Lost: Via Domus (360)

[DroopyA]

I got a few games for Christmas but I've yet to have time to play them all. Fallout 3 has seen less then 2 hours of play, and Gears of War 2 still sets on my shelf unopened... because of this, I decided now was the time to use my GameFly subscription for something other then games I think will be good... I want something short and easy... something I can beat in a few days and send back so I can get back to playing games I got for Christmas. I wanted to use my "free game rental" for something stupid... something diffrent. I'm looking for a unique experiance... even if I know it'll come at the cost of fun gameplay mechanics.

This time around, I opted for LOST: Via Domus.

It's based off the popular TV show which, until now, I knew little to nothing about. My mother use to watch it so I saw the odd episode here and there when I would go visit. Something about a smoke monster, some numbers, a fat guy that I really liked even though I knew nothing about him, etc... I figured the game would be an interesting way to dive into the pop-culture trend. Worse case scenario, I get a few laughs and some easy achivements.

For those who know nothing, a little backstory. As I understand it, everybody was on an airplane that crashes over the ocean. Most of the people die but a small handfull survive. Strangly enough, all of the survivors have some shady history to uncover, and sometimes, their shady pasts intertwine with each other. The real problem, is that you're not alone on the island. There's are other people there... hostile people that may be trying to kill all of you. These people are now refered to as "the others".

The idea of the game is that you, the player, is on Flight [whatever] when it crashes on the island. The catch, is that you can't remember anything about your past... not even your own name. This causes some confusion with the other survivors as to wether or not you're even a survivor... how do they know you're not one of "the others" just faking amnesia as a way to infiltrate their camp?

I'll start here by saying that I really enjoyed this approach to the game. It allows you to explore the island from a first-person perspective (even though the game is 3rd person view) and really makes you feel like you're a part of the show. I can imagine this would be a big feature to actual fans of the show... it opens up the island and makes it feel more personal since it places you at the heart of the experiance instead of opting to force you into the role of an already existing character.

But the game immediatly shows its flaws. For starters, there is zero character customization. Considering it's a low-budget game for a TV show I can see the absense of a face sculpting application... but having zero customization for a game that places YOU as the main character seems highly disapointing. You get nothing... there is no way to change clothes, get a haircut, or add a tattooe. You don't even get to choose a skin tone or sex. If you're a black girl looking to be placed on the island... too bad... better prepare yourself to become a white guy, and fast... because that's your only option.

If anything, I would think adding a character select menu would be obvious... even if it's just between a male and female model.

Regardless, the game itself actually looks alright. The rendered scenes are sharp and the editing is done in a way that resembles television shows. Story scenes are detailed with a lot of character interaction and each chatper/stage of the game starts off with a "Last time on Lost..." short that highlights all of the events of the previous chapters. It's a nice touch but something about it slightly off that makes me feel as if the game was desigined with the idea that players would stop playing for a while after every stage.

If you try to play two or three stages in a row, you're forced to re-watch the same cut scenes almost back to back... which is odd and feels broken even though it's techincally by design. I guess this is something that may seem more 'in-place' if I had actually watched the show. But from a gamers point of view, it's a little odd.

Gameplay is pretty simple. The map features the same open-worldness as a Fable game... the map looks huge and you can sort of go anywhere you want whenever, but each map is blocked off into smaller sections by uncrossable obsticles. So although it looks like you can just wonder off into the forest, you can't... you'll only take a few steps before bumping into a big rock or a downed tree... leaving you stuck to a pretty narrow and pre-determined path. To make matters worse, a lot of the time you won't be allowed to leave an area until you've completed your local tasks. Going the wrong way or getting too far off track will result in a "I have to get my bearing" message and a reloading of the screen... turning your character around and now allowing him to leave.

It's not bad... it's not broken... it's just not good. It's your typical 'game based off a show' type of design. I get the real distinctive feeling that the game was purposly dumbed down so that everybody, including your mother and little sister, could play without too much frustration. Although that's probably a wise choice from a marketing standpoint, it really hurts the game as it closes out a lot of the fun of exploring and really kills the feel of being placed on a big empty island. Instead, it's more like taking a walk through a wildlife preservation.

The game is broken up into seven diffrent stages. Each stage consists of 6 smaller checkpoints that tell a section of your characters story. It sounds advanced, but it's really not... although most of the checkpoints require some form of challenge, some are as easy as talking to a survivor or leaving a room.

A typical gameplay run will start you off on the beach... survivors thrown about the island. Some in their homemade huts, others at "the hatch" (if you know what that is). You have a diary that helps keep track of what you remember and what you need to do. You'll get a small quest update at the start that provides you with your first hint to your first task. Usually this involves going somewhere and talking to somebody.

