Video Game Review - From Dust - "Where you are the God of Nature and Control""

From Dust, a God-game where you control earth, water, and magma to battle the cruel forces of nature within your sandbox world. You're a god, but you're not all powerful, you cannot control the forces of nature (example: tsunamis, floods, wildfires, and massive volcanoes). You lead this shamanistic tribe throughout the land through different 'stories,' completing objectives such as , "Bring X to Y, to save location A from situation B."

Anyway, let's get to the review (By the way, this review is opinion, and is not a determining factor on your purchase):

Story: 7/10

The story, how should I say it? It's quite different from any other game I've played before. You start off as a 'god' with limited abilities, finding out the history of the tribesmen throughout. The storytelling is actually the reason why I kept continuing levels even though I have completed the goals already. If you enjoy non-linear storytelling, and love to expand beyond the actual goals of the level, you'll discover great tidbits of information about the tribes, animals, and other items.

Gameplay: 9/10

Game play is simple, yet complex in its own right. You use the mouse and the number keys 1-4 to help complete conditions given during the story line. The physics are amazing, something rarely, if ever seen in games like it. You can completely change the way your level looks. The final mission, makes the game play even more enjoyable - just imagine a sandbox in which you can create the landscape from the ground up. You give rise to land, from nothingness. That is quite the sight to behold.

Sound: 8/10

The sound is quite good - the crashing of the waves, the roar of the volcano, the sound of the tribal drums and pipes, are all really well done. All the sounds within this little gem add to the experience, never retracting from it.

Graphics: 9/10

Obviously, it's a good looking game. The way the liquids flow throughout the scenery is realistic. Trees topple to waves of water, lava cascades over the rocks and pretty much everything else believably. If you inspect the tribesmen closely, you'll notice the small details put into their clothing. The one problem: They don't give you the ability to adjust the graphics quality, but that's expected of a console port to PC, since consoles cannot adjust the graphical settings. It also suffers an occasional graphical glitch.

Replayability: 5/10

This is where the game takes a dive. The replay value is slightly low. You have access to challenges and a sandbox level at the end of the story, but that's all there is. No multiplayer. No real reason to play again once you've played through it, except for the sandbox level at the end.

Final Score: 8/10

This game is a great choice for it's price point. It may have it's flaws in replayability and inability to customize your graphics options, some slight graphical glitches every now and then but, it's well worth the 15$ on steam. The gameplay and the story, though short, are what you'll enjoy. Not the mention the freedom at the end of the game - sandbox god games for the win.