From Dust (XBOX 360)

It’s a rare sight these days to see a got game hitting either console or PC / Mac formats, so it’s nice when you see one announced as gone are the days of nearly everything hitting the PC been a point and click adventure, From Dust has hit the XBOX 360 Marketplace and it is welcomed with open arms.

When i was a kid, i used to love playing the role of god, fantastic sandbox games such as the Original Populous, Populous: The Beginnning and also the Sim City Series, those games were fantastic then all of a sudden games such as these dropped off the radar and are nearly non existent on the XBOX 360 onto which From Dust has landed.

From Dust is a game from the Acclaimed Eric Chahi (Another World, Heart of Darkness) who hasnt touched a game since 1998 back on the Playstation, with an interest in Volcanology and sights that he saw across the world, it was announced back in June 2010 at E3 he was working in partnership with Ubisoft to create this little marvel.

From Dust gives you the role of a god in the game, known by the village people as ‘Breath’, with Breath you have the power to alter the world to needs, or the villages needs. With Breath, you start each world with limited powers, by directing the villages to totems scattered throughout the current land you can increase the powers of breath, normally to do good. Each level is set out with obstacles to the totems, and also meeting stones for you to place even more villages, the concept is rather simple in the fact that once you have aquired all the totems and built up all the villages in the world you can, you are then able to progress onto the next world via a portal where you finally send a select amount of villages.

It all sounds simple, each of the totems etc have obstacles be it in the way of a gigantic volcanoe, a tsunami, a rushing river, fire, rain (Yes Rain).

Using the powers of Breath you are able to change the influence of these disasters, for example if there is a lava flow in the way of your goal, place water on top of it to cool it down so your villages can pass over it. Some of the latter levels in From Dust give you a set time to complete put in place things that will save your villages from demise, on one level i was given 3 minutes to save a village from an incoming Tsunami, by creating a wall of lava which then cooled i created a mountain range which stopped the incoming water, some of the sites you will see in from dust are mind blowing and by far it has some of the best water systems Ive seen in a game.

For 1200 MSP you get alot for your game, the main campaign will set you back 10 hours, most of the levels can be completed on the first play through, while you are completing the game you are also unlocking new levels to From Dusts’ challenge most, a set of tasks which in similar relation to the main game is all about saving the village again, but on worlds set out to be a nightmare, this mode is also timed in which you can then upload your score to the online leaderboards, theres quite a bit in the way of reply value with this addition even if you dont want to troll through the main campaign again.

Final thoughts on From Dust, it’s a charming little game with alot to offer, the graphics do the job perfectly and for an Arcade title with limited development funding, there impressive. With the possibility of additional downloadable content coming our way From Dust is a new franchise that has great potential.