MetalAngel wrote:
Cryo's Dune, while not really a proper stats n'shit RPG, is still a jolly atmospheric adventure. I have the Sega CD version (with the glorious rendered bits, video clips of Kyle MacLachlan and the astonishing soundtrack) and it's just amazing.
Mm, I have the PC CD one and that has the excellent video clips as well. Rather curiously Cryo only had the rights for Kyle MacLachlan and Sting's face, so all the actual game art other than Paul Atreides and Feyd Rautha has a different look to the Lynch film. This is no hindrence however, in fact the concept design and art of the computer game is very idiosyncratic and refreshing. It follows a Moebius, French style but yet looks practical. That Fremen with the Elvis hair always amused me though.
As MetalAngel says, the game also has some of the best sound ever. All the voice acting is sterling, Gurney Halleck, Jessica and the breathy-whispery Chani in particular. Paul's dad and Stilgar are commanding, Thurfir Hawat (looking rather freaky in the art design) cunning and fascinating, Duncan (a Londo Mollari lookalike) officious and bureaucratic, yet warm and friendly. The soundtrack is a work of art in itself, especially during the transit scenes, destinied to be skipped over but its surprising how long you'll keep sitting through them. It's funny, but I consider the voice acting to be far superior to the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries effort. (The actor who plays Halleck in that version should have been shot.) It's impossible to state how impressed I was by this. While other games (until Grim Fandango came along) had voiceovers that were pantomine ham and over-earnest, with cheesy dialogue, Dune kept a straight face and held a lot of honest charm.
"Here are our current stocks of spice. You can see that we produced
more spice yesterday, than we did the day before. Don't forget the Emperor will call for a shipment tomorrow..."
The game is intriguing in being a hybrid of the book and the film, so you have both the weirding martial art, and the sound modules. It plays like an alternate, early draft of the novel, unfolding differently to the book but reaching the same destination. As such it's pretty fascinating, certain characters are dropped, others introduced or fleshed out - the feisty Harah (Paul's first girlfriend, and his mum's reaction is amusing!) being a welcome expansion.
"You'll notice that the Fremen have entirely blue eyes, no whites in them."
As a game, it is flawed admittedly. Too easy as a whole, and heading back to old locations when you're unclear what you have to do to move things along is a chore. All the same, the injection of a turn based strategy element spices (AHA!) things up a bit, and you get quite proud of the training of your divisions and the output of your harvesters. The game steadily builds, introducing new elements with perfect timing, until before you know it you're ready to claim back the planet. Thanks to an intelligent, witty script (take note, Sci-Fi channel) and a great sense of immersion, the game easily papers over any flaws, and a sense of love for the source material shines through. Because of this, it's one of my all time fave games.
And if you like, you can borrow it Mr. Chris. You might need DOS box to run it, and it is a bit picky about sound until you tinker with it, but I think it runs straight on Windows.