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iconfinder

"I'm so old that I remember the first Starcraft game"

I remember when Dune 2 came out - the father of all RTS games.

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What about Herzog Zwei, you young whippersnapper ;-)

What a great game on the Genesis.

Dune II was definitely influenced by Herzog Zwei, but not everyone had a Genesis, and I don't think Herzog Zwei really had a concept of base management or resource gathering, which have obviously become integral to the RTS games today.

You're right, it wasn't like most RTS games we know today. Herzog Zwei had little bases scattered through the map that could be thought of as territories, and you'd have to capture them with troops(both the player and AI would compete for these as it allowed further expansion, healing, etc.). You could order up defensive / offensive units as "credits" trickled in over time at a fixed rate(I don't think there was any way to speed it up), and the ultimate goal was to send your assisting units to attack the enemy's single fortress.

I absolutely loved that game, though!

I don't really recall it having any story, though.

That sounds very much like the more modern DOS game Z: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_(video_game). It eschewed the Dune 2 RTS mechanics that had already become dogma by then and I distinctly remember finding it refreshing. (I grew up on DOS so I didn't know anything about the Genesis).

I might have to try it out - it looks more refined than Herzog was :)

Why did I not hear about this Herzog Zwei when I had Genesis?! Feel like soon I'll install gens and try it out.

That I remembered - the major upgrade and concept it was over the previous dune 1.

Then the warcraft series, followed by Command and conquer and then Starcraft, which set the gold standard. AoE came next - after that it just becomes a blur of different RTS types which were competing for top billing.

You forgot Myth :)

All the games mentioned previously are RTS games, which doesn't include Myth (which is a great game on its own, though).

If I recall Dune 2 has no connection to the slightly earlier Dune other than both were produced by studios owned by the same parent, and neither realized that the other team was working on the license. The Dune team finished first, and to 'simplify' things, they just named the RTS version of the game Dune 2.

learned something new!

I loved both the games.

Cryo's Dune was a completely different type of game (adventure), and was more or less developed and released in parallel to Westwood's Dune. Westwood's Dune is not a sequel at all, it was intended to replace Cryo's about-to-be-canceled game that never ended up being canceled, forcing them to name it Dune II: Battle for Arrakis to distinguish itself from Cryo's game.

You learn something new every day! Thanks - when I played them I was too far out of range for me to get info on game development at the time, iirc I even played them out of order.

Dune really was a brilliant game, and really its balance was pretty good, especially considering it was a time when the word balance itself hadn't been coined.

For some reason the one that I enjoyed the most is always forgotten: Total Annihilation!

It had significantly more depth than StarCraft/WarCraft (and better graphics to boot), but the higher complexity apparently made it less accessible and hence less popular.

For anyone curious: The latest refresh is called "Supreme Commander", and last time I checked there was still an active community/player-base around the OpenSource port "TA Spring".

Ah Dune 2 and Command and Conquer. I remember there was a easter egg in the first expansion of Command and Conquer that allowed you to do a series of missions agains giant ants.

I don't have my Sega Genesis any more, but I still play Dune on my pc with an emulator.

Oh yes, this brings back memories. Killing the sandworm with Atreides' sonic cannon.

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