Reviews & Ratings for
Lost: Via Domus (VG) More at IMDbPro »

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5 reviews in total

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6 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Everything you love about Lost and everything you hate about video games., 19 May 2009

Author: done_holding_back from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

If you are a Lost fan, there will be something undeniably exhilarating about being able to walk around the familiar parts of the island from the first few seasons, and to interact with the characters you've grown to love and hate. That's about all this game has to offer. In this story you play a new, non-canon survivor of the front section of the plane who has been stricken with amnesia, and you must piece together your past via a series of flashbacks reminiscent of the television show.

What is different is that the flashbacks here are interactive. In each flashback you must unlock key details of the plot via a clumsy attempt to draw you into the game. You must point your camera at the right person or object and take a picture. For an (unnecessary) extra challenge, you have to be careful to focus the camera just right before snapping the shot. Once you are successful, the rest of the flashback is unlocked for you to interact with. With clockwork reliability, every flashback will have 3 items that you can interact with, each giving you back a bit of your past. The first time it's clumsy but intriguing; by the third it will have lost its flavor and become nothing more than a chore.

The present (on the island) is where the rest of the game play takes place, and where it's the most painful. Lost: Via Domus plays like a quarter-hungry arcade game, where the developers looked for any excuse (non-sensical as they occasionally are) to kill your character and give you the delightful "You have died" screen. Depending on where you die, you may be able to jump right back in to where you were, or you may be kicked back several puzzles. This is exacerbated by the fact that each "episode" begins with a "Last time on Lost..." segment that shows you what you just did 5 minutes ago. If you die near the beginning of an episode, you will quickly get tired of seeing this recap. All in all, the challenges on the island (including the controls that only a developer could love) are tedious, monotonous, and overly difficult. It appears not to have been designed to be "fun" but rather to turn 20 minutes of content into 5 or so hours of drudgery.

The handful of actors from the show who provided voice acting for the game earned this game a point, but only barely since all of their characters (Claire, Desmond, and yes -- even Ben) are just token characters thrown in for fans. Their role in the game is forgettable, insubstantial, and they could all have been easily written out of the plot (yes -- even Ben).

Finally, there is the main story arc that reveals all of your favorite pro- and antagonists to be utterly unlikeable. Due to your inability to remember your name and past, you appear to be the only survivor required by Jack to prove your loyalty. To uncover your past you need an item that Locke has. Instead of giving it to you outright, Locke sends you on a (tedious, overly difficult) soul-searching mission through a cave (fraught with challenges that have no anchor to the TV show). He does this ostensibly to prove to you that your past is not important, which he later contradicts for no apparent reason. During your lengthy journey to recover your past, you are frequently reminded how Jack and Sayid are growing more suspicious of you by Losties who have little interest in helping you solve your problem that could have been solved in a day or two with some cooperation.

Ultimately, in your endeavor to uncover your history and redeem yourself to the amazing duo (Jack and Sayid), you discover that -- whoops -- you actually are a bit of a jerk, and possibly the most unlikeable character in the game.

If this weren't a Lost game, I would just barely give this a 2.

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5 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
As an avid LOST fan...., 18 July 2008

Author: Razzie33 from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I have found the game to be quite enjoyable. The details in making the the scenery like the show is great. The fuselage on the beach was just like the show! (Also I loved how if you don't complete your task the plane blew up!) The hatch was just like being in it as well. I also like how in the game you are a new, unique character to the game but most of the main characters are still there. It may be a "short" game board and mission-wise in comparison to other video games out there but it is still good. I am a casual gamer and didn't really find it to be too short at all - I played in hour bursts. It has been a great filler in the time I am waiting for LOST to come back to TV during the summer...........

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2 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
Don't listen to the bad reviews, it's really worth playing!, 15 April 2012

Author: ccoyle36 from United Kingdom

To be honest, I'm not a fan of the show (In fact I don't watch it.) But now I regret that. Since I played half of the game, I'm dying to see the TV Series. When I looked it up on IMDb, I saw it had 115 episodes. Whoa! Anyways the game is brilliant, the graphics, the effects, the storyline, the monster and most of all the characters. After I got the game at CeX Entertainment, I saw the 4 reviews already posted to see if it's worth playing. Overall I got 2 Bad & 2 Good reviews, so it's 50/50. I sometimes look at the reviews before playing or watching.

