Get Lost, Lost

I was recently asked whatever happened to my series of "re-reviews" of the TV series Lost, which I last left half a year ago, barely into the second season. I've always intended to get back to the (not-so-)little project, but haven't found the time.

But I did want to veer back toward Lost for a moment to mention the video game, which I only recently picked up cheap. Titled "Lost: Via Domus," the game follows the story of a new crash survivor (you) with amnesia about his past -- a convenience that enables the player to experience flashbacks about the character's past, exactly in the style of the early episodes of the series.

I wasn't expecting the game to reveal any sort of valuable piece of the Lost narrative. Now that the show is over, we know more than ever that everything was centered on the central characters; no auxiliary narrative like this could ever be that meaningful to the whole. But I was expecting to be at least a little entertained.

Sadly, I can't even really report that. The game is stupidly simple, boring, and straight-forward. It's built in the model of an "immersive world" story-telling game, but is built so on the rails that there's really nothing to ever figure out, and no real opportunities to steer off a single, straight-arrow narrative. Perhaps the game developers assumed that a vast non-gamer audience would be brought to their title by its Lost subject matter? In any case, their degree of difficulty and complexity falls far short of what is even average for the genre.

Add to that some really spotty voice acting. A few of the actors from the show do contribute the voices for their own characters, but the vast majority of the people you interact with most are played by sound-alikes -- though to call them sound-alikes is being quite generous. Kate is close-but-just-off, Jack is only sort-of-in-the-ballpark, I don't know who Locke is supposed to sound like, and Charlie neither looks nor sounds right -- he's like some new character in a green striped shirt.

Still, I was working my way quickly through the game... until Christmas came along. I received several more promising and exciting games as gifts, and the shoddy Lost game got kicked straight to the curb. Will I ever get around to finishing it? Maybe. It certainly wouldn't take much more effort. But still, is it even worth that? Probably not.

In short, even the Lost fans should stay away from this poor effort.