It’s been a while since I’ve had any interest in a God sim’ of any sort since Peter Molyneux’s Black & White. Though From the moment it was unveiled From Dust (FD) showed some potential, rather than nursing a number of villagers and catering to them, you are literally in control of, and protector against the elements.

The campaign mode consists of thirteen lands the first ease you in, with little challenge and give you enough to get to grips with the controls, which are easy to learn. Utilizing them to aid you through each land is tricky to master, but by no means impossible. The stakes are raised significantly with each land, and before you know it you will be trying to figure out how to raise a village from the ocean floor as a tsunami washes away any land around it in significant intervals, or channelling lava to stop it incinerating your starting village.

The final few levels throw every element at you at once, and while a nightmare tactically to navigate, witnessing what happens to the land, is amazing, the finale is a treat to anyone who had been asking it in their minds as they play through these levels.

Playing God in FD is a treat, as while you rely on your villages to be protected from the elements with some ancient magic’s which appear as kites on totems at the centre of each village once a shaman brings them to the village, they can repel tsunami’s and giant lava flows in the path of a central volcano’s path.

The object of each land is to essentially populate it from its starting barren form, and make villages 80% of which can offer you powers to gather more earth to create paths, or turn water into jelly in an instant, and absorb flood waters and save a village from drowning for example. Once you build every village, you can then make your way to the exit gateway, which will end the zone. The difference you can make from beginning to the end of each territory is just pure eye candy.

Because FD is a sandbox of different scenarios, you can be flexible in how you approach a good amount of levels. Sure for some you are rigid in how each level begins, but I sincerely doubt any two players did things the exact same way, and this is the brilliance I found in FD. Sure you can solve a puzzle of drying out a flooded zone one way, but you have plenty of different ways in which to do it, effectiveness be damned those options exist.

Even when you are done, making the zones forested, finding the hidden totems, and saving the villages, there are thirty more challenge maps for you to complete, all with their own objectives, and requirements, and some maps are even more extreme than the main campaign.

You can get your money’s worth from FD, however once all is said and done, there is little else to do, even bettering yourself on the challenges, seems a pointless exercise considering the ‘leaderboard’ is restricted to friends only, while each level is played out to a story for the villagers, there is no real story to speak off, this is one game where you tell yourself, ‘it is about the journey, not the end.’

I just genuinely hope FD gets a sequel, but this time adding a tangible story to follow to reward progress to the player, and a editor/upload feature. Trails HD’s success mainly comes from this feature as limited as it was, and it is one thing FD could have been amazing with, as player create their own sadistic, but completeable challenges, over a number of templates. Otherwise if FD receives no support it is simply a very, very good weekend experience, with a limited amount of replay value based on individual player’s attention span and imaginations.

That said though, From Dust 2 could easily be a full on retail release if the suggestions above are put in along with a batch of brand new levels. My advice for anyone not 100% about a purchase is to try the game first, while I’m sure it is barebones in comparison to the final product, the final level is worth reaching for anyone who gets it.

+ Pure Eye Candy
+ Simple & Fun
+ Gives life to a return to a console God Sim
- Would be surprised if it had people playing it for longer than three months after purchase
- No genuine create a map feature beyond the finale
- Limited Replay Value Overall


8/10

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