Dune was likely before a lot of people's time on here and honestly, i can't recommend that anyone go back and revisit it. That being said it was the first time I was ever introduced to Real Time Strategy (RTS) games and that sort of game is to this day the most addictive to me.
I have no recollection of how it is that I came upon this game, we probably copied the 11 or so floppy disks off my neighbor (naughty, i know) but we had a PC computer and as you might expect, there wasn't much to those systems back in the day. I remember ours was manufactured by a company that no longer exists and had a "Turbo" button on it that would flash. I'm quite certain that this button didn't actually do anything other than make a light flash.
Moving on...
The game functioned in the same manor that we've come to expect from RTS games, you gather resources, develop technologies, recruit troops and build defenses for your base. All the while the "fog of war" is keeping you from knowing what lies in the great beyond and normally this would mean some hidden enemies.
You choose which house you want to represent (Atreides, Harkonnen, or Ordos) and work on conquering the entire planet of Arrakis. Each team has their own strengths and weaknesses and to be honest from what I remember it didn't really make much of a difference which house you chose.
As you swept through each map, you had to be aware of your enemy but also the famous sand-worm from the film that would gobble up your harvesters that were collecting "spice" as well as other units.
The sand worm had no alliance and would attack indiscriminately and therefore it was important to keep most units on solid ground whenever possible. Since spice could only be harvested from the sand, some of your vehicles would always be in danger.
As the game carried on it became more and more complex and the player would sometimes find themselves fighting both of the other houses at once... It was nice to see that the AI, even back in 1992 was still capable of having both the computer controlled enemies at times fight with one another.
There were some story segments, but as you might expect these were not terribly impressive because the hardware at the time, even the most expensive systems, simply weren't capable of doing very much.
Although Dune II was technically not the first RTS game, it may as well have been. It was such a success as an innovative game-style that it was adapted for the Genesis and would become the standard for which all future RTS games would be based on. Command and Conquer came next, and other than the spice and other copyrighted features owned by Dune, the game was essentially the same thing, but just more complex and as time normally dictates, better.
I loved this game and completed it many times. There was a remake in 2000 with updated graphics but I've not actually ever played it. I think i should do so.
If you are interested in seeing / playing a piece of gaming history, you can download and play it for free here