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Buy this game - That is the directive!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: November 17, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I've played many RTS type games but this is one of the best that I've had the pleasure to play. The game manages a good mix of the old and new. The combat in and of itself is like that found in the original Dune II, WarCraft, StarCraft, or countless other games along the lines. However, it is still fun and the excellent graphics enhance the experience immensely. Also, there are newer elements thrown in, such as the ability to ally with several different subgroups (Fremen, Sardaukar, Tleilaxu, Ix, and Guild). Each of the subgroups has different advantages and disadvantages and very different units.

Another nice touch that is unfortunately not often seen in RTS games is that units gain experience as they fight. As their experience increases, they are a little tougher and can do more damage, this is a nice touch and it can make a very real difference on the battlefield. Elite units are more than a match for any two of their regular counterparts.

There are three playable houses, Atreides, Harkonnen, and Ordos, each of which have different units and different advantages. The Ordos units heal gradually over time when wounded, the Harkonnen units will function at full capability no matter the damage sustained (until destroyed), and the Atreides can return elite units to the barracks to train all their troops to the next level of veterancy.

Another nice feature is the ability to retreat from a battle if you feel it is unwinnable. This can be helpful as successfully retreating will give you a reserve force that can be quite useful. Also, the designers paid attention to logistics, a real world problem. If the territory you are attacking (or defending) is bordered by several friendly territories, the reinforcements you periodically receive during battle will be larger than if you were bordered by only one territory. Similarly, if you have a territory that is salient, it can be extremely difficult to defend. Not overextending oneself can be quite vital.

If I have any complaints, it deals mainly with the storyline. I found the basic theme of it to be quite boring and uninventive. In a nutshell, the Spacing Guild decides to consolidate its monopoly on space travel by controlling Arrakis and the vital spice melange, to do so they create an 'Emperor Worm', basically a human-worm mutation with great psychic powers. *Yawn* If I had a dime for every time I've seen the 'evil corporation creates genetic superthing' story I'd be rich ;). However, the story does have its good moments, such as having to choose between one of the two heirs when the Baron Harkonnen is murdered. This is a nice touch that emphasizes the backstabby, vicious nature of the Harkonnen quite well.

But if you can ignore the contrived portions of the story (easy enough to do with such great game play), the game itself is very enjoyable. All in all, another great game from Westwood =).

Fans Will Love It

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: June 17, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Any fan of the Dune series will love this game, and realize that it was well worth the wait. The graphics are exceptional, with the intro screen being might impressive. The playability on this game has increased imensly which means that you are going to be addicted to this game for a very long time. You get to fight over 4 different worlds, whether you go for ground level tactics, or large scale stratergies you know that the outcome will have an affect on the game. I think this one in the series is going to atract more fans as more people now have Pc's and they are now able to experience this game in its full glory

Quality

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: June 19, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Ah, this is the life.

Emperor: Battle for Dune is a great, fun game that is everything Dune 2000 should have been. It is Westwood's first foray into 3D, and they've done a great job of putting together a fast and pretty 3D engine. The units may not have very many polys, but they are well animated and have tons of little details, like the Atreides sniper's laser and the elite Sardukar slitting the throats of his opponents.

The game is also true to the Dune novels. As in the books, shields and lasers don't mix: hit a shielded unit with a lasgun and you are treated to a very nice graphical effect that unfortunatley results in the explosive deaths of both units. The fremen are back with their sandworm-riding antics, in addition to the four other subhouses that add variety to your army. Each of the three main sides are totally different, too. This makes for a refreshingly diverse game.

All in all, this is the epitome of the Westwood RTS game. Hopefully next time around they'll innovate a little, but this will keep everyone occupied until then.

A Challenging Graphics-pushing Beast!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: September 18, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I've been playing the Dune series since it all started a long time ago. This one really adds a unique touch that Dune 2 and Dune 2000 just don't have. Much more units and options. I thought I was good at it but I guess the gameplay is a little too challenging at the moment. I can't seem to progress past the third level now, so I've bought the Prima's Official Strategy Guide in hope to learn my way into this game. Quite the challenge! The mouse control is WAY better than Warcraft III too. Just sit back and do almost everything w/ the mouse.

