LOST The Videogame review

The TV show Lost had me hooked form the start. It constantly throws up new questions, never really answers them and I’m now happily sitting through series four still waiting for a big pay off. Now Lost the videogame is here and it’s a mix of good and bad.

You play as a survivor named Elliott. You’re a photographer and must piece together your memory by completing quests on the island and getting your memory back by taking some photos and collecting evidence through a series of flashbacks. What this game is good at is using the structure of the TV show. In fact, all the chapters have cliffhangers and recaps and it really is great fodder for lost fans. All your favourite characters are there too but the soundalikes are sometimes off the mark. It’s good to see most of the character models looking spot on, particularly John Locke -baldies have always been easier to model than hairy dudes. And the environments are gorgeous. The whole game really is a visual treat as sea laps on the shore and light bounces through tree canopies.

Unfortunately, someone forgot to put any actual gameplay in here. Most of the game is adventuring. There’s some exploration through the forest using markers to get to your next waypoint and through caves, keeping torches lit so you don’t get killed by something lurking in the dark. There’s not much in the way of combat and there’s also a strange trading system that isn’t really needed at all. The only puzzles you’ll face are placing fuses into a circuit board in the correct order and you have to do this about 7 times throughout the game. This, along with the flashbacks, makes for a very disjointed game constantly interrupted by loading screens between scenes.

All that said, Losties will still get something out of this. It does go some way to explaining a little more than the TV show alone and there are some proper heart in the mouth moments like when you have to enter the numbers in the hatch or are being chased y the scary black smoke. Of course, if you don’t watch Lost you won’t have a clue what I’m on about and should stay clear of this. PS3 owners should get Uncharted instead. Xbox 360 achievement point junkies will also benefit as it throws almost the full thousand gamerpoints at you with ease in under five hours of gameplay.

Only recommended if you love the show and if you rent it out as you can complete this in an afternoon and once you finish it you probably won’t play it again.

Despite its mediocrity as an actual game, I saw it as a nice compliment to the TV show so I’m going to give Lost The Video Game a generous 6 out of 10.

LOST The Videogame review

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