Sledgehammer, on 27 February 2019 - 02:17 AM, said:
I don't remember the ending well in that game, but most of it was pretty close to the book as far as I can remember
Yeah, well, as far as an adventure game / strategy game is concerned it was pretty similar when it comes to the general structure of it all. That's pretty cool and all but you know, when you say that it's a "close adaptation"... it's just not, too many characters are missing and the story is too different for that.
I give one thing to the Cryo game though: even though the ending differs a lot from the book it at least doesn't portray Paul as the messiah. The book's message (basically "beware of the charismatic leader") is not there but at least Paul doesn't make it rain like he does in the movie. I hope that the new movie will finally get it right: Paul is not space Jesus, he is not the fremen messiah, he's just the result of a breeding program and some religious manipulation.
This post has been edited by Zaxx: 28 February 2019 - 03:42 PM
Yeah, that was a faithful adaptation of the first 3 books but sadly the low budget was very noticeable. Children of Dune was a bit better but even that looks pretty ridiculous now and overall they had some questionable acting choices (though James McAvoy was pretty cool as II Leto).
Give it a watch I say. It will seem pretty ridiculous in a post Game of Thrones world but the story is really good and honestly why I love Dune is partially because of Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. It's great that the first book seems like a regular hero's journey but it's alluded to that the consequences of Paul's actions will be severe. That's what the second and third books deal with: Paul overthrew the emperor and named himself the new one but since Dune isn't a fairy tale that can only mean a war where 60 billion people die. Take that, Luke Skywalker!
Give it a watch I say. It will seem pretty ridiculous in a post Game of Thrones world but the story is really good and honestly why I love Dune is partially because of Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. It's great that the first book seems like a regular hero's journey but it's alluded to that the consequences of Paul's actions will be severe. That's what the second and third books deal with: Paul overthrew the emperor and named himself the new one but since Dune isn't a fairy tale that can only mean a war where 60 billion people die. Take that, Luke Skywalker!
This kinda gives me the notion that Westwood made C&C a thing partially because they did not want their work to be tied to a license, a different IP they have no control over... and guess they were right since nowadays the Herberts simply refuse to give out licenses for Dune videogames.
IIRC it was in one of the interviews with someone from Westwood (Brett Sperry? not sure) who said that basically they wanted to go further with the concepts laid out in Dune II but didn't want to be constrained by an external license. BTW, I think that the license for Westwood's Dune games came from Dino De Laurentiis Company as the David Lynch movie license (hence all the similarities to the film in Dune 2000 and Emperor), not from the Herbert estate.
Zaxx, on 25 February 2019 - 06:57 PM, said:
Anyway after seeing that there was a bit of Dune talk in here I thought I'd share something that kind of occured to me while re-reading the Dune books: the setting of Command & Conquer is really fucking similar to the setting of Dune.
Zaxx, on 25 February 2019 - 06:57 PM, said:
- Two great factions are fighting for the same resource just like in the first Dune book.
As a long-time Dune fan I'll have to strongly disagree on this, especially concerning the "two great factions" part. First off, C&C is set in the modern world, influenced much by the then-recent Gulf War. Now it would be a mistake to say that the "spice is crude, CHOAM is OPEC" equations are wrong (so the Gulf is still there too, in a way), but Dune has lots more than that, and goes in a rather different direction. Frank Herbert wanted to explore humanity and the struggle for survival, and took this to a great depth, especially in the later books. The space feudal state where no computers exist was created exactly to emphasise the abilities of humans and the limits to which these abilities could be taken in absence of advanced technological tools.
On the other hand C&C is as much about modern warfare as it is about an alien substance foreshadowing an extraterrestrial invasion. In fact, I do remember from some yet another interview with Westwood people that they envisioned a new type of conflict, not between nations in the traditional sense but between a multinational body of the UN type and an organised extremist underground group. That was influenced by the Gulf War. You probably could compare the Nod religious extremists to the Fremen but I believe that it is a known fact that Frank Herbert based the subplot where Paul becomes the Fremen leader on Lawrence of Arabia. After all, Paul was still holding his title and was exacting revenge on the Harkonnens in the framework of kanly.
I fail to detect any similarities between Kane and either Paul or Leto II. Kane's character fits a number of widespread villain tropes and is good at that, but otherwise there's little depth to him, especially considering that he is at some point revealed to be an extraterrestrial himself. The God Emperor of Dune is a unique character who embodies some very original ideas by FH, and is also deeply tragic in a traditional sense going back to Ancient Greece. Neither Paul nor Leto II are depicted as villains, and both made some real personal sacrifices in the name of humanity's survival (at least, in the context of the Dune universe if not universal morality), whereas Kane's ultimate objective was to get off the Earth finally (?).
