Dust: A Tale of the Wired West
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| Dust: A Tale of the Wired West | |
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| Developer(s) | Cyberflix |
| Publisher(s) | GTE Entertainment |
| Release date(s) |  1995 |
| Genre(s) | Adventure game |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
| Rating(s) | T (ESRB) |
| Platform(s) | IBM PC compatible, Macintosh |
| Media | CD-ROM |
| System requirements | PC: Windows 95, Windows 3.1, or Windows NT 3.51, 486 or faster processor, 8 MB RAM; Mac: System 6.0.7, 68030 or faster processor |
| Input | Mouse |
Dust: A Tale Of The Wired West is an American computer game made for the PC and the Macintosh. It was released on June 30, 1995 and was produced by Cyberflix and published by GTE Entertainment.
The game is a point and click western adventure game in which the player, playing a character called The Stranger, travels around a virtual old western desert town in the New Mexico desert in 1882.
The characters encountered in Dust are rendered by way of photographs of professional actors given limited animation in sync with dialogue. A later game produced by the same company, Titanic: Adventure Out of Time, uses the same technique. One reviewer was quoted as saying Dust was "Totally Awesome," "Hilarious," and "the best game where you are a cowboy."
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[edit] Summary
The game starts with an animation sequence showing the Stranger playing cards with The Kid -- the game's villain. The Stranger discovers that The Kid is cheating and stabs him and runs out of the saloon. The Stranger finds himself in the town of Diamondback, New Mexico, a desert town. He is not treated with respect, and must make his way himself. There are numerous "game within a game" sequences in Dust, including blackjack and poker games where the player can choose to play honestly or cheat, and a shooting range helps prepare the player for a later segment of the game where quick draw skills are essential.
[edit] Opening Monologue
The game begins with a sort of short story. The Stranger, or you, is playing 5-card draw poker with a person named the Kid, the villain of the game in a Saloon. When the Stranger bets his knife, the Kid throws his cards down, and reveals that he has a four of a kind of Aces, with a king for good measure. It beats your full house. As he reaches out to get his share, a Saloon woman remarks that his arm reveals another Ace; meaning he cheated! Infuriurated that the Kid tried to cheat, you stab him in the hand with the knife. The Kid draws his gun, but you're a quick thinker and throw the table up as a barricade. The Kid fires into the air. The view changes to outside the Saloon. Two more shots are heard, than the Stranger runs out of the Saloon. We can hear the saloon girl yell the words, "Run, Stranger!"
After that, the Cyberflix logo flashes on the screen, followed by a series of screens depicting the Stranger walking through a hot, desolate desert. As this happens, the credits roll, and an elderly sounding narrarator begins to speak.
The Stranger may have bested The Kid, but he had paid dearly for the privilege. He had no gun, no friends, and only a few dollars in his pocket. If he wanted to live longer than tomorrow, he'd have to find these things. Was he desperate? Let's be charitable; The Stranger, WAS, when we first met him, crow bait! Granted, Diamondback may not have looked like much either, still, we had everything he needed to survive!
[edit] Game
The Stranger start out at the entrance to the city, and meet the town drunkard Leroy. He gets quite a bit of information from him. But after the chat, he makes fast friends with an old chinese man named HELP. He gives the Stranger an old ring as a gift. Then, a man with a blue suit walks up to the Stranger and drools information on the past two day on him. He also slips him an Ace, to cheat at the table. When the Stranger walks into the saloon, he immediatley meets Nate Trotter. Nate tells him he should watch his back in this town.
Then after winning some money at the poker table, black jack game, or slot machine, the Stranger meets Oona Chanute, owner of the Harddrive Saloon. The Stranger gives her the ring to go upstairs and talk to the girls. He talks to Ruby and makes a friendship.
[edit] Trivia
- Real-life journalist Chet Flippo appears as a character also named Chet Flippo (who, appropriately, runs the local newspaper).
- During the course of the adventure, the player has several (expensive) encounters with Buick Riviera, a con man. In the later Titanic, Riviera appears as an elderly man playing cards aboard the ship. If you indicate that you've been to Diamondback, Riviera begins playing with a special set of Diamondback cards. The Titanic game includes several other references to Dust, but the presence of Buick is the most obvious.
- The doctor is named Hillary Rodham, the maiden name of Hillary Rodham Clinton.
