Sometimes it was snagging a set of vampires by the scruffs of their necks to drop them on a simpering hero's head. Sometimes, it was using your avatar - a green, disembodied hand - to slap an imp around and make it work like a Starbucks barista during the morning rush. The game that currently holds the coveted title of 'Forgotten Franchise That Needs a Modern Update' took a direct-intervention approach to deploying its godlike powers. YES NO Dungeon+Keeper+(EA/Bullfrog,+1997) Before the Sims taught us the joys of accumulating endless wealth and power, there was this darkly comic gem, also from the mind of Peter Molyneux. Who knew that a deity's job description included something as mundane as playing backhoe? The latter's a little more graceful, but still involves a lot of shifting of earth and water to solve environmental problems and keep your l'il tribesmen alive. The former was all about flattening out green mountains and covering the ground with water to generate stone castles faster than your AI competition. Populous and From Dust share one particularly key trait - they're both obsessed with landscape architecture. Looking back, it's shocking to realize that Populous didn't just trailblaze a concept, but it also A) debuted on the Commodore Amiga and B) gave us some of the scariest sound effects ever heard in gaming. In a few paragraphs, we'll learn that Molyneux was also there in the middle and near the end, but for now, all you need know is that he came up with Populous, the genesis of the god game gene. Populous++(EA/Bullfrog,+1989) In the beginning, there was Peter Molyneux. Here's your run-down your history of god-games, and how they have impacted From Dust. From Dust stands on the shoulders of some amazing god-game brethren. Could From Dust's unexpected success be a divine sign that the god-games genre is finally due for a resurrection? Could be. The PlayStation Network version is set to launch September 27.

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