So I say "If your not a fan of the show (like me), then give it a try. And if your a fan of the show, then this is a game for all.

9 out of 10! :D

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1 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
clever, creative and fun, 27 March 2008

Author: davies-13 from Wales

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

usually, games that are spin offs from a TV series are terrible, but this one is a good game.

i don't know why people are upset with this game, to be honest after reading some reviews i thought that many people expected way too much from it! the graphics to start off with are awesome (but given the consoles its on, what would you expect) and the gameplay is very good but it does need improvement, i find it hard to believe that the gameplay gets so many complaints, i know its not great but its nowhere near as bad as its made out to be! as far as the voice overs go, quite frankly i thought that they were the real actors from the show and I'm not joking about that! people say that the voice overs are terrible........huh?! the storyline is pretty simple but its also interesting, basically you play a never-before-seen passenger from the oceanic flight 815 that has amnesia brought on by the crash, and you have to work to remember your name, and what has brought you to the island. not an amazing storyline but a good one none the less! i find it creative that you can interact in flashbacks as i was expecting them to be just videos.

also there have been complaints about the amount of key lost characters in the game? all the main ones are in there (jack, kate, sayid, hurley etc.). in another review i saw a request for shannon or boone to be in there? what importance do they have for this games storyline? come to think of it what importance did they have to the show??? i didn't expect much of this game for one reason...its a TV show spin off game! these games are usually useless but i think this one deserves much more credit than its been given! all in all a good game!

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10 out of 30 people found the following review useful:
Lost Via Boredom, 17 March 2008

Author: repo_jake-1 from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Well to sum this game in a word - BAD! I shouldn't have been expecting much with a game based on a TV series - but had anyone from the series been involved this may have been OK!

I was hoping for a more GTA feel set through the current 4 series' and maybe even an additional medium of telling more story ala Matrix Game! But no - instead of walking anywhere u want, maybe borrowing Hurleys VW, go hunting, find stuff, join or fight the others and so much more they could of done, they failed.

You play an amnesiac passenger of Oceanic Flight 815, - no one seen yet from the show. You slowly learn your ID etc in a very short and pointless story. You interact with a select few of the survivors, with some of the worst voice acting ever! Locke annoys you loads, Jack is just a hate monger, Sayid is spot on, Sawyer is a cliché redneck who is annoying. Boone, Shannon, Ana Lucia, Mr Echo are nowhere and the surviving 40 + from the show become a surviver amount of 8 people!

Graphics: 9/10 To be fair to the game - the graphics are good. The characters look the business, the Island is very well rendered. This looks spot on.

Sounds & Music: 4 Though the music is crisp - it uses the same repetitive piano theme all the way through, which is the same as the show, it becomes very annoying. The Lost Theme - fails to make it in. The audio of voice acting is bad - it is so clearly not the main cast. Though Desmond, Ben and Sun do make it in - they are so underused and in it for mear seconds its hardly worth mentioning!

Game Play: 2 The controls are horrible and very jumpy. There is a constant delay between commands. The game style is broken into 8 'Episodes' which is the same thing over and over - Flashback which involves a photo, quick puzzle, find something or run from it, then end of episode. Its boring. The constant 'Previously on Lost' bits are annoying, you can die so easily and have to re watch the cut scenes which you cannot skip!

Replay Value: 0 Once you work your way through this, and finally complete it - with its horrible and pointless end sequence, there is nothing to go back for. No different ways to do the game, the extras are so small and rubbish you will almost guarantee to pick everything up first time - ie it tells you what to photograph! Once finished- which with dedicated play will last you a day! There are complicated puzzles involving setting the right amount of volts to a juncture. Its easy at first because it gives you an indication of the amount of volts. Later it doesn't and with the shear number of bolts to use - its a nightmare. Its not tough but annoying - cos it could be anything!!

Summary This game sucks! Don't buy it or play it. If it used any other game type it would of been a decent game - but no it went with the Men in Black style and sucks!!

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