Also, this game really pushes graphics. Frame rate was quite choppy, even at low resolution with a 16MB ATI Rage 128 PCI card on a 350MHz cpu with 128MB RAM, but has been dramatically improved with my 128MB Nvidia Ti4600 on a 2.26 GHZ Intel P4 and 512 RDRAM. Now, even with 1600x1200 resolution I'm getting smoothe framerate. Don't buy the game if you don't have a FAST computer! You'll end up leaving it on the shelf cuz you just can't have any fun with the choppy frame rate.

The Emperor of RTS games

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: March 31, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is a truly awesome game! I have been playing this game since it came out and I wrote this review in 2004! There is so much replayability you can't count how many hours you can play it. Be warned though, this game has the potential to take over your life with it's beautiful graphics, truly awesome music, and great balance between the three houses. The music is good enough for you to buy the game alone, the music is even better than Starcraft music and the game is better than it too! If you enjoy a game that lets you choose where to attack and defend you will love this game. Also, there are several different kinds of missions like defending a subhouse defend against another subhouse or attacking an enemy convoy heading out of the map. Although the difficulty level is very high during the end of the game with the computer opponents simply pouring out high level infantry and heavy artillery and such it is still beatable and you really feel as if you accomplished something. Overall, this is a really good game that any gamer SHOULD NOT MISS!! That is the directive!(I have spent over 500 hours playing this game and am still going!)

Good Game Gets Old Fast

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: July 11, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I was initially quite excited when I first started playing this game. The graphics are excellent, the storyline is excellent and there are a variety of interesting and novel tactics to employ. The game however can be difficult to get running and requires a high end machine, with the latest video drivers.

The RTS gameplay is just an extension of Westwoods other RTS games such as Red alert. Moreover the units available to you are fairly standard, infantry and tanks, with some air units thrown in almost as an afterthought. As such, success in this game is not very different from command and conquer or red alert: control resource production. One must defend your spice harvesters and attack the enemies harvesters.

Although buildings fall very quickly in this game, usually there is only one or maybe two entrances to your base, which can be heavily defended. All structures are confined to rocks jutting out of Dunes desert landscape. It is possible to air drop saboteurs or engineers into the enemies base to capture buildings, but after a little experience this can be defended. Because the enemy bases can be difficult to take out with a simple rush, most skirmish games seem to result in a war of attrition, concentrating on destroying the enemies economy.

The war of attrition makes it important to choose your allies wisely. I believe this has actually introduced a race imbalance in the game, that will eventually manifest itself in multiplayer games (assuming they overcome their current multiplayer problems). One of the sub-houses, the Tleilaxu, can infect enemy units and convert them to yours. Infecting enemy harvesters prevents them from being picked up by airborne carriers, greatly impacting the enemy economy, making in my opinion, an overwhelming advantage. Especially after the harvesters die and turn into more Tleilaxu. There is also a race that has mobile, cloaked land-mines, that can also be used to [get] harvesters. They do not seem to be nearly as powerful as the Tleilaxu in my opinion.

I would have rated this game a 4, however the multiplayer servers at the westwood site clearly have a problem. In 5 attempts to play a game, every game was terminated due to one or more players disconnecting, within a span of 5 minutes. You will find therefore the multi-player game rooms largely empty, because it was (at the time I tried) impossible to ever finish a game.

Once the basic tactics are understood, most of the missions and skirmish modes boil down to the same basic thing, a war of attrition. For this reason the game does not have the re-playability as say Age of Empires II, with its varied races and endless unit mixes, or even as the venerable starcraft series, whose controls are more intuitive and large scale battles more intense. I think in my opinion this game will prove much more enjoyable if they overcome their multiplayer bugs, since human opponents will offer more variety and a chance to employ special units for unusual strategies.

