Gaming on AmigaOS 4.1: Dune Legacy (Dune Legacy Team / Zettmaster and Big H)

Hello there and welcome to another game review here on the Gaming on AmigaOS 4.1 blog.

This time we’ll be looking at a real-time strategy game called Dune Legacy. It is based upon the old and legendary Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty, which was released for both Amiga and PC back in the days, as well as on SEGA Mega Drive.

According to the authors, Dune Legacy is an effort by a handful of developers to revitalize the old classic. They say it does its best to be as similar as possible to the original, but also to integrate features most modern RTS-games has, like selecting multiple units at once.

The latest available version is 0.96.4. The AmigaOS 4 port done by Zettmaster and Big H is version 0.96.3, which is the second most recent one.

Like many others, I have fond memories of playing Dune II on my Amiga in the 90’s. I think it was the first RTS-game I ever played! In this review we’ll have a look at how it plays on AmigaOS 4.1.

Installation

To get hold of Dune Legacy, you can either head over to OS4Depot or just click the download-link below:

http://os4depot.net/share/game/strategy/dunelegacy.lzx

When the download has finished, enter its directory and right-click on the file called “dunelegacy.lzx”. Choose the option “extract to” and then select a destination drawer. The game will then unpack.

Usually, if we consider the games reviewed earlier on this blog, we could just head on over to the directory of the game and double-click on the appropriate icon. In this case we’ll have to do some more. We have to copy the original Dune II data files and it must be from the PC-DOS version of the game. Copy its data files to “.config/dunelegacy/data”. After this, the game is ready to start.

Gameplay

So, how does Dune Legacy play on AmigaOS 4.1? Let’s go and have a look at the game. 🙂

The main menu of the game. Here you can choose between “Single Player”, “Multiplayer”, “Map Editor”, “Options”, and “About”.

This is the “About”-screen.

Here is the options of the game. You can change language, select whether the intro of the game should be played or not, full screen and more. I have not tried it in full screen myself, but it is nice to have the possibility.

Here’s the “Map Editor”. This is a good addition to the new version, bringing new content into the world of Dune II.

I have not tried making any maps myself, but for those of you who do, here’s a screenshot of the tool. 🙂

Dune Legacy supports multiplayer. Nice! This is also something new that was not present in the old version.

Ok, let’s have a go at a game. We’ll try the campaign!

Went with Atreides this time.

Information on the House of Atreides. It is worth mentioning that Dune Legacy has speech, which the old Amiga version lacked.

Our Mentat, Cyril, is present, ready to give us advice and provide us with challenges.

The game has started!

Another screenshot of the first stage. Multiple units has been selected at once.

At this point I’d like to mention that the authors behind Dune Legacy have done a great job improving the controls and the mechanics of the game. If I’m not mistaken, one could only select one unit at a time in the original. Now it’s possible to select several at once and then give them orders. This was a bit of a pain back in the days when there was a lot of action on the screen at the same time, so it’s great that this has been improved. 🙂 You can see from the screenshot above that it is easier to handle your troops. To attack an enemy, you can now right-click on it directly, no need to choose an appropriate action in the menu.

Let’s try the “Skirmish”-mode. Here you can select a faction and then choose which mission to fight. This is handy if you need some practice before attempting to complete a mission in the campaign.

Here we go! Our advisor is providing us with an update.

Here you can see the Harvester unit in action.

The in-game options.

To sum it up, Dune Legacy is an improved version of Dune II that, in my opinion, makes the game more playable again. For those (myself included :D) who have become accustomed to easier controls in these kinds of games, Dune Legacy helps with bringing those functions into the old classic. If you’ve only played the Amiga version before, you’ll notice the better graphics as well. Dune Legacy also provides multiplayer and map editor, making the game richer and more interesting for those who would like to continue playing after the campaigns has been completed. The team behind the game has done an excellent job and it was fun to play Dune II again, now on AmigaOS 4.1. So, thumbs up for Dune Legacy! 🙂