The revolution is cancelled. Groups of friends clad in stillsuits darkly spit precious water into the sand, rolling up banners with tanned K. MacLachlan. The once-promised revelation, upon close inspection, was found retouched by a copy of the deity from the past days. Shai-Hulud growls with displeasure, digging the ringed carcass deeper into the sand - the worms are also sad.
1st commandment: do not believe the songs of the sweet-voiced European press. Emperor: Battle for Dune - this is in general only Dune 2000, decency because of the polygonal camouflage coat. The unfortunate three-dimensionality, about which videos squealed half a year ago, seems to exist in a video game only to provide an additional overload on the so-called Athlones and the so-called GeForce 2. "power users". The rest of the Emperor components behave as if it's still 1998, and top-down RTS painted in 65536 colors are not yet considered bad manners. The probability of accidental table-turning is not perceived as something out of the ordinary, and the free camera in other RTSs is tightly screwed to the path "the largest collision in 3 quarters - an eagle's eye from above." Intermediate states are possible, but discouraged - embarrassing. By the way speaking, the users mentioned above have every chance if they intend to conduct an amusing experience on Emperor. Having unscrewed all graphic functions without exception to the maximum, turned on FSAA 4x4 and 1024x768 mode, create a zoom out ("thousandth" T-Bird with all this is guaranteed to choke later, giving 5-7 fps to the monitor) and marvel at the similarity.
It's sad to admit, but Emperor is no longer able to amaze us with anything else. Ultra-clear textures, well-calculated shadows and detailed, lovingly drawn buildings and subordinates have been seen by the public more than once more than 2. We saw these retina-blinding explosions in the extravagant Dogs of War, admired the unusual bends of the relief in Earth 2150 and reveled in the spectacle of sand artistically accepted by trucks in Ground Control (by the way, there is no such thing in Emperor - sand, according to Westwood, is a hard substance, and why it doesn't wrinkle). The local Samums, for some reason raising only people to the heights, ignoring the technique as an accent, cannot be compared with snowfalls from the same Earth 2150, and only the appearance of a worm sparkling with lightning, chewing a harvester with appetite, can touch a heart that has hardened over the years experienced strategist.
Build a base - build a defense - recruit an army - hit the most "I don't want to". Play. All quest missions, including those in which the base construction site is tidied up in favor of plot circumstances, are completed on autopilot. Emperor imposes on the playing public the already classic C&C-shaped aspect to the business of taking out the carcasses of opponents, along with the interface familiar from Tiberian Sun (it has become translucent and boasts of multi-colored lights with any comfortable option). A more traditional set of wards from any of the 3 sides is diluted with the presence of a couple of "bonus" ones from each of 5 different factions: Ix, Tleilaxu, Spacing Guild, Fremen and Sardaukars. The past ones are an insignificant idea - having lost the ruler (according to the official version, the poor fellow accepted death from the poisoned nail of his concubine), the once ferocious guard reincarnated into a mass of hot Caucasian men, randomly firing into the air from service weapons. Ix have degraded and today they give quite shameful squalor like mechanical kamikaze octopuses and holoprojector machines. Fremen still take not so much with reason, but with numbers and invisibility. The brand new Spacing Guild contain cloned RA Chrono- and Tesla Tanks galore, and Tleilaxu crushes opponents with zerg-like biomass that spawns in hellish amounts. The creators play democracy by offering us to select Tleilaxu or Ix, Fremen or Sardukars, which can lead to an erroneous judgment, as if we have, however, the smallest opportunity to influence the formation of history.
Among the latest releases, a separate article is an inter-mission view. Skillfully manipulating the mind of a gamer, Westwood evokes in his soul a sense of his role - from now on, instead of one or two available quests, a dozen will flash on the screen at once! Reacting to our expansion, silicon competitors have every chance to try to return back the terrain that was just conquered with blood, thereby increasing the gameplay time as a minimum amount twice compared to Dune 2000. You can surrender the terrain, or you can fight back, while in the 2nd option, the defending side receives a significant advantage in the form of an already operational base. A worthy replacement for the annoying way of smoothly feeding the gamer quest mission after mission.
Another dubious innovation is the institution of reinforcements. There is every reason to believe that it was installed only because of the support for stupid (including at the "hard" stage!) AI. Essence in the future - during the quest mission, the belligerents sometimes earn reinforcements from cells adjacent to the conflict zone, while if 3 and a half infantrymen and an insignificant sand bike come to us, then masses of disgusting Tlelaxian freaks are observed on the basis of AI. You are annoyed, so how did you personally see that before the mission, the ratio of reinforcements was equal to 5:2 to please you? Take validol and play on: in Emperor, mass runs of enemy hordes are considered the generally accepted norm of action and, in fact, the only way to guarantee an AI laurel wreath.
