Dune: The Battle for Arrakis on Genesis is way better than you'd expect from a '90s strategy game. At first glance, it looks like your typical base-building RTS, but the spice mechanics and faction politics give it this weirdly addictive depth. You start off scrambling for control of those desert patches, balancing harvester defenses against enemy raids—mess that up early, and you're in for a rough time.

The overhauled version smooths out the clunky controls from the original, so you're not fighting the interface while Fremen wreck your outpost. And the new tech tree? Way less punishing. I remember getting stuck for hours trying to unlock Sardaukar troops before, but now the upgrades actually make sense. The pixel art holds up too—those sandworm animations still look gnarly when they swallow your units whole.

It's one of those games where you lose track of time because "one more turn" turns into dismantling the Harkonnen economy by sunrise. The AI cheats a little sometimes, but that just makes crushing them more satisfying.