Westwood dive into the third dimension! (Emperor - Battle for Dune (PS))

Member Name: martial_loh

Product:	Emperor - Battle for Dune (PS)
Date:	13/09/01 (113 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Westwood made it! Its bound to be good!, 3D strategy!

Disadvantages: Flying units are poor., Music.....so-so

WOW! Westwood finally bring their strategy games into the true 3rd dimension! Perhaps now, the days of 3 quarter views are over?
Judging by this title, Perhaps the days are numbered, but only whe a number of refinements are made!
The true 3d gameplay brings up issues of line-of-sight and other new tactics. This is what drew me into purchasing and playing this game. In Emperor, you can choose from 3 different houses - Atreides, Harkinnonen and Ordoss. The first is noble, righteous, the second is evil and brutish, whilst the third is just plain weird and scheming!

THe balance of units is good, although I have taken to using the House of Atreides on a regular basis. Atreides seem to have the air power (which I might add is severely underdeveloped in this game) and some good powerful land units. Harkinnonen have very good anti-infantry, and Ordoss have the most innovative takes on weaponary! What is good about the game is that no matter which side you take, you feel the same - you are a hired commander. In some ways this brings you closer to the story, but in other ways it does de-personalise the game - your troops seem more expendable, and thus you (or at least I) became more of a careless player.
Building up huge flanks of soldiers and battalions of tanks is not always the way to play Emperor. The AI is quite sneaky sometimes, often deploying tactics that you would not expect (although it can get predictable when the CPU use certain combinations of subhouses). Yes I forgot to mention the subhouses - there are 5 subhouses that you encounter in the game - at any point in a skirmish, you can ally with 2 of the subhouses. Each is very different to the other, some geared to stealth, others to genocide!
Another thing I failed to mention was the purpose of the game! Basically the planet of Arrahkis has lost its emperor, and is looking for a new force to rule its lands. Arrahkis contains the rare Spice Melange, which extends life, powers machinery, cu
res disease, bla bla bla.......
ok, back to reviewing! The FMV sequences are what you'd expect from Westwood - funny looking actors combined with CGI backgrounds!! The story is fairly political, yet engaging - even to a non-political person such as myself!
You navigate the world of Emperor by moving your mouse to the edge of the screen. To speed things up, you hold your right button down. To rotate you hold both buttons and move the mouse. Zooming is achieved by the use of a wheel button. All of these controls have keyboard equivalents.
Selecting units is standard Command + Conquer style, as is the player menu (buying units, buildings).
You can even choose the direction your building faces, but this hasnt really shown me any benefits.....only in terms of space available, has it helped. Other than this, there isn't much point in the feature.
Music is so-so. There aren't as many tracks on offer as the Command and Conquer series has, but the music does reflect the house you choose and the situation you are in.
The scenarios all begin on Arrahkis, but as the game progresses, you find yourself in buildings, snowy planets and also the odd green grassy area. The Arrahkis levels are way to similar to each other. They really bored me, although the Worm attacks (yes on Arrahkis, the worms are 100 feet long and eat EVERYTHING!) are amusing and add a certain element of chaos in the game!
The graphics are good, although I feel that many a player will be tempted to underuse the 3d-ness of the game. I myself zoomed out when I first played it, finding myself playing a game that looked remarkably like the older Dune titles. To really play the game, you SHOULD play it in the 3d views - you'll see the game differently and enjoy it a lot more.
With my P3-450, 128 Mb Ram and 32 Mb Graphic Card, I had to tone the graphics down to medium settings. There aren't too many losses from doing this, just the blurred shadows and slightly more d
etailed textures that you don;t usually notice anyway!!
As I said before, the AI is volatile. Depending on what setting you put the CPU on, it can vary from Unforgiving to Idiotic. At least it keeps you on your toes! The game boasts network and Internet play, although I haven't been brave enought to challenge people yet!!
The flying units are underdeveloped - the Atreides only foster one offensive flying unit (and its not too good either), their other fliers are just carriers - some players use them to lift enemy Spice harvesters off the ground - scumbags!!
I suppose that the addition of too many flying units would have been strenuous on the game engine?!

I guess I've covered all the areas you need to know about by now..if not, post a comment and I'll add something in. I haven't seen the film Dune yet, but I'm sure this game does it justice.
Hopefully Westwood will improve on the Emperor game engine, to make some more stunning 3d strategy titles...I can't wait!!

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