Dune

Dune, released by Virgin in 1992 and developed by the French studio Cryo Interactive, is a fascinating hybrid that has aged into a cult favourite. Loosely based on both Frank Herbert's novel and David Lynch's film, it casts you as Paul Atreides, sent by your father to the desert planet Arrakis to organise the native Fremen and take control of the galaxy's most valuable resource — the spice melange.

Rather than being a pure strategy game, Dune blends point-and-click adventure with light resource management. You fly your ornithopter between sietches, recruiting Fremen tribes and assigning them to harvest spice or train as soldiers, all while the political pressure from the rival House Harkonnen mounts. Beautiful hand-painted screens, an ahead-of-its-time atmospheric soundtrack, and characters lifted from the film give it a dreamy, distinctive mood that few games of the era matched. The pacing is gentle and exploratory, gradually opening the desert as your influence grows.

It is often overshadowed by Westwood's Dune II, which arrived the same year and effectively founded the real-time strategy genre, but this Cryo version is the more faithful and more evocative adaptation of Herbert's world. Its unusual genre mix can feel slow to newcomers, yet for anyone who loves the source material it remains a spellbinding, atmospheric journey.