First, the Sci-Fi Channel’s six-hour Dune mini-series that aired earlier this year is now at the video store, and while William Hurt’s rendition of Duke Leto lacks the intensity of Jurgen Prochnow (who played the role in the 1984 movie), it’s an excellent rendition of Frank Herbert’s immortal book.

Second, House Harkonnen, the latest book from Herbert’s son, Brian Herbert, is out in paperback. At 733 pages, it’s a monster, and it’s damned good reading.

Third, there’s the newest PC game, Emperor: Battle for Dune. Faithful to the original story, with enough new twists and features to give it incredible depth, the game has superb production values, has launched an immediate Web following, and offers about a year’s worth of replay value.

The net result was the closest thing to video game rapture I’ve felt in a long time. This is the first perfect score I’ve ever given to a game, and I’m kinda proud of it. So bear with me as I justify my findings.

Mathematically speaking, I had to round up, so the score isn’t 100 percent, but somewhere around 95. Emperor: Battle for Dune is not perfect. It will tax most systems, and has a bunch of patches already for significant driver and execution fixes. Sometimes, it goes into this frozen stare while it reconciles a bunch of files that need to be placed just so on the hard drive. There are other nits to pick and details to whine about, such as the recurring picture of the same sonic tank when I’m supposed to be getting new units with each additional level I fight. Most worrisome. I’ve been loathe to load the patch, afraid I might lose my saves.

I didn’t have much luck getting past the technical hurdles until I dropped in a 512 MB stick of RAM. Once I got that crucial part in place, I never looked back. By now I expect that the latest game will put the hurt on my system and find the most vulnerable point. So I should be thankful, right? I’m set for at least a couple weeks.

Nits aside, the truth is that I haven’t had this much fun with a video game in a long, long time. This is the first game in months that kept me thinking about it constantly. It’s the first game in quite awhile that hurt my fingers, back and wrist because I went at it far too hard, lasting late into the wee hours. Frankly, I respect that in a game. It’s painful, but I don’t see it very often.

The editors at ESCmag have kept me pretty busy with the latest offerings from the RTS world. Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns and Cossacks were both RTS Game of the Year contenders, in my opinion. Sudden Strike wasn’t bad, either. With the Christmas rush looming at the time this review was written, I’d have to say that Emperor: Battle for Dune just about rounds out the contenders to date, with room for perhaps one more entry to complete the 2001 RTS calendar. But the bar has been raised, and time is running out.

Many fellow reviewers were skeptical of Emperor; others were stymied by its technical requirements. By far most of the industry has raved about this title, giving it very high marks.

Contrary to the findings of some, Emperor is not just a 3D facelift of an old favorite. It’s a reincarnation in another attractive format. By my count, it’s the fourth generation of a Dune video game:

Dune 1: Turn-based RPG snoozer

Dune 2: First great RTS. Includes SuperDune hack

Dune 3: Dune 2000

Dune 4: Emperor: Battle for Dune

The early RTS favorite Dune II had annoying worms, and they weren’t much more advanced in Dune 2000. As soon as I saw the first worm in Emperor, I wasn’t too worried. Then a giant ‘maker’ came popping out of the desert, with a harvester and carryall in its mouth, filling my screen and grabbing my attention. Later, I found that Fremen could actually ride the worms. That was when I knew this wasn’t just a port to 3D; the developers had a vision of what they wanted to do and figured out how to do it.

Even if you’ve never tried an RTS, Emperor would be a good first choice if you’re any kind of Dune fan. The game scenarios will let you take advantage of your knowledge of the desert planet Arrakis, and that knowledge can help you win scenarios. For example, some RTS games get you on an upgrade treadmill that forces you to continually push for the newest weapons upgrade. But in Dune, you can win with desert power. That means that while playing as Atreides, you can concentrate on getting your barracks and Fremen camp set up and then churn out Fedaykeen warriors — Fremen with weirding modules. Near almost every strategic pinch point, you’ll find rock outcrops — infantry cover -- where men can stand but vehicles can’t run them over. And they can control the map. That’s what Muad‘Dib would do, right?

It’s still part of the game, of course, to build up your attacking horde and rush the opponent with vehicles. The starport works for ordering weapons, and like in previous versions, prices vary from order to order. Specials on harvesters and carryalls can solve your production problems in a hurry; likewise, six sonic tanks can beef up a spotty offense. And the key to everything is still getting as many refineries going as you can.

Gone are the dangerous spice blooms that could destroy a vehicle. I ran a sand trike right over one and lived to tell about it. Gone also is the repair facility; mobile repair vehicles are thorough about looking for work on the battlefield. What’s really cool is when they lower their robot arms and work on each other, in some strange mechanical embrace.

Westwood pulled out all the stops in jacking up the entertainment value of this four-CD-ROM set. Actors for the cut scenes include Michael Dorn, better known as Worf on Star Trek, here without the hair or makeup but retaining the best parts of his Klingon attitude. He’s well cast as the Atreides Duke. Dorn’s command of every scene he’s in is solid; his sense of being the best actor on stage suits him here.

There are countless other examples of Westwood’s "Damn the Budget" attitude. The screen is often filled with surrounding bodyguards and sentries, and the sets are detailed and intriguing. But cut scenes don’t make a game; it’s the play that counts. Emperor has great gameplay.

Here are just a few of the cool bullets worth sharing:

1. Fighters shoot their weapons into the air in celebration after fending off an attack;
2. Giant sandworms — Makers — can swallow multiple units at once;
3. Veteran units can be inserted back into their barracks to raise the level of subsequent recruits;
4. The heavy clump of two different types of mechwarriors is awesome;
5. The Tlielaxu breeding vats produce zombie-like fighters that moan;
6. Leech-live larvae cling to vehicles and can destroy them if not removed;
7. Some scenarios are inside giant hangars, rather than making every level a build-and-rush across the desert situation; and
8. You can actually win at the Easy level.

I even liked Dune 2000, for crying out loud, when everyone else felt it was just a Command & Conquer clone. I think Emperor is better by several folds of time. It is similar enough to the past to be comforting for those who already know how to play. Yet there are countless new features and wrinkles to keep things interesting. Plus it is drop-dead gorgeous. With the newest nVidia and ATI video cards out on the market, dazzling the early adopters, you can afford to pick up something from the last generation, and probably get 32 or 64 MB of video RAM tossed in.

So buy this game. Use it to get your current system into perfect running order and up to date. What the heck: the configuration you arrive at to get Emperor to run will last you a long time, until another pretty face comes along. Meanwhile, there are three houses, dozens of levels, three difficulty settings, LAN and Internet multi-player, a map editor, dozens of websites, strategy guides, discussion groups and more. Go as deep as you want to go, or until it hurts too much.