This post has been edited by MrFlibble: 02 March 2019 - 02:10 AM
BTW, I think that the license for Westwood's Dune games came from Dino De Laurentiis Company as the David Lynch movie license (hence all the similarities to the film in Dune 2000 and Emperor), not from the Herbert estate.
Well, it makes sense since Virgin clearly wanted to promote the movie with their games hence all the similarities to the film, as I said before, if it wasn't for the movie we definitely wouldn't have those games. Video games rarely surpass the movies they're supposed to promote (majority of them are bland and are easily forgotten), but I guess it's not surprising that Dune is an exception of the rule (IMO) since Westwood put a lot of love into making it which C&C also proves it.
MrFlibble, on 02 March 2019 - 02:10 AM, said:
basically they wanted to go further with the concepts laid out in Dune II but didn't want to be constrained by an external license.
it's one of these cases when this worked out even better than expected, granted back then the times were different. I love Dune RTS games and it's one of my all time favorites, but I think Dune wouldn't work well with a lot of C&C ideas which is why there aren't a lot of similarities between those two series, unlike say between Wasteland and Fallout, for example. Though at some point when I booted Tiberian Dawn I was a bit skeptical about C&C and thought that Westwood couldn't surpass Dune 2 (the biggest reason was the fact that my first and oldest C&C game was Generals with RA2/3), but later realized how wrong I was.
By the way, I gotta say that their Ordos house was pretty good idea and it doesn't make the game unlikable (unless you're some extreme Dune zealot I guess).
This post has been edited by Sledgehammer: 02 March 2019 - 05:24 AM
By the way, I gotta say that their Ordos house was pretty good idea and it doesn't make the game unlikable (unless you're some extreme Dune zealot I guess).
House Ordos comes from the Dune Encyclopedia, which was an "authorised companion" to the Dune books written by some dedicated hard-core Dune fans. Someone borrowed the book to the Westwood team working on the game and they used some of the ideas from there, including the designs for House heraldry (which is actually different from the books, e.g. Heretics of Dune mentions that the Harkonnen symbol was a griffin not a ram's head).
Honestly, Game Of Thrones is definitly not a reference of quality or entertainment... you would have better deal in watching both these Dune mini-series !
House Ordos comes from the Dune Encyclopedia, which was an "authorised companion" to the Dune books written by some dedicated hard-core Dune fans. Someone borrowed the book to the Westwood team working on the game and they used some of the ideas from there, including the designs for House heraldry (which is actually different from the books, e.g. Heretics of Dune mentions that the Harkonnen symbol was a griffin not a ram's head).
Yeah but the Dune Encyclopedia is not canon. I know that Westwood used the Encyclopedia for creating the games but I did not want to bring that into the discussion because that would just make it too convoluted for people who don't know the source material. The Ordos do not appear in the Frank Herbet books, they do not appear in any of the extended universe books by Brian Herbert and the Encyclopedia differs from FH's Heretics and Chapterhouse books = the Ordos doesn't exist, it's fanfiction.
This post has been edited by Zaxx: 02 March 2019 - 02:25 PM
Sledgehammer, on 08 February 2019 - 04:06 AM, said:
The entire C&C Klepacki's work in lossless? No, not even for money. That's why I said I hope for it to come out. Otherwise there is music on his site which is in stereo lossy quality (but better than in-game obviously): http://www.frankklepacki.com/
Click "listen", this is where he has the entire work.
I remember writing to the man himself years ago about the possible release of a complete Command & Conquer soundtrack. Unfortunately, he told me it was pretty much beyond his control.
IIRC it was in one of the interviews with someone from Westwood (Brett Sperry? not sure) who said that basically they wanted to go further with the concepts laid out in Dune II but didn't want to be constrained by an external license. BTW, I think that the license for Westwood's Dune games came from Dino De Laurentiis Company as the David Lynch movie license (hence all the similarities to the film in Dune 2000 and Emperor), not from the Herbert estate.
Yep, they used the movie license, even Cryo's later 3D adventure game was based on the TV miniseries and not on the actual book. The Herberts don't care about licensing Dune out for videogames and even now Funcom is working with Legendary on the new games so chances are those will be similar to the Denis Villeneuve movie.
Quote
[As a long-time Dune fan I'll have to strongly disagree on this, especially concerning the "two great factions" part...
