In other words, the missions are exactly what you would expect from an RTS - no less but, sadly, certainly no more.

However, in an apparently interesting innovation, before you construct your first base and fight your first battle, you find yourself confronted with a campaign map. The map shows the planet divided up into 33 different territories, coloured according to which of the Houses currently controls it. The Houses then take turns making a strategic move.

In this phase of the game, you can move your reserve forces around the territories you own, and attack one new territory. The choice is yours. Before you attack you will be given a basic description of what is going on the territory, and this may affect the strategic outcome of the battle on your campaign.

For example, if you attack a territory where the Imperial Sardaukar are under seige from House Harkonnen, there is a fair chance the Imperial Sardaukar will be grateful enough to offer you an alliance. You will then have access to their infantry.

The Imperial Sardaukar are one of four sub-Houses which you can gain alliances with. The others are the Ix, the Tleilaxu, and the Guild of Navigators. In addition you can gain an alliance with the Dune natives, the Fremen. Each of the minor Houses will give you access to two special units.

So, you get to decide which territory to attack. If the subsequent battle is going really badly, you can retreat your surviving troops off the battle map and give up the territory. The survivors will then appear on the campaign map as a reserve force, which will send reinforcements to battles on in neighbouring territories.

Losing a battle won't therefore end your campaign. As long as you control some of the campaign map you're still in business.

At first glance this appears to be a far more interesting way to run a campaign than the traditional linear RTS, with its series of 10-15 missions, winner-takes-all. It almost looks like the sort of strategic leap made in Close Combat IV as compared to Close Combat III.

Sadly, it's not nearly that exciting. Like CC4, simply allowing you to choose your strategic moves and retreat or attack as you wish doesn't ultimately disguise the fact that whatever you do, the next battle is going to be more or less the same as the last. The big problem with setting a game on a desert planet is that ... well, deserts are kinda dull to look at. There's not a whole lot of scope for clever map design. The differences between maps are basically limited to where the rocky outcroppings are amongst the sand. Frankly, it's monotonous.

The monotony of the desert battles is broken up during the campaign by some reasonably interesting story-driven offworld missions. For example, playing as House Atreides you will be called on to rescue some troops from a starship where they are being held hostage. You start out with a few infantry and fight your way around a Total Annihilation-like metal starship interior, picking off enemies and picking up extra units. Another mission has you on your green and watery home world of Caladan defending the Duke from face-dancer assassins. Other missions may take you to various other home worlds.

But it has to be said that these infrequent, short, scripted missions feel quite forced - designed and timed to break up what the game's designers must have known was going to be a pretty repetitive experience.

The maps also seem to get quite crowded, quite quickly. They just aren't very big. This may well be a design decision aimed at limiting the size of the bases, armies, and battles so that vast armies don't overwhelm even high-end systems. As it is, you simply can't expand very far before you bang into your opposition and find yourself in a final showdown.

As it stands, we noticed a little slow-down on the review machine when things really heated up, but nothing too severe - and fortunately, even with graphics options turned right down the game still looks great.

Much more frustrating were the regular and random game lockups that were experienced, forcing a hard reboot. We are pretty sure these lock-ups are caused by video driver compatibility problems, rather than a game bug. Emperor ships with DirectX 8. Chances are that the problems encountered are due to the ongoing lack of certified Dx8 drivers for Voodoo cards, even though Dx8 does not usually cause problems on my machine. If you are using an nVidia-based card with the latest drivers, things will probably be plain sailing. But you might want to save regularly, just in case.

In addition to the campaigns, there are skirmish and multiplayer options. LAN multiplayer allows you to fight skirmishes against humans as well as AI opponents. Internet multiplayer is conducted via the Westwood Online matching service. As well as the LAN-type games, this service allows you to play the campaigns co-operatively with another player. To avoid getting lumbered with a game buddy whose low-rent machine is holding you back, Westwood Online will give you all their critical specs before you start, so you can decide if they are a worthwhile opponent.