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Emperor: Battle for Dune is a Dune computer game, released by Westwood Studios in 2001. It is based in Frank Herbert's science fiction universe Dune. Informally, it is known as Dune III.
It is the third real-time strategy game set in the Dune universe, following its predecessors, Dune II and Dune 2000. While Dune II was a totally distinct story to that of Dune 1, and Dune 2000 was a remake of Dune II, Emperor is a direct sequel to the previous games. In particular, it is a sequel to Dune 2000, carrying on from where it left off, with several of the characters and actors returning.
Like Dune 2000 and many of the other Westwood games that came before it, Emperor features cut scenes filmed with live actors and produced with professional-class visual effects.
Story
Emperor is set shortly after Dune 2000. Emperor Corrino has been killed by his concubine, Lady Elara, and the Landsraad has been thrown into chaos.
The Spacing Guild has presented the three remaining houses (the same as those in the previous games: House Atreides, House Harkonnen and House Ordos) with a unique challenge: a war of assassins on the planet Arrakis. Whichever house wins the war will become the new leader of the Landsraad and its leader, the new emperor of the known universe.
Overview
Like the two previous games, Emperor pits three houses against each other:
The single-player game features three campaigns, one for each house. Emperor expands upon the "territory domination" style gameplay between missions from its predecessors. In previous games, the territory chosen from the map screen simply determined the shape of the map to be played on. However, in Emperor, the choice of territory can affect mission objectives and alliances. The player is also given "reinforcement" units to move around the world map which can affect the in-game missions. Territorial control also becomes more interesting with the enemy AI also capable of wresting back the land that the player has just conquered in the previous battle although it can prove repetitive over time.
In playing each campaign, the player will be pitted primarily against the other two houses. However, depending on choices made, the player may also be allied with, or pitted against, one or more of the five initially-neutral factions:
- The Tleilaxu
- The Ixians
- The Fremen
- The Sardaukar
- The Spacing Guild
The three Houses also feature new units in their ranks. A full list can be found here: Battle for Dune.
While having an interface similar to the Command and Conquer series, it added features - such as a 3D engine, in-battle reinforcements, as well as several other changes and additions to gameplay - to provide a change of pace. Features of note are the fairly non-linear campaign, featuring randomized events, and the fast pace relative to the earlier Dune games. The three Houses also featured more unique new units in their ranks than in the previous series, with new abilities.
Criticisms of the game are not as much as that of its predecessor, Dune 2000 but it still suffered from AI problems with the computer-controlled player attacking the human player with a similar strategy that can be predicted and thereafter countered effectively. Further, the game's AI includes a lack of combining units of different abilities as the missions cannot be won by building only a particular type of combat unit.
Cutscenes
Like Dune 2000, the game featured all new high-quality full motion video cut scenes throughout the game, somewhat based more on the original movie. Emperor contains significantly more and longer videos than the previous games. Several actors have returned from Dune 2000, including Adrian Sparks (Emperor Corrino) and Musetta Vander (Lady Elara).
In addition, several notable actors appeared in the videos, including Star Trek's Michael Dorn, who played the role of Duke Achillus of House Atreides, Vincent Schiavelli, as the Harkonnen Mentat Yanich Kobal, and Michael McShane, as the Baron Rakan Harkonnen. The theme of the cutscenes, including the costumes, sets and vehicles, were largely based on the original Dune movie.
See also
External links
2001 computer and video games | Windows games | Real-time strategy computer games | Dune games
"Emperor: Battle for Dune"