While not the best Strategy game out there, this game is a solid entry, and worth a look.
User Rating: 8.3 | Emperor: Battle for Dune PC
Emperor: Battle for Dune is a truly massive game, not unlike the source material from whence it came. Massive campaigns, huge amounts of diverse factions, and tons of awesome weapons of war make it a truly great game, but it is not without some flaws. Gameplay: As I stated before, Dune has truly massive campaigns, you can play as House Atreides, House Harkonnen, or House Ordos, all of which are massively different in style and story and take a good 20 hours each campaign, just flying through. There are also several lesser houses you can employ to do your will if you wish. All these different houses make for a huge selection of weapons of war available to do your bidding. Oddly enough, from the lowliest infantry unit to the greatest walker vehicle, you will never have a unit that no longer has a use, every unit is useful throughout the game, and that is a truly awesome aspect of the game. The main problem with the gameplay is that it lacks anything that you haven't done before. It is just more of the same RTS gameplay: harvest resources, crank out troops, take more resource areas, repeat. While this doesn't make it a bad game, it certainly is somewhat of a detriment not trying anything new. Another flaw of the game is the fact that there are several truly unbalanced units in the game. If you know the source material (as in the Dune books), you would know it makes sense for the units like Saudukar infantry to be incredibly powerful, but for an RTS game it just makes the game tactically unsound to have an easily acquired unit be so incredibly powerful as it can take out a vehicle easily with a few hits. These faults are not enough to break the game however, the superb campaign modes, with fairly awesome storylines, and sheer amount of diversity in the weapons of war you can wield is a testiment to greatness. Graphics: Graphically impressive for its time, I would compare the graphics to looking much like Warcraft 3 in terms of quality. Take that as you will. Sound: Emperor: Battle for Dune is really full of forgettable tunes and rather annoying sound effects... there are a few okay music pieces, and the people doing the acting for the campaign are pretty good... but it's still fair at best. Value: With such massive campaigns, diversity, etc, this game is a superb value for your money. Tilt: It is a great game, but again, not without its balancing issues and flaws. 
