I’m a big fan of Dune (hell, I have a Dune tattoo), but I always struggled playing the game. The UX and controls just feel too clunky for me, as someone who played the game for the first time a few years ago. It’s was clear to me that the game was pretty neat underneath all of that, but in the end I just wasn’t enjoying it because of that, and gave up quite soon and never really tried again.
I actually played a lot of Herzog back in the day on our MSX (the first one, not Herzog Zwei), which is also kind-of an RTS.
I suspect there will be more Dune games in the next few years, with the upcoming movie and all.
I was glad to see it’s going to be in two parts (though I would’ve preferred three, to match up with the book divisions). Trying to cram Dune into two hours just isn’t feasible. (The Weirding Way, you see, is based on sound…)
I was disappointed with the SyFy miniseries too. I had to turn it off when I realized they had Baron Harkonnen speaking in rhyming couplets and what the hell was going on with Irulan….
I couldn’t bear to finish watching the Sci-Fi channel miniseries. I actually saw it before I saw the Lynch film or read the books and felt it was just boring. I also thought Paul Atreides was a spoiled annoying brat.
I never got the whole sound thing until I became a bigger fan of Lynch and realized his whole deal is sound design. Of course he’d add in a sound that kills!
This is somewhat the issue with old games: their controls don’t keep up with semi-modern conventions. I would have loved to play Fallout 1 since I think the setting is absolutely fascinating but the second I have to fight with the damn door controls I feel like throwing the computer across the room.
A year ago I was playing Pillars of Eternity and was impressed how it managed to capture the essence of Baldurs Gate 2 but without reminding me how it might not have aged well. It felt like playing BG2 back in the day did for me, but I am sure there have been plenty of adjustments to make it palatable for modern audiences.
Yeah, Pillars of Eternity did a really good job of polishing the UX of the 2000-era cRPG games, although BG2 is still pretty playable today, and there’s the enhanced edition which makes things a bit easier too. It’s also worth checking out Tyranny by the way, I thought it was even better than PoE.
Fallout 1 and 2 (and Arcanum, by the Fallout 1 team) are … special. They’re all absolutely fantastic games, but you almost need some xanax to be able to play them. There’s no real technical reason for it as such, and I’m surprised at how much patience gamers (including myself) had for clearly bad UX even just 20 years ago.
Oh man, that fricking Stéphane Picq music is so good. I remember I tried to dig out as much of his stuff as I could find a couple of years back, and being very sad that he hasn’t produced much more since the 90s. The KGB and MegaRace soundtracks are also insanely good.
You say that but I played a lot of Captain Blood and Puple Saturn Day for this and they really haven’t held up well. I think the biggest trick Captain Blood pulled was convincing people that Rescue on Fractalus never existed ;)
Interesting write-up.
I’m a big fan of Dune (hell, I have a Dune tattoo), but I always struggled playing the game. The UX and controls just feel too clunky for me, as someone who played the game for the first time a few years ago. It’s was clear to me that the game was pretty neat underneath all of that, but in the end I just wasn’t enjoying it because of that, and gave up quite soon and never really tried again.
I actually played a lot of Herzog back in the day on our MSX (the first one, not Herzog Zwei), which is also kind-of an RTS.
I suspect there will be more Dune games in the next few years, with the upcoming movie and all.
I was glad to see it’s going to be in two parts (though I would’ve preferred three, to match up with the book divisions). Trying to cram Dune into two hours just isn’t feasible. (The Weirding Way, you see, is based on sound…)
I was disappointed with the SyFy miniseries too. I had to turn it off when I realized they had Baron Harkonnen speaking in rhyming couplets and what the hell was going on with Irulan….
So, I gotta ask: what’s the tattoo?
I couldn’t bear to finish watching the Sci-Fi channel miniseries. I actually saw it before I saw the Lynch film or read the books and felt it was just boring. I also thought Paul Atreides was a spoiled annoying brat.
A picture especially for you 😚: https://imgur.com/a/aSOzVIv
That’s awesome.
I never got the whole sound thing until I became a bigger fan of Lynch and realized his whole deal is sound design. Of course he’d add in a sound that kills!
This is somewhat the issue with old games: their controls don’t keep up with semi-modern conventions. I would have loved to play Fallout 1 since I think the setting is absolutely fascinating but the second I have to fight with the damn door controls I feel like throwing the computer across the room.
A year ago I was playing Pillars of Eternity and was impressed how it managed to capture the essence of Baldurs Gate 2 but without reminding me how it might not have aged well. It felt like playing BG2 back in the day did for me, but I am sure there have been plenty of adjustments to make it palatable for modern audiences.
Yeah, Pillars of Eternity did a really good job of polishing the UX of the 2000-era cRPG games, although BG2 is still pretty playable today, and there’s the enhanced edition which makes things a bit easier too. It’s also worth checking out Tyranny by the way, I thought it was even better than PoE.
Fallout 1 and 2 (and Arcanum, by the Fallout 1 team) are … special. They’re all absolutely fantastic games, but you almost need some xanax to be able to play them. There’s no real technical reason for it as such, and I’m surprised at how much patience gamers (including myself) had for clearly bad UX even just 20 years ago.
Oh man, that fricking Stéphane Picq music is so good. I remember I tried to dig out as much of his stuff as I could find a couple of years back, and being very sad that he hasn’t produced much more since the 90s. The KGB and MegaRace soundtracks are also insanely good.
Absolutely. The things Picq did with Ad-lib gold are impenetrable to mere mortals like us.
I read all the novels several times. I finished Dune and Dune 2 games multiple times. The sound track to Dune is amazing.
I really wish their was a place for “weird” games like they used to make.
I tried playing those games a few years ago and gave up fairly quick. The controls and graphics were just too clunky.
You say that but I played a lot of Captain Blood and Puple Saturn Day for this and they really haven’t held up well. I think the biggest trick Captain Blood pulled was convincing people that Rescue on Fractalus never existed ;)
http://archive.is/GYeyJ