http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2008/02/26/lost_disappoints.html
Lost disappoints
Playing through Lost is reminiscent of games - albeit graphically improved - from 15 years ago.
February 26, 2008 6:23 PM
I'm a big fan of Lost the TV show which is the only reason I'm persevering with Lost the videogame. Well, that and a probably misplaced belief that adventure games - think Monkey Island, Broken Sword etc- can still be relevant in 2008. Despite some nice production - "Previously on Lost" before each chapter, authentic music etc - there are far too many design flaws. In fact playing through Lost is reminiscent of games - albeit graphically improved - from 15 years ago. Instant death, invisible barriers, items that are only "activated" when you have spoken to the correct character - these are just some of the gaming anachronisms included. Instant death is the main offender. Even at the start of the game players are penalised if they get too close to the wrong kind of debris on the beach. The rest of the beach is blocked by - eek - invisible barriers and a small pile of luggage. Nice.
Things don't improve when you leave the beach. Enter the jungle - avoiding the "black smoke"- and laugh out loud as the game forces you to restart the section if you hit an invisible boundary by going the wrong way. Progress is made by finding the next piece of debris and pressing the button to point you in the direction of the next item - a clumsy mechanic in a game full of them.
And then there are caves. These pitch black areas are only navigable with a torch that needs relighting after about 5 seconds. Stay too long in the dark - say 10-15 seconds - and you "die". Try walking in the dark - in a direction you know is the right way because you could see it when you had the torch lit - and you invariably fall down a hole. Fun? Nope.
What else? A fiddly and tedious trading game is included, presumably to encourage you to pick up the coconuts and water battles that scatter the island.
But despite all this I am still persevering. The glimpses of back-story are intriguing and the chapters - there are 7 - are quite short so I'm guessing it won't be the longest game in the world (a plus point in my book). Plus big budget adventure-type games are rare, especially on consoles. Most importantly it is Lost and fans are likely to tolerate the clunky gameplay. So I'm sticking with it for now but even a third of the way in it's clear that Lost is not the new dawn of adventure games that I hoped it may be.
