Tag Archives: from dust

In Between Posts

In Between Posts, September , 2011

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For some reason last week is a blur. I can’t remember what all I did but I know I did so much. I posted first impressions for four games: Renegade Ops, X-Men, From Dust, and Red Johnson’s Chronicles. I also played the demo for Ace Combat: Assault Horizon and I’ll post my impressions of that tomorrow. I started playing Soul Blazer for the Super Nintendo… and I’m almost done with that. Depending on my schedule I should complete it and have a review this week, maybe next week. My girlfriend and I also completed another level in The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure  and we played Rock Band 3 with another couple and that was fun. That’s pretty much it for games I guess.

This week was a blur because of school and work too. Work was pretty much the same schedule as always so it’s a constant, but it seems like I did a lot of work in school. Heck, I’m in the middle of helping a classmate as I type this. Anyways, time permitting I’ll have a review of Soul Blazer, demo impressions of Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, and another demo impression or two this week.

First Impressions, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Network, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade

From Dust – Demo Impressions

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Eric Chahi designed From Dust. He also designed the early nineties game Out of This World. I've never played it but it's well regarded.

Have you ever wanted to be a god? Have dominion over creatures and wield unimaginable control? Well From Dust satiates a few god-like desires. Developed by Ubisoft Montpellier and published by Ubisoft, From Dust is a downloadable video game where players take control of the breath, a visual representation of their influence. Appearing like a cursor, I was able to move it around the stages, highlight people or things, and most importantly, manipulate the environment.

The demo opened with astounding visuals and sounds, showing me the people I would assist. They were tribal, resembling African Bushmen or Australian aborigines. A narrator got me up to speed as to what’s going on and my task. These tribal people needed to get somewhere; traveling through portals and I had to get them there.

The stages I played consisted of a few islands spread about in clear blue water, very tropical and desolate. Before the portals would activate, the people had to build small villages. I led them to totems were they performed a ceremony and a village popped up around them. This also brought fauna and animals.

More totems were located on separate islands. To transport the people to these islands, I had to use my powers. I could absorb certain types of terrain, sand or water for instance, and then disperse the terrain wherever I wanted. I had to link islands together by absorbing sand and dropping it to create land bridges. Spreading the sand was a little difficult for me, at least spreading it evenly.

While the environments could be an ideal vacation spot, they start out desolate.

Helping these tribal people out could be rewarding and I’m intrigued by the game, but the few stages I played in the demo had me doing the same thing: leading the people to totems and finally to a portal. The final stage saw a tsunami come, but all I had to do was lead one of the people to a rock and they learned a song to avoid it. It looked great and the concept was fun, but I’m fine with playing as much of From Dust as I did especially if the gameplay doesn’t change a lot throughout the game. From Dust was released at the end of July on Xbox Live Arcade, at the end of August on the PC, and it was just released this past week for PlayStation Network.