"), but gaming-wise, the formulae inherited from the arcades and already imitated by said failed game consoles were still the norm: simplistic twitch gameplay, usually on a single or few screens. The only thing added in home computer context was the occasional puzzle or board game, ported over straight from the physical world. And then, out of nowhere, these new games came along.