I've played through the first three episodes of Lost: Via Domus for the Xbox 360. Here are some quick impressions of what I've seen so far.
Story
The Lost creators came out recently and said that the game's story is not considered canon, which took a bit of the wind out of the sails for the game. On top of that, I can't really say that I'm all that interested in the main character's backstory so far. Perhaps it'll get more engaging as the game progresses.
Presentation
For me, presentation can go a long way. 24: The Game was a mediocre game boosted by its presentation which mimicked the TV show. The same goes for Lost.
Each level plays like one episode of the show, complete with
"Previously on Lost" recaps at the beginning of each new level,
cliffhangers at the end with the title card then suddenly flashed on
the screen, etc.
Gameplay
So far I've done a lot of running around and exploring, and solved a couple of puzzles involving electrical circuits. Mainly I've been interacting with other characters, learning backstory, and taking pictures with my character's camera (which I finally found in the plane's wreckage). The picture taking element of the game is reminiscent of Dead Rising, which is fine. So far I feel like the game is holding your hand a little too much at times, and yet at other times you won't have a clue as to what you're supposed to be doing. There's a balance in there somewhere.
Graphics
Solid, but not spectacular. The characters mostly resemble their real life counterparts, although Hurley looks a little inhuman for some reason. Little details with the characters made me laugh heartily though. For example, Locke will tilt his head at the end of sentences or smile inappropriately much like how he does in the series, and the programmers perfectly captured Matthew Fox's bizarre little head waggle he does sometimes when he's talking.
The environments are well done as well. Being on the beach in the midst of the plane wreckage was a fun experience.

Sound
I don't have my surround sound set up at the moment, but
I can tell that it would be rather awesome if I did. When you're in
the woods, sometimes you'll hear the sudden rush of random voices
surrounding you, or the sound of the smoke monster stalking you. I
can't wait to get my sound system back up and running to really
experience the game's audio.
When I was working on the game's first big puzzle, the music got so intense that I was tempted to turn it off completely. It felt as though if I didn't complete the puzzle by the time the music hit its crescendo, the game would have ended (it didn't). This isn't a knock on the music... it was just so intense, out of nowhere, and it was putting way too much pressure on me to perform. Plus, in the background you could hear Michael screaming "Walt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" over and over again, which only served to ramp up the tension even further.
Voice Work
This is probably the single most disappointing
aspect of the game. If you look at some of the other big licensed
movie/TV games from the past few years, Lost is the absolute worst in this department. The Sopranos game got many of its big names to provide voices, From Russia With Love got Sean freakin' Connery to return to his 007 role, The Godfather got Robert Duvall and James Caan to do voice work, and EVERYONE provided voices for the 24 game. Here, only six of the cast members provide their own voices (Ben, Mikhail, Sun, Desmond, Claire and Tom).
The alternate voices provided are adequate, although Locke sounds like
a wise old Native American man. Michael's voice is the closest to
being accurate. Jack sounds close, Kate sounds somewhat generic, and Hurley
only really sounds close when he says "dude".
(Speaking of Hurley, an interview with Jorge Garcia in August of 2007 about the video game revealed an interesting bit of info. When asked if he'd done any work for the game, his response was: "No, I haven’t done anything for the game yet. I haven’t been contacted about doing voice or anything." Were cast members even asked to work on the game?)
Achievements
Not a lot of thought went into most of these.
Most of them are gained by simply playing the game. Jumpstart the next
part of the story and you get an achievement. Whee. On the other
hand, at least they're easy to get. You don't have to collect
1,000,000 coconuts or anything to get 15 achievement points.
Final Thoughts
I'm really enjoying the experience so far. And you kinda need to approach Lost: Via Domus as an experience rather than a hardcore video game. As a game, most will probably find it somewhat lacking. But as an interactive companion to the television show, it's a blast.
Recent Comments