Reviewed: September 23, 2002
Reviewed by: John Bowlin

Publisher
DreamCatcher Interactive

Developer
Widescreen Games

Released: November 25, 2001
Genre: Adventure
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen

6
7
6
4
5.8

System Requirements

Recently Dreamcatcher has deviated from their standard niche into other genres, with moderate success. Frank Herbert's Dune is one such deviation, since this game is primarily an action game with adventure game trappings and a few puzzles. Frank Herbert's Dune should not be confused with the original 1992 Cryo strategy adventure game Dune, but after this paragraph, I will just call Frank Herbert's Dune "Dune" in this review for brevity. Of course, both of these games are based on the classic science fiction novel Dune written by, wait for it... Frank Herbert.

The inspiration for the new Dune game is reportedly the recent Sci-Fi channel mini-series "Frank Herbert's Dune". I saw this recently on DVD, and while the mini-series is quite faithful to the original book which I read years ago, this game isn't, quite. Of course, a novel with as much depth and sheer length as Dune could hardly be expected to be given serious justice in a graphical action/adventure title; however, I was somewhat disappointed that the game only covers a tiny section of the book's timeline, the part dealing with Paul Atreide's rise in Fremen society.

On the plus side, it does seem to remain true to the spirit of the book. The game includes quite a bit of background information from the novel that is told through the game's original story. People unfamiliar with the novel will most likely not understand the story or depth of Dune based on this game's mere six missions and in-between mission interactive story segments. Fans of the series could get something out of these "side stories" to the main novel plotline, assuming they can handle the difficult gameplay.

For those familiar with the story, the game begins with Paul and Jessica's escape into the deep desert and ends before the Baron visits Arrakis. The game changes and skips a few of the details of the book's plot, while adding many details during this time period that the book didn't include.

The game's five missions are mostly action with a few puzzles, and will occupy the vast majority of the time you spend with Dune. The missions themselves get increasingly more difficult, the puzzles more complicated, and longer. All of this doesn't sound too bad, until you realize that you can only save your game when you finish a mission. Gameplay involves replaying the five missions over and over until you get them down perfectly via wrote memorization.

The controls, which are not customizable, are keyboard and mouse only. You can not use a game-pad unless it's one that is programmable and can emulate the keyboard. However, you will not want to do this, because the mouse is essential to the gameplay interface, and it's rather hard to use a gamepad and a mouse at the same time.

I actually did hook up my Strategic Commander, a programmable off-hand input device that works well simultaneously with the mouse, but using the keyboard worked just as well for the most part. And by "just as well", that is to say, not extremely intuitive, but once you got used to it, playable.

The game has a very good tutorial mission that you will probably want to play through several times to practice all of the moves you can do in the game, and practice with the unusual combination of using the mouse for viewing and navigating with the keyboard. Fans of first person shooters will probably be able to get used to the controls a lot faster than adventure gamers. It didn't take me long to master it, except for the fact that the mouse-look uses a standard rather than inverted orientation (mouse Y axis up looks up, and down looks down). I'm an old-school inverted mouse FPS gamer. This wasn't user configurable either.

Whatever you do, don't put the game in automatic camera mode. You will die - a lot. Even with having control of the camera, the fact that moving the mouse view does NOT turn your character's facing can make the action sequences somewhat difficult to pull off. The best thing to do is move the mouse and use the left and right arrow keys at the same time so that you'll be facing where you're aiming.

The camera can and must be used to detect guards and observe their facing and movement patterns which is extremely important. This is where the game really becomes more of a stealth type game similar to Metal Gear Solid rather than an acrobatic/shooting game such as Tomb Raider. Taking guards down stealthily is crucial to winning missions.

Dune also doubles as a resource management game. What kind of resources, you ask? Well, ammo, health, and water. You need to keep track of every single shot in Dune, because ammo is extremely scarce. You'll want to memorize the types of enemies on each level as to how many shots it takes to kill them. Is this a 3-shot guard or a 5-shot elite-guard? Fortunately, you'll have access to some weaponry that can reduce this tedium to an extent in the later missions.

You'll also have to manage your health, and your water, which is how you heal. You can replenish your water supply by "neutralizing" guards silently with your Fremen-made Krys dagger. But the Krys can only be used on guards that aren't aware of you. That's right. If you get spotted, you can not engage in hand-to-hand combat the Fremen way, you must use a projectile weapon to attack. After mission one, and only if you're low on health, you can use the Voice to render an opponent immobile and then use the Krys. The last resource you manage is time on the timed missions.

