the Houses can achieve the goal. Meanwhile, Lady Elara (Musetta Vander) of the Bene Gesserit and bound concubine to the Emperor, secretly takes the commander - the player - into one of the Heighliners, a person whose bloodline and future the Sisterhood had checked. According to Elara, they saw many visions of the commander dying —and only in one vision does the commander live and even rise to control massive armies and bring peace to Arrakis. As in Dune II, the three main playable factions are House Atreides, House Harkonnen and House Ordos. There are also four non-playable subfactions: House Corrino, the Fremen, the Mercenaries and the Smugglers. House Atreides Hailing from the water-planet of Caladan, the Atreides have a strict loyalty to their Duke and follow him with zeal. The Duke's famous Mentat, Noree Moneo (John Rhys-Davies), advises and resides over the Duke's forces on Arrakis. The House's fleets of ornithopters ensure their superior air power backed by Sonic Tanks to humanely destroy enemies. The Duke also wishes to develop an alliance with the Fremen, the native warriors of Dune. House Harkonnen The Harkonnens are ruled by the wicked Baron and come from the volcanic waste-planet of Giedi Prime. According to Lady Elara, the only thing human about the Harkonnen is their genetic makeup, as all humanity was abandoned long ago in favor of brutality and maliciousness, favoring pure firepower brought by Devastator Tanks and the Death Hand Missile. The Baron's Mentat, Hayt De Vries (Robert Carin), was born from the flesh of a dead man in the Tleilaxu Flesh Vats. House Ordos The Ordos originate from a frigid, ice covered planet unnamed in Dune 2000 but later called Sigma Draconis IV in Emperor: Battle for Dune. As they import their goods from nearby star systems, House Ordos relies on their skills as merchants to make their profits; however, their wealth has made them increasingly paranoid. According to the manual, House Ordos buys all of its units instead of constructing them themselves, including Saboteurs to demolish buildings and Deviator Tanks to temporarily turn enemy vehicles against each other. Unlike the other two houses, House Ordos is not mentioned in any of Frank Herbert's Dune novels, but it is mentioned in the non-canon The Dune Encyclopedia. Reception The game received mixed reviews on both platforms according to the review aggregation website GameRankings. GameSpot criticized the PC version's production values for