Dune Rage

WARNING: *possible Dune-related Spoilers


How many Dune fans out there play video games? Can't be too many, most of what Cryo developed was Dune titles and that company went out of business some time ago. Obviously Handsome Tom, and the fine folks at TheGameHeroes don't seem to pay attention to either Dune or games in general.

If you're like me and not only a gamer, but a Dune fan; you should be outraged. If you're just a gamer, I'm about to explain why you should be pissed off too. Now before I get into this, I'm not trying to be one of those people who's about to fall through his soapbox defaming the merits of a gaming "journalist" or personality. My beef is with videos like the one above that have been produced without doing any research on the topic at all. This guy has some great enthusiasm for someone who doesn't know anything about the topic he's informing us on. 


What qualifies me to judge whether or not what he's saying is accurate? That's a good question, and I understand that Frank Herbert is dead and to most, Brian Herbert doesn't really know anything about Dune. I simply used the eyes, ears and brain in my fuckin' head... That's it... I've seen a lot of videos from these guys and others from various sources and have not been impressed with almost any of their content. For example, in a top 10 list on Gametrailers.com, it was said that Vector Man 2 was never released, and that Ecco The Dolphin: Defender of the Future was a Playstation 2 exclusive. Now, I don't pretend to know everything, but it pisses me off when someone from a "reputable" organization that's supposed to be representing the industry as a whole says something that is so blatantly inaccurate, it's bordering on disgraceful. This guy has obviously never read Dune, let alone any other book that didn't involve boy wizards or journeys to destroy evil jewelry.


With that said, lets pull this fucker apart and see what makes it tick.


Number 1: The who hit the what now?
Ok, at 00:19 it's already astounding how big of an asshole he comes off as. He says "The shit had hit the fan for sci-fi enthusiasts when they announced, Dune." He then goes on to laud the gameplay and story. Typically when the shit hits the fan it's a bad thing, but not for Handsome Tom here. One day he'll tell his kids about how the shit hit the fan when he met their mother. Maybe this is nitpicky and more about a blatant misuse of the English Language than a reenforcement of the point I'm trying to make here, but I think it sets the tone for the mess that spills out of his mouth next.


Number 2: Brian Herbert wrote shitty prequels, Frank Herbert wrote Dune. (spoilers)
At 00:24 you can stop watching. In one sentence this guy proves that he doesn't know anything about the game or the film. He calls the game, "The prequel to one of our favorite movies."  Obviously it wasn't his favorite movie as the events in the game AND film both clearly coincide time-wise, even if not in the same way. Somehow, I don't think the Atreides left Caladan for Dune, mined spice, overthrew the emperor of the known universe and the forces of House Harkonnen all to go back to Caladan and start over. I also don't think Duke Leto Atreides-and other assorted characters, died in the game and came back to life so they could be in the movie. There are countless examples of why what he says is stupid, uninformed, bad writing, but don't take my word for it; just watch the movie. I'm not saying the game follows the events of the film closely or at all. In fact, after the family arrives on Dune in the game the writers obviously take some creative liberties with the story. There is no mention of Dr. Yuhe and the Harkonnen plot to destroy House Atreides, and the Duke's death is brought on by his Orni being shot down by the Harkonnens. Does it piss me off that there are so many differences just here? Not really, the film's story wasn't conducive to the style of gameplay they were going for. Can you imagine playing the game as is and going through the escape scene with Paul, his mother, and the two Harkonnen terror troops? Really, this game could have happened in any universe, Dune just happened to be somewhat popular and Cryo/Virgin had a license for the IP. That's business.


Number 3: What is he talking about?
So listening to what he says in 01:27, when he starts going on about how having lots of voiceover in a Sega CD game is no small feat, I got a stomach ulcer. There aren't too many Sega CD games that DON'T have copious amounts of voiceover or live-action video scenes. Seriously, this is why they put games on CD back then. To him an incredible feat must be tying his shoes unassisted.


Number 4: He's not myopic, he's just lazy.
Ok, so it's obvious he's just reading whatever someone put in front of him or writing whatever the fuck he wants. That's no surprise. Or at least it isn't when you hear what he says at 01:29. "The character design attempted to follow the movie closely." Is that right?

Why, they could all be related for all I know. Cousins maybe?

