Game Name: From Dust

Platform: Xbox 360

Publisher: Ubisoft

Rating: 18 (PEGI)

Genre: Real-Time Strategy

Play God, build mountains, create plains, split oceans and give birth to civilisations. Shape the world as you want it, make it a safe and homely place lush with vegetation and awash with living creatures. Make it all - From Dust.

Another game and another opportunity to be God to a bunch of hapless tribesmen and shaman looking to colonise lands and learn about the world. It’s hardly an original premise but one that people seem to enjoy the prospect of, not because we’re megalomaniac types with a falsely inflated sense of self worth, but because we love to create. What would we do if we could mould the world to our liking?

From Dust builds upon this fundamental intrigue of human nature by giving players the option to be able to grab globs of water, lava and sand, and then to paint landscapes that tribal people will be able to traverse and carry out objectives on.

With a cursor that can move to certain materials, suck them into a big ball, and spit them out at will, players can use the environment to create a safe haven for their people.

Of course this is a game – there’s got to be a challenge. Mother Nature is the archenemy here, throwing tsunamis of gargantuan proportion at your newly made paradise, or erupting a volcano that will trickle down to a village and turn the residents ever so crispy. Still you must carry on, strive to succeed by using nature’s resources to block the attack, save your people and send them on their merry way to their next objective.

Each mission is bite-sized but can take a few playthroughs to get to grips with. It’s this trial and error procedure that make From Dust so addictive, and with no definite tactics set in stone, players get a hefty dose of welcome flexibility.

Speaking of Gods, From Dust is a new invention from gaming God and Another World creator Eric Chahi. With him on board, was this ever going to be anything but a downloadable deity?

SCORE: 8 / 10