13-Apr-2002 Giant man-eating worms that leap up from underground. It'd take a special effort to make a bad game with such inspired enemies. Enter Cryo. Giant man-eating worms that leap up from underground. It'd take a special effort to make a bad game with such inspired enemies. Enter Cryo.
There have been many games set in the Dune universe down the years, but as the title suggests, this is the most literal. A port of the PC game, it follows the plot of the book closely, recreating hero Paul Atreides' quest to liberate the planet Dune from the clutches of evil rivals, the Harkonnen. Maybe that's why it's so bloody dull.
Cryo have clearly decided to aim this at dedicated Dune fans and have opted to tell the story as a third-person adventure. This means lengthy cut-scenes and a very pedestrian pace as the non-gamey parts of the plot are worked in. Poor execution doesn't help either.
You're fighting to liberate Dune, doing odd missions for the freedom fighters. You sneak into bases, flee sandworms and generally don't have any fun thanks to an erratic difficulty curve. The game does a very bad job of letting you know what you're supposed to do in certain situations. Only trial and error tells you to run into the screen to avoid the sand-worms, after you've been killed ten times not knowing what's happening.
The character designs are hideous, especially when seen in close-up during cut-scenes, and the game makes no real use of the PlayStation 2's graphical abilities. There's little on display here that couldn't have been done on a PSone, and it's all running at an inexcusably low frame-rate.
You'll be howling with frustration by the end of the training level, with its tiny instruction signs that disappear before you can read them. Probably worked fine on a PC where players sit inches from the monitor, but it's dysfunctional on a TV. It's a pretty bad port all round.
The player-controlled camera is a terrible idea, rendering Dune semi-unplayable right from the start. You constantly have to stop and straighten Paul up so that you can see where you're going, and when combined with the massive loading times for the levels and cut-scenes, this makes the game totally impenetrable. Similarly, the nature of the tasks, such as sneaking past guards and stealing various items, makes progress quite difficult without being engagingly complex.
In staying faithful to the plot of the book, playability and design have fallen by the wayside, so that this is a big black hole as far as having fun is concerned. Any entertainment value simply sinks into quicksand, never to be seen or heard of again.
Eddie Robson
// Overview
Verdict
Less fun than getting chewed up by a giant sandworm
Uppers
There's a bit with some big sandworms which is kinda cool
Downers
Long loading times and very unimaginative gameplay mean you'll be bored very quickly The control system is horrible The graphics are dreadful If you haven't read the book, you can just forget it
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There's a bit with some big sandworms which is kinda cool
