Dune II and the three rules of a good licensed game | Hacker News Reader

Dune II and the three rules of a good licensed game

gamesindustry.biz

34 pointstosh13 comments

Same topic, a very nice and interesting article about Dune II: https://www.filfre.net/2018/12/controlling-the-spice-part-3-...

The previous one about Dune I is also very interesting.

I played it on 386 with CM8330 sound blaster clone, and although I've heard the soundtrack many times later on, different versions too, it never sounded as good as it did back then. I wonder if it is just my imagination.

(rough as hell memory here), I'm almost certain there were two different versions due to the same reason myself!

Wikipedia has a bit about the different versions (e.g. the Mega Drive version also had quite different unit graphics).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_II#Release

Yep, the rules definitely make sense here.

Key being 'make a good game to begin with'. Too many licensed games just take the IP, slap it on a poorly done, generic template and call it a day.

Of course, there are some exceptions to every rule here. Ecks vs Sever was a series of two amazing video games based on one of the worst films of all time. In that case, ignoring the IP altogether was probably the best move.

Am I the only one who saw IP mentioned like a hundred times without knowing what it meant?

Intellectual property, i.e. the Dune branding/universe in this case.

link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(franchise)

> It's also worth a few notes on the IP of Dune

He says that before he starts using IP everywhere.

Also, the title literally says "licensed game".

That read... forced. More to plug this guy's company than to offer any actually interesting insight.

Actually I've played Dune-II for a very long time on my 486, and have many fond memories from that era.

Maybe because of that, the read didn't feel forced. It also enlightened me, why everything in the game clicked so well in my head.

I still play it in DOSBox sometimes. It's worth a spin.

it definitely is an angle through the lens of someone who cares about licensing IP.

That’s what I found interesting because the combination of licensing aspects + creativity + execution is what makes these game (book, and movie) adaptions amazing evergreen pieces or really bad.

so few examples that transitioned well from medium to medium (just think of all the movies turned/forced into video games and vice versa).

I read your comment before reading the article and I almost feel as if it's(the article) been ripped from somewhere and then some has been thrown on at the end. I definitely agree with your position.

(Also dune 2 was definitely the first game to get me super interested in pc's, :referring to another comment about nostalgia).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com