After 20 years in the desert, Dune 2 is back on PC. Ported from an open-source version of the game, the pioneering RTS – which laid the foundations for games like Starcraft 2 , Total War and Command and Conquer - has been faithfully recreated in HTML 5, so you can play it in your browser without handing over a single grain of spice. Or any real money.
If you fancy a quick blast of nostalgia, or you want a history lesson about the formative years of RTS during your lunch break, the game's right here .
It's a faithful port of the original, so controls are understandably fiddly (using the map to scroll around the screen is a nightmare), and visually my HD pampered eyes found it tough to track the smudgy little Harkonnen soldiers hiding in the sand; but the actual strategy still holds up pretty well.
I haven't played it long enough to tell whether or not the game still cheats by awarding itself extra spice, nor have I had a glimpse of 20 year-old space worm. Nonetheless: the sleeper has awakened!
