Dune II on the Sega Genesis (or Mega Drive, depending on where you grew up) is one of those games that feels clunky at first—until you realize it basically invented real-time strategy as we know it. You land on Arrakis, scramble to harvest spice before the other factions do, and suddenly you're sweating over whether to build another refinery or save up for tanks.

The controls take some getting used to—no mouse, just a controller—but once you get the rhythm, it's weirdly satisfying. Watching your little harvesters crawl across the sand while enemy units creep toward your base never gets old. And yeah, the graphics are dated, but there's something about the way the sandworms erupt out of nowhere that still makes me jump.

If you've played later RTS games, you'll spot all the DNA here: base-building, resource wars, that moment when you realize you forgot to build defenses. It's rough around the edges, but in a way that makes you respect what it pulled off in 1992. Just don't expect the Harkonnen to play fair.