Dune: Spice Wars Review (TCK Kaine)
First off I love the Dune-verse, Frank Herbert did an awesome job writing a fantastic story and lore.
Pros
+ Atmosphere - the devs did a good job creating a dune-atmosphere, you can feel it just by looking at the menu screen and listening to the background music.
+ The music is awesome, it absolutely fits.
+ Engine seems good, It is kind of smooth as it works pretty well on my old PC on high, but I can say you'd need a mid-to high spec PC for perfect fluid gameplay.
+ Graphics are ok, the devs use a certain art style and it works, zoom in and it is pretty simple but still nice and works to give enough atmosphere and distinction to what the entities on what they are in-game. Intro and main menu art is fantastic, love watching that background every time I boot up, gives an instant "Dune-feel" mixed w the music. There are some graphical artifacts like zooming out the map you can see something in the middle in the background for example.
+/- Certain complexity but still not fully utilized or balanced enough.
+/- Factions too focused in a way - yes they all can succeed in getting different victories but if you want to focus on getting certain victories then it is easier playing them as they're supposed to be played as, using their strongest traits:
Harkonnen->assassination; Atreides->Political; Fremen->Domination; Smugglers->Eco; Corrino->Hegemony.
I'm partly okay with it, but at the same time it doesn't feel fully utilized either and it is a little boring as you understand how to counter them in unless RNG gives you a middle finger at the start. The flexibility isn't really there, yes you can get a good RNG and throw all your armies at the enemy and get domination with Atreides but they play better defensively and politically, for example.
+/- AI is predictable but aggressive AF on higher levels and will stab you when you sleep with borrowed krys-knives.
+/- No story atm but a campaign is on it's way, they say.
- Extremely slow, I don't mind long games but a match can take way too much time to win and you'll notice the slow down mid-game and you'll sit there watching the sands, sending ornithopters around scanning newly spawned caches because that's all you can do when you're at that point until you can achieve the desired victory.
- Plascrete is underused and overflowing mid-late, no need for that agent with 1% plascrete bonus, I kick him/her everytime.
- Assassinations are totally RNG and only Harkonnen have an edge in it as it is their faction's advantage. Just purge cells as soon as you can and place a few counter-intelligence agents and you can keep waiting for victory while looking at the sand dunes.
- No automation with CHOAM shares, I keep forgetting it unless I actually play for Eco win, which I still have to remind myself to check every 5 seconds to buy another load of shares when ticker is reset, which gets super annoying, an option for a auto-buy would be a welcome tool. This is important to think about when attempting a match with all victory conditions, some opponents will be rushing it if map RNG is lucky for them.
- Map RNG is a mixed bag, many restarts will be required. You can get a good RNG giving you lands that will give you a great boon early on, or sucky lands that will require you to explore further out to get a region with resources you need.
- Events are too few and rare, often only the same ones pop up and especially under certain conditions like getting spammed with the event to get a free Bene Gesserit agent when I steam rolled Shaddam with my Fremen... lol.
- Landsraad is forgettable, every faction with the mechanic will get to 500 in the end unless you play 1v1 using Harkonnen as your faction then you can sink your opponent to zero in Landsraad standing and hamper the opponent as long as you have enough influence to manipulate the voting session.
- Corrino is a bit too narrow and only one victory is viable for the faction in general (hegemony) if RNG is good enough. Political too unless you have Atreides in your game.
I gotta stop here before it becomes a full-fledged short-story at this point. There seems to be passion behind the development and I appreciate it, and I do love the game despite feeling every session becomes a time-sink. I just hope it won't become a game that will have 20 DLC:s... but it is enjoyable as it is atm albeit a bit unbalanced and underutilized potential.
I dunno, buy on sale if you're unsure but still wanna try. If you're a massive Dune-fanboi then sure go for it before it fully releases and becomes more expensive, it will give you hours of play-time while enjoying the atmosphere of Dune.
Damn, that music is so good.