From Dust

Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier

Publisher: Ubisoft

Had it not already been appropriated to a specific type of game, sandbox would have been the perfect way to describe From Dust. A completely different concept to the GTA and Saints Row games, From Dust can probably be more closely compared to the Black And White games than anything else, but again there are stark contrasts between the two.

The easiest way to describe from dust is that it’s almost like an interactive diorama. The game opens with a small civilization of people that have lost all contact and traces of their ancestors, and it’s the player’s job to help them rebuild and discover their history. The player takes control as “The Breath” of the land (In other words, their god), and is tasked with helping the civilization survive and prosper in an often difficult and dangerous world. Instead of having direct control over the people, the gamer actually holds very little sway over them; only being able to call for a person to travel and interact with specific artifacts. Even after this, the implementation of the powers these artifacts can bring is controlled by the people.

So what does the player actually do? They have to make it possible for the lands inhabitants to survive. Various methods can be adopted in order to do this and if you’re replaying levels the same tactic won’t necessarily work over and over again. Moving water, sand and lava around the map, players can create bridges, dams and walls to help their people. Interestingly though, this will affect the landscape. Block a river, and it’ll find another way to flow, just like in real life. Dirt walls will be eroded over time by water, and lava can cause fires that have the potential to kill everyone on the map.The game quickly forces players to think about the consequences of each action, and creating rivers for water to flow, or channels to divert lava away from your villages is a lot of fun.

Only a downloadable title, From Dust is still a beautiful game, and often feels like an interactive spectacle rather than something you can change on a whim like regular god games. At one moment, players will feel in control, and that they’re within a whisker of completing their objectives, then a volcano will erupt, a tsunami may hit, or it may even be something as simple as blocking off the wrong path of a river and disaster will strike.

Players, although powerful will always feel at the mercy of nature. To help even things up, villagers will build their homes around Totems. Each Totem brings with it a special power, so abilities to part the sea like in the Bible, or temporarily increase the amount that the player can carry around even things up somewhat.

Happily, the controls are also intuitive. In a type of game that often seems to struggle on controllers, the developers have kept things simple, with the sticks, left and right triggers on the Xbox 360 being the only buttons used for most of the game.

Although awe inspiring, the vulnerability of the inhabitants often lead to some of the most irritating sections of the game. Starting off easy, there is a huge difficulty spike in the game, and it becomes extremely hard towards its latter stages. The game always holds the potential to switch from a relaxing experience as players watch their people prosper, to a game of frantic panic as players will often see their hard work destroyed in the blink of an eye by the all-powerful Mother Nature. Camera angles can also be annoying when working on the land towards the edge of the map, and the inhabitants of the world will also at times be unable to reach their goals due to what can only be described as an incomprehensible need to take the most indirect route as possible. Meaning that players will have to divert their attention to making a usable path to their goal.

From Dust is a beautiful game that is often a complete spectacle to watch. Even once missions have been completed, players will find themselves staying in the map, enjoying the scenery. Turning a molten death trap into a luscious green forest is hugely satisfying. The difficulty spike is a problem though and sadly many people probably won’t complete the game because of it and that’s a real shame. Even with that in mind, it’s still difficult not to recommend the game.