It's 8 pm on Arrakis and I've been on a crafting binge.
I'm not normally the sort of ex-convict-turned-desert-nomad who's into the whole crafting bollocks. I am, however, absolutely flipping nuts for Dune, so the ability to slap together stillsuits and Holtzman shields and all sorts of fun Herbert-adjacent nonsense has tickled my brain in just the right way, leaving me eager to delve into Dune: Awakening's byzantine crafting menus.
But yeah, like I said: I've been binging. So now I'm out of resources. That means it's time to switch gears from crafting to gathering. The dunes call to me, and my humble sandbike.
I'm prepared for my potentially dangerous excursion. I have a couple of literjons full of water, a dew-collecting scythe, a blood extractor and two blood bags. I ain't gonna be running out of water even if I risk riding under the raging sun rather than sticking to the shadows of the mountains and mesas.
As always, I'm excited to leave my base. Arrakis is a striking place, a red-gold ocean punctuated by imposing monoliths and mountain ranges, where burning vehicles on the dunes attract scavengers, who in turn attract sandworms. Not just striking, then; it's thrilling, too.
To get what I need, I'll have to delve into a testing station. It shouldn't take too long, I think, like an idiot. But still, it gives me pause. These are Dune: Awakening's dungeons, but to call them dungeons is an insult to other MMOs. Really, they are repetitive underground facilities that only contain three things of note: oodles of loot, lots of enemies, and a few locked doors.
I do not like fighting in Dune: Awakening. In fact, I'm growing to despise it.
One-off encounters are fine. And I have some neat tricks up my sleeves. Gravity-altering grenades, a suspensor belt that lets me float, a drone that hurtles towards enemies and explodes—fun toys, all of them. But my god the combat system is rough.
The shooting is perfunctory at best, but the melee combat is downright shameful.
The shooting is perfunctory at best, but the melee combat is downright shameful. Describing it as sluggish and unresponsive would be supremely generous. I feel like I'm shouting commands at a distant colleague who's only half hearing me whenever I unsheathe my sword. It's horrible.
Unfortunately, melee brawls are unavoidable early on. This is because you'll frequently be faced with shielded opponents. Regular guns can't punch through those shields effectively, so you'll need to go close range to get a kill, using your slow melee attack to puncture their defenses.
Eventually you'll be able to craft weapons like disruptors that can bring down shields, but honestly they're not that great, taking too long to break shields. I'm still hoping to find something more effective out in the desert.
Most of the time I'm not that bothered by this. Not when I'm scouring the dunes and getting into quick 2-minute fights. But in a dungeon? God, it's miserable.
Almost every room is a carbon copy of all your previous encounters. A melee guy with a shield charging towards you. Some arseholes trying to riddle you with darts from range. And then the real problem: the armoured minigun bastard who takes twice as long to kill, can shred your shield and health in seconds, and who needs to be taken out with your sword.
It's 8:30 pm. I thought I'd be done with the dungeon. The last one took about 15 minutes to clear. But this one is bigger and contains a greater number of awful fights. Sadly, it's not more interesting. In fact, visually it's identical. It's just bigger.
Since I'm hoping to die at 40 and love low quality food I ordered some Taco Bell and it has now arrived. My disappointing quesadilla is getting cold.
I'm extremely dead.
A tougher-than-usual heavy gun dork manages to stun me with some Holtzman trickery, I get stuck in a slow-as-hell animation and my camera decides to become fixated on the opposite direction. I'm extremely dead.
"OK," I think to myself. "I really want to eat this disappointing quesadilla. I also have some disappointing nachos. They too are getting cold. Maybe I should call it quits?"
But no, I can't do this. My bike is outside the dungeon and it will almost certainly be destroyed by a sandstorm if I leave it unattended. Along with everything in its inventory. So I leg it through the dungeon again. This time the heavy gunner smacks me with his gun and murders me while I'm stunned. So far, stuns are the one and only trick enemies deploy. It sucks.
I run through the dungeon again. I don't realise my Holtzman shield is damaged, so when the heavy gunner opens fire as I'm closing in, I go down like a tragic sack of meat. I'm in my head now. This isn't a tough fight, but I'm stressed out, hungry and not having any fun. It's making me stupid. I've equipped my backup shield, though. I'll be OK this time. Right?
My power pack is broken and my shield doesn't activate. I am rapidly shot to death.
I gnaw on a nacho to give me strength. It's 9 pm. The nacho is chewy and cold. I hate this dungeon and I hate myself. I refuse to hate the nacho. It's not to blame.
Eventually, I remember how to videogame. I kill my nemesis. I know his tricks now. I've smashed through the brain block. I do not feel good about any of this, especially since I still have to fight the actual boss. I have no more darts, and besides, my gun is broken, which is unfortunate, since she's a ranged attacker with no shield. A gun would be handy here.
I slink around the room, weaving between cover as I take out her allies with my sword.
I'm making this sound cooler than it actually is. There's no cover system. I'm just occasionally hiding behind objects and I never actually have a clue if I'm going to be hit or not. Mostly I'm just running in circles muttering curses. I have run out of health kits.
And then I go in for the kill. Unlike the heavy gun lad she has no tricks, except for an exceptional talent for not dying. I slice and I slice and I slice but she won't go down. She gets me to the ground three times, but I have plenty of water, which allows me to get back up again. Her gun isn't powerful enough to take me out before I can stage my comeback. Again and again.
Finally I slash her and she remembers that, actually, swords are sharp. She is dead. I am alive. All is right on Arrakis.
As I reluctantly chow down on my slimy, cold quesadilla, it strikes me that these two final encounters represent the high point of this dungeon. Not because they were good, but because—thanks to misfortune, getting trapped in animations, camera jank, broken equipment and arbitrary enemy health boosts—they at least made me feel something.
As I reluctantly chow down on my slimy, cold quesadilla, it strikes me that these two final encounters represent the high point of this dungeon.
Sure, that feeling was frustration. And, let's face it, no small amount of anger. It was an annoying climax to the hour and change I spent in this incredibly bland facility—admittedly an infinitesimal amount of time in an MMO, but it feels so much longer when the slog is so dull. I'm gonna remember these two fights, though. At least for a day, anyway. But bloody hell that's sad. That a mixture of my hunger-induced impatience/ineptitude and some slightly hardier-than-usual enemies would lead to my sole memorable dungeon encounter.
Anyone not being distracted by the smell of rapidly cooling fast food probably wouldn't even notice these fights. And this is a multiplayer game. Bring a buddy along and you'll drop these fools in a few seconds. Just another couple of faceless goons added to your burgeoning body count.
MMO dungeons need to offer more than this. I'm still hoping Dune: Awakening ups its game in the later areas, but even baby dungeons should feature some quirks. The odd bespoke mechanic or demand for strategy to train you for the challenges ahead. Give me some puzzles or traps or unique bosses. Not just some bald lassie who takes too long to kill.
As I drive away from the dungeon, at last, I'm at least able to appreciate all the sweet loot I found. It's a good haul. At least Dune: Awakening gets that right. But the cold Taco Bell ain't sitting right. I don't think I'm going to have time for more crafting.
I park my bike in the garage and move to the sofa to gently groan and question my life choices. The lesson: the dungeons of Arrakis ain't worth the stomach ache.
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