Lost: Via Domus

Folks who have been watching the show from the first episode won’t find any new answers about the island, and those used to a more robust adventure game experience will be put off by the boring, simplistic game play.

A decent digital recreation of the show, with mediocre story and adventure gameplay, counterbalanced by oodles of Lost fan-service.

Still, it is fun exploring the island and piecing together the story, I just wish I had been ‘lost’ a little longer.

As a rental, Lost: The Video Game might entertain a handful of die-hard fans for four or five hours, but it has no replay value.

One gets the feeling that the show's creators are trying to wash their hands of Via Domus, awkwardly placed as it is in the series' now-sprawling legendarium. But above and beyond that, fans should approach it as a lark; it's not very accomplished as a game.

But there's nothing in the game that you haven't already heard blabbed around the water cooler. Besides, if you play the modest mess that is Lost: Via Domus you'll never again wonder if the TV series has jumped the shark. It can't possibly get this muddled.

A disappointment. As a Lost fan, I’m annoyed by the inconsistencies in character actions; if I were not a Lost fan, I’d be confused about who all these people are and what they’re up to. As a game player, I’m frustrated by clunky mechanics, and if I were a non-game player, I’d probably feel justified in thinking that videogames were still the realm of nerds and their ilk.

But it’s not the mythology that brings Via Domus down — it’s the boring and uninspired gameplay, which consists of a bevy of puzzles using fuse panels, a few rudimentary action sequences, and some weak games of hide-and-seek.

While Lost tries to encapsulate the spirit of the series, it ends up smothered by it, restricted from being anything more than a shiny tourist guide to the set and characters. [Apr 2008, p.84]

Instead of making excuses for Lost: Via Domus, I would just recommend that everyone but the most die-hard of Lost fans take a pass on this one.

Expensive at half the price, this is boring for Lost fans and baffling for the rest. [May 2008, p.72]

Unoriginal, unexciting and uninspired: a cheap collection of poorly conceived mini-games and show references, held together by a script resembling bad fan fiction. If a good use of a license appeals to fans while spinning its successful elements into a game, then Lost: Via Domus is the opposite of this.

Lost feels truncated to the extreme, a grand tutorial to island living violently cut off when the credits roll after four hours. [Apr 2008, p.93]