Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet From: davereed@wam.umd.edu (Michael Robert Bromery) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: MINI-REVIEW: Dune Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.games Date: 11 May 1993 17:15:34 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 95 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <1somvm$sn9@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: davereed@wam.umd.edu (Michael Robert Bromery) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: game, strategy, commercial PRODUCT NAME Dune BRIEF DESCRIPTION A unique strategy game with great graphics and sound. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: CRYO. Distributed by Virgin Games. Address: Virgin Games 18061 Fitch Ave. Irvine, CA 92714 USA SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS Reportedly runs under AmigaDOS 1.3 and up. People with only 512K Chip RAM will either have to boot from floppy, or they will have to USE the boot menu to disable the startup-sequence and then run the program from the CLI. Otherwise, the game will have no sound. Anyone with at least ROMS 2.04 has a boot menu. Just hold down both mouse buttons when you reboot or power up. Keep them held down until the boot menu pops up. COPY PROTECTION "Look up in the manual" copy protection. Installs on hard drive. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING The systems that this has been tested on is an A500 with 2.04 ROMs, 512K chip, 2.5 Megs fast. The system also has a GVP HD8+ 50Meg Hard drive and a second floppy drive from Roctec. 1 Meg Agnus chip (only 512K enabled so far), EHB Denise. A friend of mine says it works just fine on an A1200. MINI REVIEW I'm surprised that hardly anybody on this net ever mentioned the game called Dune. This game is absolutely superb. You need OS 2.04 or greater to run it. (Probably because they needed OS 2.04 in order to do what looks like 3-4 Megs of graphics and special effects that you would only see in euro-demos previously and fit it in 3-disks with no compression). I could easily give a 9.5 for graphics and sound on this one. There are reasons though. The original artist did the Amiga graphics, and he used color cycling and what looks like copperlists really well. The game runs fast with or without acceleration. The only time where I could see the game slow down a bit from the otherwise speedy motion is at only one part in the game. (I wont tell you what it is... it'll spoil the fun). Don't let the really nice graphics and sound make you think this game has no playability. Dune has tons of playability and, unlike any other game, the playability enhances as you progress in the game. I can not compare this game to anything else; it uses a unique playing system that alters for the better when you get better. Technically, this is a strategy game, but of a kind that some people who don't like strategy would gladly get into. It's weird: you play it saying, "What kind of game is this?" The game then surprises you every few minutes, and you're hooked. The music in the game is done really well: lots of nice quality samples which I would love to get my hands on. The music suggests our modern style of popular tunes, but with some interstellar twists and some pretty interesting new groupings of instruments. The instruments they choose make for the uniqueness of the style. The write-up in the book about the composer seems to tell the truth in every way. I could give you a long analysis on the music style, but I won't :). The music is also available on CD. All I can say is, think of our modern popular music (American), mix it with a bit of Latin rhythm, think of the Alien soundtrack for a couple of the instruments, add a bit of the style from Endor (Ewok instrumentation and rhythm from Star Wars), mix them together, and that's as close as I could come to a picture of what it may sound like. It's a very nice buy. I'm already looking forward for the release of Dune II even though I haven't nearly come close to finishing this game. --- Mike Bromery. Email: davereed@wam.umd.edu --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu