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Lost: Via Domus
The road home is filled with mediocrity
By Marty Sliva
Fans hoping that the game will answer any of the billion questions that the series has posed throughout the years will actually get their wish. Sort of.
Be warned: This review is written by someone who would buy “Lost” bed sheets if they existed.
When one form of entertainment becomes successful enough, it’s a given that it’ll make the jump towards other forms of media in hopes of milking out a profit.
Lo and behold, “Lost,” the pinnacle of dramatic television, has been adapted into a video game for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.
For diehard Losties, the game is definitely worth playing if only for the chance to visit some of the most iconic locals in television history. Being able to wander through the hatch and notice small details like Desmond’s copy of “The Turn of the Screw,” or the bright red spot that marks the final resting place of Radzinsky provide some truly awesome moments. If you didn’t understand that last sentence, then you have no reason to pick up the game.
The game places you in the role of Elliott, a survivor of Oceanic 815. Before you go wracking your brain trying to figure out just who in the blue hell Elliott is, keep in mind that he has never been featured in the series (despite the fact that the game places him front and center during some major events).
Elliott has that tried and true ailment of amnesia, and a bulk of the game consists of trying to piece together his past while unraveling some of the mysteries of the island. Divided into seven “episodes,” the entire experience lasts a brisk 5-6 hours.
Much of your time is spent collecting papaya in order to use as trade-bait for torches and guns. I kid you not- enough papaya can buy you a Glock. If only life were so simple.
The developers attempted to spice up the mundane tropical fruit hunt by mixing in a few different game types. These range from the bland (memories pieced together via a poor man’s “Pokemon Snap”) to the really fun (chase segments where the player has to outrun the infamous smoke monster).
On the graphical end, “Lost” is a mixed bag. Certain episodes that take place in the jungle during the day are nothing sort of gorgeous. The way the sun looks as it peeks through the canopy and sprinkles the underbrush provides of the best next-gen images ever seen.
Sadly, character models range from passable to ugly as hell, and some of the animations make the characters move about as smoothly as a robot with a mean black tar addiction.
The audio in the game is ripe with disappointment. While some characters, such as Ben and Desmond, are voiced by the real actors, a majority of them are just poor facsimiles that jar the player out of the experience. Locke sounds like a Navajo Windtalker, and Sawyer reminded me of Foghorn Leghorn.
Another audio complaint, although seeming relatively minor, really irked me throughout the entire game. When the title screen hits every week, it is accompanied by an enigmatic melody that fits perfectly with the mysterious nature of the show.
In the game, when the title screen is displayed at the beginning of each episode, the only sound that emanates is some lame knockoff that seems to have been belted out on a Yamaha keyboard five minutes before the game was finished.
Is there any reason why they couldn’t get the actual sounds used in the show? Other than irritating me, I can’t think of one.
Fans hoping that the game will answer any of the billion questions that the series has posed throughout the years will actually get their wish. Sort of. You do get to find out just what exactly lies behind the concrete wall in the hatch that Desmond so eloquently put, “makes his fillings hurt.” For me, that was more than enough reason to play the game.
In the end, the game is worth a rental for serious fans of the show. Although bland in most aspects, it has enough glimpses of promise to keep you tuned in for its brisk duration. Everyone else would be better off spending their time and money on the DVD box sets, because anyone who hasn’t experienced the beauty that is “Lost” should be eaten by a polar bear.
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