Dune Junkie approves!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: May 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Ever since I bought Dune: The Machine Crusade at a book sale for three bucks, I've been absolutely obssessed with everything Dune. I found Emperor on a Wal-Mart shelf and decided to give the game a go. I expected another lousy 3D generic RTS. I was DEAD wrong! I found myself addicted to Emperor: Battle for Dune. I spent hours upon hours, coordinating raid on spice harvesters, sending out patrols, fortifying my bases, annihilating enemy forces, bulging the front line on Dune, oh I could go on for hours. Setting up attacks also have to involve avoiding sandworms which appear at random and can easily destroy half an army in one attack. Sandworms can really turn the tide for either side of battle. Another thing, I really L00VE that you managing your economy is super simple. Just build a refinery, add a few docking pads, and replace spice harvesters occasionally if one gets destroyed by and sandworm. The sheer destruction one could inflict was mouth-watering. I loved setting infantry on fire with the Harkonnen flame tank and hearing there screams. It really made me feel like a true Harkonnen. I usually build bunch of turrets around my base for an automated defense so I don't have too much about small raid and so I can focus on building overwhelming forces. The graphics cannot be praised in futile words. Enough said. I DID have a few beefs with Emperor: Battle for Dune. The AI is just plain dumb. I managed to destroy an entire base with just a flame tank and an assault tank. However, I really only play my friends on LAN or online. So its not a big deal. The acting in the cutscenes was a bit cheesy but to be expected in all Westwood games. The sketchy story was understandable because it was hard to place in the Dune timeline.

Overall, this game makes it to my top 5 best games ever! I wish they make another one but stupid EA bought Westwood and now they are only focusing on C&C which needs to seriously be put down peacefully.

Well done... but few flaws

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: June 26, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I have been playing RTS since Dune II was released, so I know what I am talking about when it comes to RTS.

This game retains the nostalgic elements of Dune II, although the concrete slabs are now gone ;). The world Westwood created through the novel is very believable and well done. The graphic is very spectacular even at the minimal setting, but it is a very demanding game. I have 750 Mhz Athlon with 128MB Ram and a Geforce2 MX card, and it tends to slow down when the screen gets intense. The music brought back memories from the original Dune II, which is excellent.

Gameplay is good, but not revolutionary. IMO, unit controlling could be better. After playing Starcraft, I was disappointed with lack of many commands.

It seems like Westwood is having problems with their server as of writing this. I have DSL and I either get kicked or get very poor ping. Hopefully, this will be remedied soon.

Besides the minor quirks, this game is very entertaining.

One of the best RTS's I have ever played,

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: March 08, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is stunning with its 3D graphics. I have an old piece of junk called a computer that can run this game pretty well considering the system requierments. The units are very well done from Harkonnen Missle tanks to Ordos Chemical troopers.

The campaigns are presented on a map which is equally divided into thirds. Depending on the house you choose you must attack,hold,and attack from enemy territories to reach their capitol.

The game is also littered with entertaining cut-scenes between missions.
The building and producing mechanics are very easy----no running around collecting units of food and wood like AOE-----------just build a refinery and the game collects the money for you. You may have to replace a harvester every so often ,but other than that it runs itself.


The game is alot quicker and action oriented than other games like AOE(Age of Empires I or II). Instead of building up a town and collecting a ton of resources. Emperor is able to do that faster. The game's missions are shorter, though much more fun.

Overall this game definately deserves 5 stars and will keep you playing for a long while.

This is a good, but not great, single player game.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 13
Date: June 20, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Emperor is a passable RTS with pretty good graphics but unoriginal and somewhat tired gameplay. I can only comment on the single player aspect, but if you're looking for something new you won't find it here. Yes the game is in "3D" but plays almost exactly like it's 2D predecessors. The missions become quite repetitive, where you build up a defensive force then just mine enough spice to create a large group of "tank" units combined with a large group of "light tank" units and storm the enemy base. Repeat ad nauseum. Often times you'll have 2-3 missions in a row on the same map. It may just be that I'm looking for more than the RTS genre can supply, but this is an average game in my book.

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