Nelson Schneider's Game Review of From Dust

Collecting Dust
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 12/07/14

I am not a fan of Ubisoft, nor its stable of uninspired IPs. However, sometimes even one of the Big Three “AAA” publishers produces something outside of their mainstream wheelhouse that catches my eye. I’m not even a particular fan of the God-Game sub-genre of Simulation games, but I have enough nostalgia for it that I was willing to give “From Dust” a shot.

Presentation
“From Dust” is thoroughly mediocre in most areas of its presentation, and sub-par in others. The graphics engine is really nothing spectacular for a modern 3D game. Worst of all, the graphcs engine produces a significant amount of screen tearing, which cannot be resolved using any of the in-game menu options. Instead, I had to max-out all of the frame buffering features in my Steambox’s nVidia control panel. “From Dust” doesn’t even use the game engine for cutscenes, instead going the pre-rendered route. And when I said ‘cutscenes,’ I really should have used the singular, as the game uses the same UNSKIPPABLE cutscene to transition between each of the 12 stages.

The audio is slightly more inspired than the graphics, at least, with a soundtrack and sound effects both heavily steeped in primitive tribal beats and rhythms. There is voice acting, and it is all in some kind of gibberish-sounding ‘tribal’ language that may or may not be authentic.

Technically, “From Dust” suffers under the perpetual yoke of Ubisoft’s terrible Uplay DRM scheme/Steam competitor. Even though I bought “From Dust” on Steam, it insisted on installing Uplay and making me sign up for a Uplay account in order to play it. I did not want to do either of these things, but I had already spent the money for the game, so I felt like I had no choice. Uplay is a rather annoying program, so I switched it to offline mode in the hopes that it would never pop-up and bother me again, but it did insist on bothering me with a Uplay client update at one point. To be fair, Uplay does stay out of the way most of the time, but in principle, Ubisoft should be happy to have Steamworks DRM on their games if they are going to sell them on Steam. If that isn’t enough, Ubisoft should just pull an EA and keep all of their games isolated in their own private DRM Hell.

Story
As a God-Game with such a theoretically large scope, “From Dust” doesn’t really have a spectacular narrative. The game opens with a group of brown-skinned, mask-wearing tribesmen performing a ritual to summon the Breath. The Breath is the Men’s connection to their ancestors, the Ancients. In order to better their lot in life, the Men wish to use the Breath’s powers to help them reclaim the lands of the Ancients which were lost when the Ancients disappeared some time in the past.

At no point was I ever particularly clear about when “From Dust” takes place. At times it felt like a glimpse into the ancient world, at others it felt like a post-apocalyptic reclamation scenario.

Regardless, the incredibly short length of the story mode (about 6 hours for 12 stages) and complete lack of anything resembling characters or a plot left me feeling lukewarm. Yes, the excuse narrative of reclaiming the Ancients’ lands is good enough to drive a game with great gameplay, but “From Dust” isn’t particularly engaging in that respect either.

Gameplay
Why is the title of this review “Collecting Dust?” That would be due to the fact that collecting and redistributing dust is the core gameplay mechanic in “From Dust.” In each of the 12 stages, the Breath is tasked with helping the Men move to a number of pre-placed Totems in order to build villages. None of these things are customizable in any way, nor does the player have anything resembling granular control of the Men. The L trigger simply sucks up material while the R trigger dumps it out.

Using this basic ability to pick up material, the player can use the Breath to move dust, water, magma, and a handful of pre-placed plants. Hitting the A button while hovering over an objective for the Men summons them toward that objective, be it a Totem to serve as the core of a village, a hidden relic to unlock a bit of tribal lore, or a bit of shaman magic that allows the Men to protect their villages from influxes of water or magma.

Each stage does pose a specific environmental obstacle that prevents the Breath and the Men from simply going from Point A to Point B with no difficulties. These obstacles range from tsunamis and floods to volcanic eruptions and wildfires. In all, there’s not a lot of variety, especially when “From Dust” wastes so many of its early stages in hand-holding simplicity.

The final mechanic that helps keep “From Dust” from being completely boring is Totem Magic. Certain Totems grant the Breath limited-time power-ups as long as they have an active village around them. These powers range from turning water into a jelly-like substance to putting out all fires on the map, plus a few super boring ones that simply amp-up the Breath’s ability to move materials.

Overall
While it might seem like an interesting callback to classic God-Games like “Populous” or even more recent titles like “Black and White,” “From Dust” isn’t really a proper God-Game at all: It’s a dirt moving simulator. With a sorely limited and unexciting story mode and a tiresome and pointless challenge mode, “From Dust” doesn’t offer enough compelling concepts to keep players engaged. God-Game fans will find nothing of value here, while less experienced players or those with a passing interest in this particular sub-genre most likely won’t find anything that will convince them to expand their horizons.

Presentation: 2.5/5
Story: 3/5
Gameplay: 2/5
Overall (not an average): 2/5