Talking to people is simple... there are no RPG elements to the game so it doesn't matter what you say as you can always re-talk to everybody and re-say everything as many times as you want. This is my favorite part of the game because each reply has a custom animation... and each character has strange in-game quirks about them. Hurley likes to give me the sex eyes... while the black guy had this weird head bobble going on after he finished his sentances.

Eventually somebody will say something that will trigger a flashback. Here you'll be given peices of a broken picture before being tossed back in time. At this point you'll have to use your camera to re-snap the photo seen before the flashback started. Getting the picture will allow you to remember what happened and unlock a peice of your past. Don't worry if you miss the photo though, you get as many tries as you want and there is zero punishment for being wrong.

The only other gameplay mechanic is manevering the jungle. Which is as simple as walking up to amarker on the tree and examining it. It'll give you a hint to where the next marker is... follow the markers, reach your destiniation. You can die here... often times this is where you get chased by "the others" and once, even the smoke-monster. It's pretty easy and only a challenge if you overthink the situation.

I'm almost out of room so I'll make this quick... also, there are dark caves. You have to always have a light as beeing in the dark for too long will get you killed. You have a lighter, you just have to turn it off and on when you see water, bats, or it gets too hot. Also, you can buy torches... you can't jump and running doesn't control well so you just walk and take it easy... reach the end of the cave to complete this task.

It's ok... good rental if you're a fan of the show. Pretty mediocore for everyone else. It's a real laid back title.

5 out of 10.

[Jackho]

yeah i rented this game and once i realized how crap and short it was i quickly flew trough the storyline and got all acheivements and then eagarly got rid of it

[DroopyA]

At 2/19/09 03:48 PM, Jackho wrote: yeah i rented this game and once i realized how crap and short it was i quickly flew trough the storyline and got all acheivements and then eagarly got rid of it

Same... two more chapters to go. Hopefully I finish it tonight.

It's not terrible, it's just not any fun. It's like the worst parts of every video game shoved into one title. There's a lot of pointless conversation with needless responses to sort through... bad mini games that involve finding hidden items and math, avoiding unkillable enemies, keeping track of how much fire you have, etc...

Don't get me wrong, none of it is difficult, but it's still there. It's predictible and doesn't feature much variety. Every chapter requires a trip through the jungle... which turns out to be a mini-game of finding markers on trees while avoiding black smoke or invisible gunmen.

A journey through a dark section of map, which requires constantly lighting tourches and lighters...

or those damn fuse boxes, which is something I wish I had time for in the original post.

For those that don't know, the game features this terrible puzzle based min game dealing with an electrical circut and a series of fuses. Basically you're given a circut board but the intersection of the diffrent circuts are missing their connecting fuses. You have a few diffrent types of fuses to choose from, each fuse diverts the electrical current in diffrent ways (some will just make them turn, other are 3 or 4 way splitters). Each fuse eats up a bit of the electric current though... so the idea is to figure out how to get the current to it's destination while still maintaing enough power to power whatever it is you're trying to supply power to.

So you'll start with 100. If you now use a 4-Way fuse you'll lose 15 power. So the power in the other 3 directions is now 85. A left turn fuse is 5 points... so if you use this on the top current your top current will be 80 while the other two will still be 85. My ending box needs 65 power... so the goal is to figure out how to not only stear the power to the end, but with the right peices to keep the power 65 of higher.

Maybe it's because I don't watch the show... but I don't understand why that's there. I mean, it's unfun and doesn't seem to apply to the TV show in any way, shape, or form... it's like the developers needed to create their own mini-game and for some reason thought Math Problems where the way to go. It's just one more annoying thing that's kind of easy, but completly unfun to do.

So far the story has been hit or miss. I'm going to wait until it's over before I pass a judgment on it, but so far it seems pretty bland and kind of predictible. Maybe there's going to be a decent shocker at the end... but so far I haven't really seen or found anything out that's really made me want to keep playing. As it stands now, I could be happy just guessing as to how it ends.

On the other hand, from what little I know of the show, it seems like the devs did a really good job putting in key show locations. I would think that's probably worth something... you get to take part in some key points in the show... not to spoil anything but at one point you even have to enter in the Numbers in the computer. It was stupid and pretty unexciting from a gaming point of view... but from a fan point of view, I bet that was pretty cool. I could see a lot of non-gamers being pretty stoked over things like that.

It's a good rental if your a fan... maybe worth 10 bucks.