Dust: A Tale of the Wired West

The Good
"Dust" is built on the foundation of great atmosphere; you the player feels like a person in a Western Movie. The music is very good and the writing, while a bit campy at times, is passable. The visuals are split down the middle with interesting settings in the fore and background, but the character models are inadequate. The game thrives on nostalgia and because is embraces and pays homage to so many classic "Western" themes, the good, in the end, will be remembered before the bad.

The Bad
The technical limitations of mid-90's computer gaming is evident here. The 3-D character field models are atrocious and the character busts while in conversations, called by the game designers "puppets", can be unsettling. The music is excellent but sparse. And the puzzles, at times, can be quite illogical.

The Bottom Line
The "Western" Genre had a brief period of resurrection in the mid-1990's with the release of several films like "Tombstone" and "The Quick and the Dead". The Video Game Industry attempted to cash in on this rebirth with several titles: "Outlaws" by LucasArts, "Mad Dog McCree" by American Laser Games, and "Dust: A Tale of the Wired West" by Cyberflix are just a few.

"Dust" is a hybrid game that combines an odd first person engine with "Myst-like" logical puzzle solving. With great atmosphere, good music, and an enjoyable story, the result is a wholly enjoyable experience. The learning curve is very low which permits just about anybody to play it and the story content is friendly to kids and adults, (there are just a few sexual-in-jokes).