I'm not saying that Westwood did not change and add things to the concept but it is the same concept. Yes, Dune gets far away from the "two great factions" part very quickly but the Atreides - Harkonnen rivalry is still a strong part of the first book. On top of that it's a part of the story Frank Herbert likes to return to in some fashion (see Alia in Children of Dune, the planet Giedi Prime / Gammu in Heretics) so the Harkonnens may be gone in the later books but the Atreides still remember.
As for the Kane vs. Paul / II. Leto comparison: what you're saying is one way of looking at it but as you've said the characters (especially Leto) are very complex. They are not coming off as villains when you're reading the books because you are given the proper context to their actions but once you look at it from a different perspective (for example from the perspective of some random guy living in the Old Imperium) they absolutely come off as dictators. In the later books Herbert is playing around a lot with showing the God Emperor from different perspectives and the Golden Path was objectively a terrible thing for humanity to live through even 1500 years after the God Emperor people have a hard time to grasp why it was necessary (because they don't know what he - and with him you as the reader - knew). You know, the God Emperor said that he'll be called Shaitan after he's gone...
This is the aspect where I see the similarity with Kane. Sure, you're right in that Kane is a lot more simple but still, there is a subversion that happens to that "eeeevil villain" trope.
This post has been edited by Zaxx: 02 March 2019 - 03:28 PM
It's not really a spoiler: in the first book Paul discovers that the war is inevitable (it's not merely a possibility, Paul is a character who can see the future) and the second book starts after it has already ended.
This post has been edited by Zaxx: 02 March 2019 - 03:21 PM
I remember writing to the man himself years ago about the possible release of a complete Command & Conquer soundtrack. Unfortunately, he told me it was pretty much beyond his control.
Now the time is much different and franchise is now relevant in the eyes of EA, so I hope he finally will be able to make it happen. By the way, since Dune is getting attention too and since EA doesn't own their games it seems (hence they haven't released these on Origin too, pretty sure the rights for old games belongs to Herbert) I hope to see the full release of Dune games sountracks as well. With C&C and Emperor full soundtrack my life will be complete.
This post has been edited by Sledgehammer: 02 March 2019 - 11:32 PM
Most of the old C&C and Dune stuff got soundtrack releases though, no? I have this for example (not in its original form... yarr): https://www.discogs....release/7217350
Those most isn't everything which is what I've been saying many times because well, most of music wasn't released either which is very true for C&C expansions. I somehow found the entire Tiberian Sun OST in lossless though (official CD missed a lot of good tracks such as Nod Crush), but expansions are still missing and only Klepacki has it.
Also, are you saying that you have an actual Dune 2000 CD OST? If it's not lossless well, you can get mp3 higher quality music on Klepacki site and I have ripped this stuff myself. And Emperor CD is really meh. I still dream about having Harkonnen entire OST in lossless format.
This post has been edited by Sledgehammer: 03 March 2019 - 04:03 AM
Yeah, at the moment I thought you're one of these (maybe) lucky owners of this rare thing. I always wondered if this CD was legit and filled with actual lossless Dune 2000 music (i.e. better quality than on Klepacki site).
Honestly I don't think it matters much that the soundtracks are not available in lossless format: sure, that's the authentic, original stuff but chances are that Klepacki didn't really use top tier equipment back in the day and if an MP3 release is done well you really don't lose anything even though the format itself is lossy. Those OSTs don't need FLAC to sound awesome, what they need is a remaster.
Like remember when Blizzard remastered the original StarCraft soundtrack for SC2 and then for SC Remastered? Those are 128 kbps MP3 files yet they sound better than the old soundtrack CD I actually have.
This post has been edited by Zaxx: 03 March 2019 - 05:54 AM
Never paid much attention to the Dune games; I remember trying Dune 2000 on OpenRA and hating it. However, listening to the soundtrack right now, I have to admit it is good.
That is weird thing with me and Westwood/Petroglyph: I cannot say I ever really liked any of their games, but I sure do love Frank Klepacki's music; I even bought Grey Goo, which is such a frustrating waste of AMAZING ideas, for the soundtrack alone; heck, I would even go as far as to say that "War Is Evolving" has to be the pinnacle of his career, because holy shit, how can he possibly top that?
Anyway, I too hope to complete my collection of Frank Klepacki's Command & Conquer soundtracks; I can live without the Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert expansion ones, not because they are bad but because I just do not remember most of them, but I really look forward to a proper release of the Firestorm and Yuri's Revenge soundtracks.
