From Dust – Review
Platform | Release Date
PC | August 17, 2011
PS3 | September, 2011
X360 | July 27, 2011
Developed by Ubisoft
Published by Ubisoft
The Pitch:
From Dust™ is the latest original video game concept by Eric Chahi, creator of the cult classic, Another World.
Immerse yourself in a world as exotically beautiful as it is dangerous!
You control the destiny of a primitive tribe against the backdrop of a world in constant evolution, a universe where mighty Nature reclaims what is hers and your mastery of the elements is your people’s only chance of survival…
Growing up in the land of Tea Drinkers and Cricket, I experienced the 8-16bit video game generations quite differently to most American gamers. Sure, Nintendo and Sega experienced their popularity and success in a similar (albeit on a much smaller scale) manner to what they achieved on the slack-jawed side of the pond, but perhaps far more common and popular in England at this time were the personal home computers that seemed heavily designed with gaming in mind. Systems such as the Commodore 64 (8bit), Commodore Amiga (16/32bit), and Atari ST (16bit) were quite common in the homes of little gamers in the late eighties and early nineties.
Being a child of this particular niche of gaming, the most fondly remembered titles of my childhood are quite different from the typical Marios and Sonics and Donkey Kongses that most know all too well. There are two games in particular
that bring back the most fond memories of that time: Populous 2, and Another World (Out of This World to you Yanks). I probably spent more hours of my youth gaming playing Populous 2 than any other game, and Another World is to this day one of the most well put together and wonderfully written games I have ever played, despite it having absolutely no dialogue sans the intro. It was also the only game I ever played with my parents.
Fast forward to E3 2010, and a new game is announced by Eric Chahi, creator of Another World, which appears to be a modern day re-imagining of the now long-dead Populous franchise. One of the biggest names from my childhood has created a game based on a concept from one of the most beloved games of my youth. I am instantly eagerly anticipating this title and will stop at nothing to have it. Unfortunately, From Dust has not been the new breath of life for the genre I was waiting for.
From Dust uses the concept of raising a tribal civilisation in its infancy using the creation powers of a god to craft the land as is needed for your followers to survive. You have the ability to move the dirt, water, or later on lava, in each stage, by sucking it up with your Almighty Deity Breath and depositing it as needed for the current situation, directing the tribesmen to totems scattered around each map which are used as centrepieces for each village. In each of the game’s worlds, you are given the task of building a village at each of the totems present, which in turn opens up ‘The Passage’ – a mystical portal that leads to a new land for your followers to settle on. Along with building these villages you are also tasked with spreading plant life throughout the land, which will grow outwards from your village, spreading across the earth like an all-consuming virus. Completing this task usually requires solving the puzzle of how to overcome a specific elemental obstacle, be it a tsunami, a volcano, or trees that spew fire from their branches causing wildfires to burn down entire forests in seconds.
Along with the ‘Breath’, there are a number of other powers at your disposal that become available to you for each village that is built. These powers range from the ability to make water solid for a certain amount of time, evaporate all of the standing water on the map, destroy matter using the Breath, or simply amplify the amount of matter the Breath can hold. The powers available to you are specific to each map, and are generally used to overcome the obstacles presented to you in that particular stage. You can also only ever have access to four of them at a time, which does make sense as certain powers would make some of the stages obscenely easy.
The subject of From Dust’s difficulty brings me to my first complaint about the game – it is far too easy, which in turn makes it far too short. The puzzles presented to you in each world usually have an incredibly simple solution that is quite often fully explained to you right at the beginning of the stage, meaning that each of the game’s stages take a relatively short amount of time to complete. I played through the main campaign in around four hours, so with twelve stages in the game that means each stage took me an average of twenty minutes to complete. The difficulty really does not scale in the game past the third stage or so either, meaning later stages will generally take just as long as some of the initial worlds.
This also really affects the replayability of the game, as most of the time there is only one real solution to each obstacle, and quite often they are only presented to you with certain time windows. Tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and flash floods work on strict time cycles, and the fire trees will flare up about once every thirty seconds or so. Without more dynamic situations presented to you, I do not see much reason to return to any of the previous stages, other than to spread vegetation all over the land to achieve a ‘100% Vegetation’ rating, but it generally only takes about five minutes extra per stage to do that the first time through. Achieving this rating does unlock challenge maps outside of the main campaign, but these are just simple timed puzzles that take a minute or two to finish at most.
In the final stage of the main campaign, you are given the ability to craft the land as you see fit by raising and lowering the land as you wish, creating giant mountains and volcanoes, or raising and lowering the water level on the map. It sounds really cool to have the ability to do whatever you want in this and create the perfect land for your civilisation, but seeing as your people never develop any further than a ring of huts around the totem, there really is not much point to putting too much time into this world, especially because there is no overall goal for the stage.
This is where I think From Dust really missed its mark, and bear in mind that I may be jaded due to my own self imposed expectations for the game but so much more could have been done with the development of your civilisation. I wanted and expected a much more dynamic experience, where your people would go about their business and build their civilisation from little stick huts into a carpet of homes and buildings covering the land, with you protecting them from the harsh elemental forces of nature. I wanted my Populous Redux, but what I got was a stripped down Black and White with terrain deformation. This is my bias, and I completely understand that people without my preconceptions of the game are going to have a much different experience, but I still think there could have been so much more. The ground work is there, and maybe we could see things head more in this direction with a sequel somewhere down the road.
Despite my bias and disappointment, it’s not all bad. From Dust is visually superb, with the landscapes in the game
looking quite exceptional, if a little barren at times even with a large amount of vegetation. The water in the game is something I can only really describe as ‘real purdy’. The physics of it too are exceptional, reacting quite believably to manipulation and other such interference. There is even a degree of erosion in the game, as water can eat away at hills of earth. If you don’t keep an eye on things this can lead to some fairly bad situations when trying to avoid a village being flooded. Lava is a joy to play with, and can be used to create rock walls, evaporate water or set fire to everything, though I don’t recommend the latter.
The core gameplay itself, built around the terrain manipulation mechanics is also highly enjoyable, and I would have gotten a lot more out of From Dust if there was just more to do. The story itself is also quite well presented through the sparse narration and the ‘Memories of the Tribe’ which unlock as you progress through the game, telling a story of a lost tribe of people following in the footsteps of an ancient and long-forgotten civilisation.
Once again, despite my clouded views of the game, I would recommend giving From Dust a try. Whilst I do have my issues with the game, I do not regret buying it, and at fifteen bucks it is hard to complain. This game does show an incredible amount of potential and it is still quite clear that a tremendous amount of heart went into trying to create something different. For as small a game as it is, From Dust is just dripping with polish. The game looks fantastic and I never once had an issue with the controls or had any issues with bugs or glitches in the engine (and remember, I am playing the so called ‘broken’ PC version here). I would also love to see a sequel to From Dust at some point in the future, with a greater focus on the growth and development of the tribe. I may not have gotten quite what I had wanted just yet, but I do see a bright future for this genre if Ubisoft decide to develop a follow up title.
Related Posts:
I am still really tempted to pick this up.
I cut my teeth on PC strategy games like Populous and Syndicate, so this looks to be right in my wheelhouse. Although the limitations on what you can do in the world are a bit disappointing.
Then again…$15.