Lost: Via Domus Developer: Ubisoft Montreal Publisher: Ubisoft Release Date: 29 February 2008 Genre: Adventure ESRB Rating: T A few years ago the Lost TV show hit screens worldwide. The series became an instant hit and was, and still is highly successful. Its unique plot and cast of interesting and different characters had helped the show gain a lot of popularity amongst viewers. Furthermore, coming at a time whence perhaps TV series were in decline, it helped bolster television audiences and paved the way for a number of highly acclaimed shows to follow. However, even now when the show is in its fourth season, it remains one of the top watched programs across the globe. As with most successful (and at time unsuccessful) movies and shows, a video game is bound to be released based on this media. Lost is no different and we now find ourselves with Lost: Via Domus, an adventure game released on the PS3, XBOX360 and PC. This is a review for the PC version of the game. For those that are yet unawares of the plot of the series, it involves a group of stranded survivors of an aircraft crash. Oceanic Air flight 815 departs Sydney and mysteriously crashes on a deserted island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Thereafter the viewers are introduced to each of the characters as strange and exciting developments occur on the island, whilst they wait to be rescued. Every character in Lost is unique and has some sort of storyline which is explored with the dual presentation of the show. Each episode focuses on the past of a particular character on the island, as well as showing what is happening in the present on the island. Things obviously become not what they seem, and numerous questions arise as to the true nature of the island, the crash, the inhabitants themselves, as well as a host of other events that occur during their time on shore. The exciting characteristic about the series is that it creates and develops a sense of mystery about the story which keeps the viewers glued to their sets, and eager to watch the next episode. Questions are usually answered with a batch of new questions, which keep the show fresh and exciting. It was therefore a challenge for the developers to create an original game that maintains this element of mystery and intrigue, yet is fun and interesting to play. To a certain extent the developers have achieved this goal. The story of the game is, for the most part, relatively different from the show, however it is correlated with the major events of the series. All the characters are present and are easily recognisable, however, the protagonist of the game is an entirely new person. You play as an unnamed male character that has amnesia and cannot remember anything about himself or his past life before the crash of Oceanic Air 815. You are thus thrust on the island with the objective of discovering your true identity and your purpose on the island. In the early parts of the game, your character is confronted by a mystifying man that is clearly from your past and this ties in neatly with the overall story of the game and the mystery surrounding your character and his past. The story of the game is pretty interesting. It is really great that the developers decided to introduce a brand new storyline that runs parallel to the TV series, but is yet independent. Credit has to be given in this regard. It is a very intriguing story. However, this is where the praise ends and the criticism begins. Sure, the story is good and enjoyable, but it is pointless having a great storyline to a game that is just terrible to play. There is no point in forcing yourself through a game that is not fun at all. The game is divided into several chapters, with each having a very similar flow. You are presented with various objectives to complete. Before that however, you have to speak to certain members of the island to gather information before you can investigate a specific place on the island for clues to lead you to your current objective. Needless to say this can become very repetitive and running around speaking to people from the island is rather annoying, only to be led to a new area you have to explore. The problem with this is that it is just very boring; so boring in fact, that you will come very close on a few occasions to simply stopping your game and uninstalling this title. There is no variety in the way the game plays out at all. The scenery changes with the different chapters you play through, but other than that you are practically doing the same thing over and over again…and then doing it some more. The basic scenario is as follows: you talk to the people around the islands and find out what to do next; you walk around the jungle, explore your next destination, solve a simple puzzle, watch a cinematic and then move to the next chapter where the process is repeated. Your objectives are always very basic and easy to complete, which makes this game very simple and effortless with regard to difficulty. At certain points in each chapter you will move to the protagonists’ past, where you will be required to take a photo of a certain event. These little forays into the past are rather irritating as trying to capture the correct photo can be rather frustrating. The reason for this is that it has to be pretty specific and you could spend longer than necessary trying to capture this photo to proceed. You are given a camera early on in the game however, which allows you take pictures of various places. Capturing the right photo can at times unlock bonus content in the game. It should be mentioned that capturing these “secret†photos can be difficult because of the fact that they have