In between missions you'll go back to the fremen hideout (Sietch), where you'll enjoy speaking with the various characters that moves along the story in the form of cutscenes. You will enjoy these dialogues again, and again, since there is no function to skip a conversation you've already heard before. Coupled with the only-save-at-mission-end feature, and this adds extended play time as you dutifully sit through the same conversations again and again after reloading the game.

On the plus side, as long as you restart the mission immediately without exiting the game, you won't have to sit through most of the cutscenes repeatedly. The heart of the story in this game is told through dialogue, and while it's well done, they should have given the option to skip things you've heard before.

Overall, the gameplay of Dune awards the patient, careful gamer. Do not expect to win Dune by running and gunning. Stealth is the key to the missions, and careful mastery of the camera as well as resource management will get you through it. If you like this type of gameplay, and don't mind the lack of in-mission saves, you may very well enjoy Dune. While the controls are difficult to master and somewhat sluggish even after mastery, the basic layouts of the missions are interesting and have quite a bit of variety. And each mission has the odd puzzle thrown in to Spice things up (pun intended).

At 1024x768x32 on my modest system the frame rates dipped at a few times to choppyness but most of the time it was very smooth. The game has above average looking textures and it supports real-time dynamic shadows, lens flares, smoke effects, and all kinds of cool looking 3D effects. The character graphics have their unique flavor that is not unattractive and somewhat reminiscent of an anime style, while still being more or less true to the Dune mythology. The number of polygons for the models isn't quite up there with something like Unreal Tournament 2003, but they are attractive. The environments themselves were well done and captured the feel of the Dune setting.

One nitpick with the graphics is that the character animations aren't always smooth and lifelike. Most of the time they were, but when engaged in combat, it feels kind of clunky or when running around it feels too mechanical. It was ironic when Paul chastised Jessica in the opening scene for running with too much rhythm and risking attracting a sandworm as he mechanically tromped across the desert sands. On the other hand, the look-around-the-walls trick was nicely animated as was the roll-maneuver to jump across a walkway quickly to the other side. The guards animations were not bad, complete with boring yawns.

Another minor annoyance is that the lip synching with the voices during conversations isn't very well done. Then the camera would zoom in for extreme close-up face shots, which just highlighted the problem. While the cut scenes are somewhat cinematic, the limitations of the game engine show through during them at times. Of course, the fourth or fifth time you're forced to sit through a cutscene you'll start to look for flaws. Overall they were enjoyable, the first few times.

Enemies in the game will say things when they notice you. Different kinds of guards speak in different voices, but all guards of a given type will have the exact same voice. You can hear guards walking which is a good audible clue to aid in your stealth missions.

The sound of the gunfire varies for the different weapons you use, and it does sound similar to the gun noise used in the mini-series. At the Sietch you'll overhear conversations from wandering fremen, and throughout the game there are a few other ambient noises, but none of it is all that appealing and in the case of alarms can can downright irritating at times. I would rate the sound effects as serviceable but sparse.

The real treat with regard to sound is the music. The music in Dune is well done, and it definitely fits in with the setting. The orchestral themes are not jarring and yet they are moving and contain a lot of feeling in them. While I did get tired of the conversations being repeated, I was never bored by the wonderful music.

The are no branching plots or multiple solutions to problems. It's a straight and narrow plot, and while during the missions there can be slight variation in the order of solving them, for the most part there is one optimal path that should be used to make it through, thanks to the strict resource management required. On the bright side, Dreamcatcher games sell at a lower than average suggested retail price, and Dune isn't an exception.

The gameplay was somewhat fresh, but also somewhat nonsensical and the controls at times caused major frustrations. The biggest frustration was having to repeat very long missions over and over to learn from your mistakes. While this may have extended "game time", it really does nothing but alienate most PC gamers. It would have been far better, in my opinion, to have more save points and just have a shorter game time. In the end it's almost as if the developers ran out of time and had to ship a shorter version of the game than was originally planned so they took out some of the save points and left out the ability to skip the cut-scenes.

In conclusion, this game could have been a lot better, but for the right kind of gamer, it's worth a play through. Fans of the Dune series looking for that masterpiece interactive experience will have to keep waiting. Fans of stealth oriented action games who also like Dune are probably the real target audience.