All of the screens from the film were captured from scenes before I was 20 minutes in. That means that all this guy had to do was watch 20 minutes of Dune to understand why what he wrote down was completely and utterly wrong. The only two characters that really look similar to their movie counterparts (that I've seen so far) are Paul and his mother Jessica.


Here's how I think the writing process for their review must have gone down.


Guy-01: "Hey HT, I need you to hurry up and get that review for Dune on the Sega CD done before I kick your face in.


HT: "Shit, that means I have to play this thing now doesn't it?"


GUY-01: "I guess. You should probably watch the movie too."


HT: "You know, I watched the first 5 minutes of it, and played the game for like, a half hour before I got bored. They have the same opening, and that guy from Blue Velvet looks like he did in the movie. What if I just wing it and say the character design tries to be pretty accurate to the look of the film, and say it was a really cool game? Oh! And so people think I know what I'm talking about I'll reference Dune 2."


GUY-01: Do you know anything about the story?"


HT: "Hmm... Nope! I'm just going to assume that this is a prequel to the film because someone said it was different somehow."


GUY-01: "Whatever, where's my scotch?"


Given the content of the video, I think this scenario fits.


Number 5: I think we all get it.
There are some other things that deserve mentioning that I'll just gloss over, but honestly they don't really warrant going into. I don't think I need to tell you that the only actor from the film who appears in the intro is Virginia Madsen, who delivers the opening monologue. This rant isn't even about Dune really. It's more about checking your sources before you step forward as an authority on a subject. These are the kinds of careless,  elementary mistakes I would expect to see from a high school student writing about how much he loves "pwning noobs in Halo", while the only research he's done is taking bong hits and hurling racial slurs on X-Box Live until 3 in the morning. I would not expect this from someone representing any gaming news or media source.


So that's it. I'd love to hear you all spew some hate and prove me wrong, or even just call me petty. Regardless, I'm not going to stop you from watching misinformed videos that state the Sega 32x was solely a CD-based add on for the Genesis. Or from watching top-ten worst console lists that have the "Phantom", as the number 10 entry because they couldn't come up with 10 bad consoles that were actually released (totally neglecting the awful Apple/Bandai Pippin). If that's your speed, go for it. I don't care one way or the other. All I'm doing is correcting blatant errors that were never cross-referenced, and calling for fact-checking from trusted sources for news and information in the gaming industry. Is that so much to ask?

The Quest Begins!

I've returned from the great white north! I didn't get a ton writing done in Wisconsin, but what I did get down on paper I think made for some decent content to set the stage for today!  

While in Wisconsin, I stepped outside to use the Internet. Yeah, that sentence seemed a bit strange when I wrote it. It’s sort of like the front door was a time warp and it was 1989 inside and 2010 outside. Whatever, the point is I managed to download a Sega Genesis CD 32X emulator for the Mac called “Kega”, which actually works pretty well. Since I didn’t have my Sega CD 32X with me on this trip it was imperative that I found another way to enjoy the copy of MegaRace I picked up at the Mall of America.

Upon getting everything to work by finally saying fuck the directions and just putting the BIOS files on the desktop instead of in the application support folder; I was a bit miffed by the quality of the SCD port of MegaRace. As you know (I hope you do if you’re reading this), The Sega Genesis can only display 64 colors simultaneously. The Genesis with the Sega CD attachment could display… 64 colors. That’s right, besides adding greater capacity for game storage and some scaling capabilities the Sega CD does almost nothing to boost the old Genesis’ features. That is bordering on retarded when you’re talking about using live-action video and pre-rendered computer-animation in a game. MegaRace had a still slim palette of 256 colors on the PC, which -though ridiculous today- was still way more than the Sega fucking CD had! This game never really belonged on the system.

Perhaps this was Lance Boyle's blue period?

I’ll go into more detail about what’s wrong with this version in my next entry, but suffice it to say; I was a bit disappointed when I started playing the game. Then I remembered I still had my old PC copy kicking around my office. Upon my return from the north a feverish search began for my PC version of MegaRace. Not only did I find it, I found it with the original manual completely intact. I don’t think I can hook my old Thrust Master joystick up to my Mac Pro, but that would make it perfect! Please don’t ask me where the box is. Almost all of my boxes were thrown away when I moved east in 1999. It was not my decision…

Bliss...

