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Aside from pseudo-show moments, there are wandering puzzles that plop you into the jungle to find markers. It’s there you’ll find the most heinous crime against the Lost mythology: the awesome smoke monster, a boiling mass of black stuff that rips trees out of the ground and kills people, becomes an annoyance. The first time you spot it it’s geeky and exciting, but then you’re forced to flee from it, all the while trying to find the marker to the next area. You have to hide in this section, but every time you do you get a cutscene from the monster’s POV. That’s every time, so about five times in the three minutes it takes you to dodge it.
It doesn’t help that all the way through this tense little chase you’re being bombarded with messages to pick junk off the ground. Via Domus has a bartering system that doesn’t make sense: you collect coconuts, bottles, books and swap them with other survivors, except they’re everywhere and respawn so why isn’t everyone filling their pockets? Besides, on an island with a monster and a collection of native psychopaths, would you swap a gun for a bunch of coconuts and a novel?
A game that kills you for leaving your character in darkness for too long isn’t to be played. A game that dares to insinuate a character into a long-running show and hopes you didn’t notice he wasn’t around before can’t be trusted to replicate the experience of the show. A game that offers all the TV characters but gives you impersonators for the voices is a cheap, nasty rip-off. That is Lost: Via Domus. Avoid it like you would Season 4 spoilers.
Feb 28, 2008
