Lost: Via Domus Xbox 360 Review
I'll start by saying that I am a massive Lost fan so you can imagine my delight when I heard they were making a game set in the same world. Details have been fairly sparse and an unusually short development cycle (less than a year between acquiring the rights and release date) had me worried; were they going to churn out another terrible film/TV to game conversion. I sincerely hoped not, and upon playing the game I was both surprised at what they had achieved, and disappointed at what they had not.
For those that do not know, the basic premise of Lost: Via Domus is fairly simple. You play the role of Elliot - a photographer who was onboard Oceanic Flight 815 as it crashed onto the Island. This character has been made just for the game - you won't find him in the TV show. You will however, find all the other main characters from the show, Hurley, Jack, Kate, Locke, Sawyer etc. are included in the game as NPC's. When you land you get some sort of amnesia, you can't even remember your name. The game takes off from there, with Elliot on a quest to firstly work out his name, and then decipher his past.
The game is hard to describe; at the heart it's an adventure game but after playing for a while it felt almost more like a point-and-click puzzle game. It is essentially, a bunch of mini-games/puzzles with a storyline. These mini-games range from fitting fuses into electrical panels (you get quite a lot of these and they are nothing more than a simple logic game) to finding your way through dark caves. You carry out these various tasks, among others, none of which are particularly inspiring.
You also get the occasional flashback. These are short scenes where you have to use your camera to take a photo of an important event, triggering the memory in your mind so you can fully experience it. Whilst they are a nice detour from the Island, a couple of them were quite frustrating as you have to be fairly accurate with the camera to get the right shot.
The main problem with this game is, it's not really much of a game, more of an interactive episode of Lost. It's incredibly linear for a start; you have to do things the way the game wants you to do things. You can go off and talk to the various survivors but this never really leads you anywhere, apart from earning you a bit of back-story. There is also incredibly little content. I finished this in 2 evenings, playing about 2 hours each evening so the game is essentially 4 hours long, although you could maybe squeeze about 6-7 hours out of it if you were intent on getting all the achievements. There is also pretty much no-replayability, unless you fancy doing the same thing, all over again!
It also suffers from one of the things that really puts me off games; dying with no real idea why you died or how to stop it happening again. This is particularly prevalent whilst exploring the dark caves. I found myself falling to my death, time and time again and I could hardly even see the holes I was falling into!
The graphics are generally very good, the likenesses with the Lost characters are fairly realistic and the whole Island looks pretty good. The voice acting, however, is not quite so pleasant. The majority of the voices are not the actual actors. Whilst some of the voice-overs sound half decent (Hurley for example), others sound absolutely terrible (Sawyers is really laughable!). I found that this really did detract from the game in some ways - it sounds trivial but I really felt like it was the TV show until the characters opened their mouths!
The presentation is also very good; the game is told in a series of episodes, 7 in total. At the start of each episode, you'll get a 'Previously on Lost' which shows a recap of the latest happenings, just like the TV show. You'll then do the first 5 or so minutes of that episode and the game will fade out, and the Lost title screen will come up; again, just like the TV show. At the end of each episode you'll also get a cliff-hanger (usually) and the trademark 'dum', before fading out to the Lost logo. It doesn’t sound important but it really does add to the whole experience.
The storyline is initially quite confusing. You soon enough start to get the bigger picture and it feels almost like an episode of Lost. That is, until the end, which I found really quite disappointing.
If you are not a fan of Lost, then this game is no good for you. You really do need to have seen the TV program to get some enjoyment out of it. The reason for this is that certain events happen in the background which are not explained in the game, that you could really do with understanding. The majority of the environments and some of the situations are also straight out of the programme so I can’t help but feeling it might be a little more confusing if you haven’t seen the TV show.
If your an avid Lost fan, then there is some enjoyment to be had, it’s just a shame it’s incredibly short lived! In my opinion it’s worth a rent but I really can’t justify paying £40 for so little play time, I came away feeling a little bit robbed. Not only from the price I paid, but from what is such a missed opportunity. A little more variety, freedom and length and this game could have been brilliant. If you’re not a Lost fan, I’d steer well clear unless you’re just after some easy Gamerscore.
Lost: Via Domus is available on Xbox 360, PC and PS3. It’s released in Europe tomorrow, Friday 28th February, 2008. You can purchase Lost: Via Domus starting from £24.99 here.