The only problem that remained was the fact that this was a DOS era game and I’m on a Mac, which famously works with hardly any games. But one quick search online and suddenly I was playing the 1994 classic on a quad-core machine with six gigs of RAM and a 24” monitor using Boxer. Boxer is a DOS emulator for OSX based on the DOS Box emulator for Windows. Seldom have I felt such glee.

Never before had I thought it possible to play my DOS games on ANY Mac, Let alone my Mac Pro.

Thanks to this crap version of an otherwise great game, I’ve been reminded of what an avid PC gamer I was in 1992 through 1998 and have taken a look at my old DOS and Windows collection that I never thought I’d play again. I think some of these are a pretty good place to start on my quest to beat them all… or at least most of them. The first game on my quest shall be... MegaRace!


Though I've never beaten this game, I have played the shit out of it. I'm going to give it like 3 weeks before (in the interest of brevity), I say screw it and move on to the next game in my collection. This is the beginning!

A Spectacle of Modern Commerce

Ok, so I was distraught at the thought of not bringing my Genesis 1 with a Powerbase converter to play me some Phantasy Star and report back; but let me explain. I knew there was only one TV here and I didn't want to monopolize it. I know, I'm a real sweetheart. That said, my thirst for classic gaming has not gone unquenched! First on our agenda was a trip to The Mall of America in Minnesota!

Bask in its materialistic glory.

For those of you who either don't live in the mid-north of the United States, or are simply out of the know (seriously, I grew up in Colorado and had heard of this place!); The Mall of America is a mighty monument to capitalism and consumerism. Located in Minnesota, it is the second largest shopping mall in the United States in terms of usable retail space. The only thing surprising about the mall is that there isn't a mammoth bronze statue of Sam Walton out front with a plaque bearing PT Barnum’s famous, “There's one born every minute”, quote and greeting consumers with a knowing grin out in the parking lot (that distinction goes to Kingfisher Oklahoma).

We were figuring out a plan of attack on the mall. I was driving when Stacy asked what I wanted to see in there while she was glancing over the directory in the backseat. I said “nothing” as I guessed there would probably be two Game Stops and nothing else. It was a good guess in that I was right, but an easy one... Why wouldn't there be two Game Stops in the second biggest mall in the country... There's two Game Stops down the street I live off of... Fuck I hate Game Stop. 

I meandered about the second biggest Mall in the country and had lunch at A&W. On the menu for me was loaded French fries and deep-fried cheese curds (a local delicacy). Yeah, one of those would have been fine by itself, but together I swear they aged me about five years. I still get a sick feeling looking at the image below.

Looking back, this was a terrible decision.

After punishing my colon for no good reason, I continued perusing the vast consumer wasteland. Then, far off on the horizon; I beheld a store that did not appear on any directory, yet there it was before me. My eyes widened and I let out a stifled "woot" under my breath as I saw first hand...

Words cannot express... *sniff

This place is probably the coolest store I've ever been to in a mall since Funco Land vanished, and definitely only one of two kiosks I've every actually bought anything from (man that other kiosk woman was pushy). The only irritating thing about it was that Game Stop gets two full storefronts, and in the same mall this place is relegated to a crumby kiosk by some shitty comedy club. Is there no justice? Still, despite being in a crappy location on Level 3 (of 4!), they did have an incredible selection of... Well everything!

The guy behind the counter opened this up for me and it even smelled new.

They had games for the Neo Geo, Turbo Grafx 16, Genesis, Sega CD, Saturn, Dreamcast, 32X, NES, SNES, Game Boy, Game Cube, N64, X-Box, X-Box 360, Wii, DS, Virtual Boy, Atari 2600, and a bunch of Playstation crap and used DVDs. Really, the best selection I've seen outside of eStarland in Virginia. My mother in law had given me a $25 Visa gift card just the day before, and though I knew it went against my quest, I could not not support this store and the awesome business they run. I ended up buying two Cryo-developed games for the Sega CD: Dune and MegaRace.

Coincidentally the music for both games was composed by the talented Stéphan Picq.

Call it a moment of weakness if you like, but I defy any one of you in the presence of such a thing to deny its siren call. Besides, I didn’t actually spend any of my money on these two. There’s some more images if you click the link below. You'll get the full effect and perhaps you too will succumb to her wild charms.

Flickr Album: Hi-Score Video Games