to be so specific and must be at the correct angle and correct zoom level. The little puzzles you are forced to get through can also be rather annoying. They are way too easy at times and simply require you to perform a simple mathematical equation in order to restore power to an electric box. After a while this gets tiresome and leaves you longing for a different or new challenge. The game itself is also rather short. It can easily be completed in one day of solid play. The developers have come up with some ideas that are rather interesting, but had they been executed better, it would enhance the gameplay and the overall experience. For starters, they have created the jungle in the island dense and confusing, making it impossible to know which way you are going. This requires you to rely on various landmarks in order to find your way to a particular destination. Getting lost therein is thus very easy. This is realistic and an interesting touch to the game. The problem therein is that it is indeed extremely easy to lose track of where you need to go next and you find yourself running randomly until the deadly “black smoke†catches you. Those familiar with the show will be aware of the “black smoke†and how it haunts its prey and eventually kills it. The reason this is a problem is that you will constantly find yourself reloading and restarting a particular section of the game just because this “black smoke†is so common and kills you so frequently. This is not consistent with the TV show as the “black smoke†there was rarely seen and not as common as in the game. Another aspect the developers introduce in the game is trading of items between people on the island. This can seem pointless at times and is just added if at times you require a story item or anything else that may be useful. It’s an interesting addition to the game. Furthermore, a very neat inclusion occurs each time you load your previous save game. The story leading up to your current point in the game is very nicely summarised for you with special cutscenes from the one’s you had seen up to that point. It resembles that of the TV show and is a very interesting inclusion to the game. As you complete each chapter, the traditional “LOST†screen that is customary to the end of each TV episode appears. This is a great touch by the developers and keeps the feeling of actually playing through an episode of Lost. The graphics of the game can be pretty amazing at times. Running this game on a high end computer makes this look fantastic. The jungle is brought to life thanks to the amazing visuals on display. Colourful and green, it is well animated and everything looks polished and neat. Walking through a dark cave with a torch allows for some really pretty shadows and flickering off the walls. The great thing about this game is the flexibility it seems to have relating to gamers with lower end machines. All you need to do is simply slide the bar down to minimum settings and all the beautiful graphics will disappear with bland and lifeless visuals intended for users that do not have the necessary system specs. The unfortunate thing is that this would make the game utterly unplayable, as the graphics are one of the few things that keep you going through the game. The voice acting is average. One would expect a fantastic achievement in this regard, however, often this area of the game feels flat. Although all the actors reprise their respective roles in the game, speaking with characters in the game feels dull and not as exciting as watching it on the actual show. The physics of the game are very frustrating. You often find yourself running into invisible objects that shouldn’t be there, or at the very least into an object that is still a fair distance away. All in all this is a really insipid and tasteless game. Fans of the show will be really disappointed, as I was. There is just no motivation to complete this game beyond the first two chapters. Even a big a Lost fan as me had trouble playing this through to the end. You have to be a real Lost die hard fan to have the patience for this title. The sad part is though that this could have been so much better. Yet the developers threw away the interesting story they had put together by creating a terrible gaming experience. Apart from the graphics and storyline, there is little this game has to offer. In this age of gaming where so much emphasis is placed on a solid gameplay, this title fails miserably. Avoid at all costs. Story: 9/10 An exciting story awaits anyone who decides to play this game. Gameplay: 2/10 Playing this game is really boring. There is no challenge and nothing to be gained in terms of gameplay. Graphics: 8/10 Beautiful graphics engine, with impressive flexibility. Sound: 6/10 One would expect the voice acting to be rather impressive on a game based on a TV show where dialogue is key. Replayability: 1/10 Why would you want to play this again? You probably wouldn’t even get through the first play through. Total: 26/50 This game could have been so much more. It is a shame that the developers’ presentation was so poor on a strong graphics engine and a believable and interesting story.
Great review, grimsim. From the screenshots, I'd assume that you need a fairly fast PC to run it. Nasty score.
Thanks Jin. Yeah, to get the most out of it you need a great PC. But a slower one can also run it I would imagine. Bu it really was a bad game. ;D wow very bad.
You made this game look good grimsim, but I think I'll continue to watch the series instead. Nicely done mate
yeah I can't believe I played through this crap. Well I've been away but I'm back now so I got some tasty reviews coming up. Hehehehe