Completing the spanking of AI, we note its absolute inability to go through the so-called "MCV test". This patented technique for touching silicon brains consists of counting the time elapsed from the minute an enemy Construction Yard is taken out until the computer decides to build a replacement (obviously with the presence of the appropriate factory). Here Emperor couldn't break away from other C&C brothers: in 95% of situations AI calmly spat on the destroyed building and continued to rivet tanks. The remaining 5% fell on a very unusual fragment: the enemy, who managed to give birth to MCV from the 2nd test, fell into a deep coma while trying to put the base back in its original place. The clumsy tractor was desperately trying to slip out of the base, thereby tightly plugging the narrow passage between the 2 guns. The resulting plug was destroyed by the cheerful volleys of friendly Minotaurs within a minute. In general, the mind of the allied troops is similarly much more likely to cause early gray hair - in the local hit parade of glitches, pathfinding curve, stacking of inflatable wards, suicidal sclerosis of harvesters, shooting at an already killed target and the inability of a pair of tanks to miss each other on a completely flat area are boldly leading. The audience is waiting for the patches, desperately cutting the armrests of the chairs.
The work Westwood has done to achieve any sort of tangible game balance deserves careful commendation. Concrete slabs - a weapon for capturing bases in Dune 2000, if anyone does not remember - were sent to the scrap. The weightless capacities of the 3 Dwellings have more or less equaled, and the "rushes" are held back by the likelihood of the prompt construction of all-round protection. But it’s sad for the balance of the superweapon - if the Harkonnen nuclear missile in 2 accounts is able to remove 3/4 of the “life” of the enemy Construction Yard, and the Ordos electric storm can sow death from among crowds of people and armored vehicles, then the Atreides enjoy an insignificant wand with the tempting name Eagle Strike. At the moment of time "X", a vulgar hologram of a flying falcon hangs over the enemy troops, which is why they (one must think, from purely aesthetic judgments) in a hurry leave the place of an unusual natural paradox. The vision darkens and becomes decidedly unclear - either the once devastating bombings were canceled due to balance, or EA, in an effort to guarantee a video game a "Teen" rating, threw them overboard along with gore and under censored trailers.
And the videos, whose blurred bodies take up a huge part of the space of 4 CDs, are not bad.Westwood has completely mastered the technique of combining digitized actors with a pre-rendered background, which makes the result look no worse than any big-budget series (South American, obviously - Cops and other rabble to crawl in the indicated direction for another 20 years, the minimum amount). Wonderful costumes, staged conversation between the actors, chic scenery... the only thing missing is the adrenaline, which disappeared along with the little mini-scenes "from front-line life" that made up a good half of the C&C and Red Alert setting. In Emperor, everything is strictly to the point: each video is the latest briefing, and the rarest exceptions, like the scene of an unsuccessful attempt at killing the Sardukari authorities, are observed in a meager number.
The illusion of the uniqueness of each of the Dwellings is completely collapsing, one has only to compare their videos with each other. We are fed almost 1 and the same plot, multiplied in 3 copies with the substitution of surroundings and working persons. Watching a Mentat at Ordos Refuge repeat exactly what his own employee at Harkonnen Retreat uttered in a soft-spoken way is disgusting. It is not entirely clear what specifically prevented Westwood from arranging a plot in the form and likeness of the unfortunate StarCraft, whose video inserts and for the 100 5th time constantly delight viewers. Frantic adherence to the vicious traditions of Dune 2/2000? It would be nice to spit on the screenwriters, but I'm afraid they will regard it as a criterion of respect.
It seems that the beast called "three-dimensionality" for employees of Westwood is still considered to be uniquely exotic curiosity. They shyly cut circles around her dynamically lit body, poking with sticks and grabbing her udders in an attempt to understand what's what, what can be milked from her glands, deadly detained by competing firms. So far, the result of their creativity is really good as a gift to a friend Dimka - for a taken strategist who bought a Pentium 4 the other day at a flea market. With trembling hands, Dimka will open a chic package, launch a video game and, having rolled the camera to his heart's content, will announce: "It's Dune 2, by God! Only three-dimensional." After that, on the 1st breath, ten quests pass. Without quivering excitement, but with a slight enthusiasm - force of habit.
The music track in Emperor, as Westwood should be, is beautiful. Having invited 3 composers for projects on the soundtrack, the creators endowed any of the Dwellings with their own musical style. Atreides gravitate toward a symphony rich in oriental samples. Ordos rush into battle under a completely transcendent hodgepodge of industrial, break-beat and ambient. The Harkonnens got melodic bass riffs and a hint of sadness, very atypical for such a militant Habitation. 3 hours 8 minutes of music lovers' delight, which, if you intend, you can listen to after an ordinary WinAMP - enough to change the extension of the music.bag files that are lying on the second, 3rd and fourth discs to .MP3. Rejoice.
