Game 1 (me as the Germans): I have seen a Russian for the first time in five turns. There have been ~5 casualties yet and about as many rounds fired. We're running out of shoe soles.

Game 2 (me as the Soviets): Shit's fucked. lIG18s are deleting any infantry they spot. I have no idea if any of my mortars hit anything. There's Jerry in the treeline. The surviving crew of the Panther I knocked out is running in circles in the middle of the map.

With the release of Dune 2, the movie, I'm naturally thinking about Dune II, the start of the strategy genre, from legendary developer Westwood. The games they made prior to that? Why, Goofy's Railway Express, of course.

This educational title is a Disney series of PC releases with the barest interaction. The box even advertises "Colours and shapes" as a feature. Kids hit the spacebar if the shape in the billowed smoke matches the landscape, which rewards them with a little animation. Also, the train's continual computational noises are deafening, as it goes back and forth over the same vistas. And then they made a dozen Command & Conquer games.

SHAPE OUT OF GOOFY'S RAILWAY EXPRESS

Sure, the main villain might end up being a white-haired, red-eyed idiot who wants to destroy reality "to end suffering" or something equally dumb, but the world he inhabits may be whacky... and the villain won't necessarily be that!