A true remake in every sense of the word, Dune 2000 follows the same plot as its forebear. It details the trials and tribulations of three houses, Atreides, Harkonnen, and Ordos, in their attempts to win control of the planet Arrakis and ultimately control of the prized commodity known as Spice (better known as sandworm doo-doo to those in the know). As a field commander for one of the three houses, you’ll harvest the spice, build structures, and pump out units such as tanks, trikes, and infantry to lead against your rivals.

Unlike a lot of games that hastily dismiss the story line once the credits roll, the concepts of resource collection, base construction, and incessant combat fit very neatly into the Dune universe. As in the book, the open desert is your greatest enemy, as sandworms defend their territory by destroying any vehicle that intrudes with one ferocious gulp. As a result, you can only build on rock formations found scattered across the sand. To achieve a building’s full strength, you’ll need to place concrete slabs as a foundation to reinforce each structure or waste valuable resources repairing it to temporarily boost its strength. If you opt not to build on concrete, a structure will only have half its hit points, and some structures, like wind generators, will only produce half their output. In other words, it pays to lay concrete. Unfortunately, doing so is a pain. Some changes have been made from the original game to facilitate faster building that allow you to place large slabs of concrete at a time -- but it’s still a pain.

On the combat side of things, if you’ve played Command & Conquer or Red Alert, you’ve got a pretty good idea what’s in store -- you’ll pump out as many units as you possibly can and use them to crush your enemy. The only problem is that many of the convenient features found in today’s RTS games are absent. You’ll have to manually build each unit since the game does not support construction queuing. There are no rally points or waypoints either, and the few features that the game does boast, such as hotkeys to group units, scatter troops or jump quickly to various locations on the map, are little more than carry-overs from Command & Conquer. Having to manually create and position every single unit puts a lot of strain on your ability to manage both your troops and the involving construction concerns.

What you end up with is a slower-paced game that favors patient gamers. While the single-player game is challenging and actually quite fun in each of the three campaigns, many of the missions can take hours to complete, and that’s a lot of effort and time to invest in a game most of us have, effectively, already played. The multi-player game is a reversal of the campaign mode as the infamous Red Alert tactic known as the tank rush (or in this case, the trike rush) rears its ugly head. These fast, nimble little vehicles can be pumped out in great numbers early on, and can sweep in and destroy a base very quickly. Since the construction restrictions make it difficult to build base defenses in a hurry, most games devolve into a race to see which player can build the most trikes first.

Dune 2000 isn’t a terrible game -- it has simply been outpaced by its competition in nearly every area. While I’d recommend Dune 2000 to casual fans of real-time strategy who’ve yet to sample games like Red Alert, Total Annihilation, or StarCraft, the familiar gameplay is sure to grate on more experienced players who are longing for something new.

--Todd Vaughn