This post has been edited by johnnythewolf: 03 March 2019 - 06:01 AM
OpenRA is crap anyway, sure its fancy but never really liked it and you pretty much can run every C&C with no issue on modern systems thanks to its dedicated community. The only worthwhile sourceports I'd recommend is for Dune 2 and that's mainly because you can use music packs there (there is MT-32 and SC-55 soundtracks for it). As for Dune 2000, you can play original with no problem and in widescreen too, just google it, there is a fan version which includes all the necessary patches you need and they even made a new campaign. Shit is quite challenging though (the main game), especially if you don't know what to do. Some of the stuff is scripted as far as I can remember.
Emperor is much easier though and it's kind of bad that you can easily exploit rush tactics which was really funny to use sometimes.
This post has been edited by Sledgehammer: 03 March 2019 - 06:20 AM
I do not think OpenRA is the problem, at least for me; I just do not like the traditional C&C gameplay very much nor was I ever particularly good at real-time strategy games in general. The only games of the genre that I actually like are StarCraft and its sequels, and even them, I mostly played for the plot and characters. I also recently bought the two Krush Kill 'N Destroy games on GOG for the music alone.
As it happens here's a recently published snippet of dev history:
Sledgehammer, on 03 March 2019 - 06:13 AM, said:
The only worthwhile sourceports I'd recommend is for Dune 2 and that's mainly because you can use music packs there (there is MT-32 and SC-55 soundtracks for it).
Also Dune Dynasty is based on reverse-engineered code of the original game meaning it's as accurate as it gets (whereas OpenRA is a from-scratch reconstruction AFAIK).
Zaxx, on 02 March 2019 - 03:12 PM, said:
I'm not saying that Westwood did not change and add things to the concept but it is the same concept. Yes, Dune gets far away from the "two great factions" part very quickly but the Atreides - Harkonnen rivalry is still a strong part of the first book. On top of that it's a part of the story Frank Herbert likes to return to in some fashion (see Alia in Children of Dune, the planet Giedi Prime / Gammu in Heretics) so the Harkonnens may be gone in the later books but the Atreides still remember.
I think it is one of the strengths of Westwood's Dune games that they basically went their own way and did not stick to the books save for taking the most basic of plot premises and faction names. The warfare between the Great Houses as portrayed in Dune II and the sequels would make zero sense in the context of the original books (I once read a short fanfic that made passing references to Devastators and Deviators as part of the Harkonnen invasion force during the takeover depicted in the first book, that was simply out of place). The attempts to retroactively introduce some lore concepts like shields in Emperor don't make much sense either (active shields = worm frenzy as per the books).
Thankfully Westwood people didn't bother much and created a game with the mechanics that turned out very suitable for Command & Conquer type of warfare.
Zaxx, on 02 March 2019 - 02:24 PM, said:
Yeah but the Dune Encyclopedia is not canon. I know that Westwood used the Encyclopedia for creating the games but I did not want to bring that into the discussion because that would just make it too convoluted for people who don't know the source material. The Ordos do not appear in the Frank Herbet books, they do not appear in any of the extended universe books by Brian Herbert and the Encyclopedia differs from FH's Heretics and Chapterhouse books = the Ordos doesn't exist, it's fanfiction.
It does not matter if the Encyclopaedia is "canon" or not (I never implied that it is BTW), because Westwood's games are not "canon" anyway. You can easily replace Dune with someplace else, spice with whatever unobtanium you like and Great Houses with other faction types, and it would not in the least affect core gameplay. (As a matter of fact, someone already did that, but the result has meh mechanics as far as I can tell). In a way, Dune II turned out to be a prototype for C&C more than anything else. (I don't believe I ever read that anywhere but I can imagine that Dune II could have been initially a stand-alone project that was used as a base when Virgin commissioned a Dune license game).
That said, I don't think there's any similarity between the GDI/Nod conflict and the Atreides/Harkonnen conflict beyond both being large-scale conflicts involving many individuals. Now Emperor of the Fading Suns, that's a game that has a great degree of similarity to the Dune universe of books, but gameplay-wise it's completely unlike any Westwood RTS.
On a side note, the fact that House Ordos is not mentioned in the original hexalogy doesn't mean that it does not "exist" in the Dune Universe. There's no statement in the books that it doesn't exist either.
The main interest of KKND are te research system and the humor (way more funny than RA), the musics are poor in number, even with Xtreme (although this have been solved in KKND 2)
From what I have played of Krush Kill 'N Destroy, it seems to be an average Command & Conquer clone, but the Frank Klepacki-inspired music is quite good.
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Sledgehammer, on 27 February 2019 - 02:17 AM, said:
I hope that the new movie will finally get it right: Paul is not space Jesus, he is not the fremen messiah, he's just the result of a breeding program and some religious manipulation.
