Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty

by Virgin Interactive

Product Features

• Three very different Houses to choose from.
• Real-time action is easy to control and fun to play.
• Over 1 megabyte of digitized speech and sounds make combat exciting and realistic.

Product Details

• ASIN: B0009IIBJ0
• Media: 3.5" disk
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #17,301 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Exotic. Savage. Harsh. Inspired by the best-selling science fiction adventure of all time, this simulation-strategy game takes resource management to epic porportions. As either the honorable Atreides, the mysterious Ordos of the brutal Harkonnens, you must overcome violent known and unknown adversaries to build up military prowess, political security and mining monopolies to secure the future of your dynasty on the planet of Dune.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Grandfather of RTS, January 5, 2009

By 

Isackson "Reader/Gamer" (WA) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty (3.5" disk)

When most people talk about the real time strategy genre it's usually Command and Conquer that gets all the credit. Well people here's the real grand daddy of RTS, Dune 2, and calling this game anything but superb for its time would be a gross injustice.

Dune 2 predates Command and Conquer and pretty much laid the entire foundation and did all the work (Not to say that Command and Conquer wasn't a great game and didn't bring RTS into the mainstream just that Dune 2 did everything first and did it better).

Just for a little background the Emperor of a Planet, Arakis, poses a challenge to the 3 Houses (factions) of his world and to the victor goes the spoils - namely power and control of the planet.

You can chose to play as any of the 3 houses, all of which have strengths and weekneses. Like most RTS games at first you have simple objectives to complete to win varius maps (your endgame goal is to take control of every parcel of the planet piece by piece) such as harvesting a certain amount of spice (which is how you raise funds for your army)as you progress you slowly gain access to more powerful units and the battles become increasingly more difficult - later you have to fight as many as 3 armies at once.

While the A.I. is rather simplistic when compared today (enemys are pretty predictable) the game blew me away with the level of variety and the overall gaming experience (It still cracks me up remembering the frusteration of having my only harvester being eaten by a sandworm). Even with the addition of other great RTS games years later I still found myself constantly going back to Dune 2 to replay as a different house, and to try winning battles restricting myself to different tactics (try winning some of the earlier fights with just infantry)

This is truely an all time great, and is sadly being forgotten when it comes to its place in video game history (Doom's overshadowing of Wolfenstein is a similar example when it comes to shooters)

Grab yourself up a copy and enjoy the experience (or reexperience) a piece of video game history and return to a day when PC games actually mattered.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wow awesome, June 17, 2008

A Kid's Review

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty (3.5" disk)

this is the first rts game ever made i think this is cooler than the first command and conquer as for the other command and conquer i don't know zero hour is better but this game is cool even now its bout by many people you are one of the three houses trying to conquer dune contral infantry veacals and turrets and battle your enemy's

5.0 out of 5 stars Dune II Review, July 18, 2011

By 

Rich - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty (3.5" disk)

Outstanding product and love the operating system interface provided by the company--helped allow this older game (DOS-based) to work seamlessly in a Windows 7 environment. The game plays smoothly and with no hiccups. Delivery was extremely prompt. No complaints whatsoever (and I love their online FAQ/assistance). Will not hesitate to purchase from this vendor in the future!