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Comment by tom_ | Hacker News Reader

Agree. After playing Command & Conquer in the mid 90s, I revisited my favourite Dune II from just a couple of years previously... and oh dear! It scarcely held up even back then. It's not that it had turned into a bad game in the meantime, it was just that C&C had some significant UX improvements in terms of commanding multiple units, and now doing anything significant in Dune II felt like a big pile of hassle. Was like being stuck with EDIT.COM again, after a good stint on Emacs :(

There was a later remake, Dune 2000, which I've never played. But it postdates both Command & Conquer and Red Alert, so maybe it's a bit better?

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C&C has really dated controls today, too. The C&C remaster added a lot of modern QoL improvements.

Try Populus again.

Or not... I had such good memories of it, but then tried it again a few years ago and, uh, it's just terrible. The concept is still cool, but it's just pain to play. The memories were way better.

Yeah... the whole "put esoteric graphical buttons required for frequent and repetitive game actions on a static background around the viewport" is thankfully consigned to the dustbin of history.

I realize why it was done: maximizing interactive graphics on the limited hardware of the day by shrinking the rendering region.

But good god, making core user interface elements that unusable is a fever dream only someone completely unfamiliar with time-motion studies or prior mainframe keyboard art could dream up.

They could have at least made it hands-on-keyboard and had a shrunken viewport.

Dune 2000 was pretty good back in the day. I enjoyed its gameplay and its art looked great for the time. It felt about the same tier of fun as C&C and Red Alert, though perhaps a bit less replayable due to maps feeling rather samey. Certainly worth checking out though if its still runnable

It was better than Dune 2, but IMO it tried too hard to be faithful (other than art & controls), resulting in something that:

* Didn't look like the original (new art!)

* Didn't play like the original (multi-select completely changes the tactics)

* Kept the originals level designs (mostly bad, because nobody knew how to do them well yet)

Loved Dune 2000. It's definitely more palatable than the original, but it's worth playing both D2000 and Dune Legacy. It's really too bad we aren't getting anything out of the franchise anymore. I liked the new 4x, but it lacked the personality of the older games.

My wife played a lot of strategy games as a kid, including Dune 2 when it came out. She also speaks fondly of Dune 2000.

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