Even the best of us are
mistaken at times and so it was when a reader wrote and asked if we
had plans to review Lost:
Via Domus, to which I responded most likely not as it
was not an adventure game.

Well,
it seems I was a little bit right and a little bit wrong. For while
Lost: Via Domus does not really have any puzzles
in the traditional sense, it is still an adventurous game. Yeah, yeah,
I know my blabbering makes about as much sense as the ABC television
series.

Speaking of which, I’m
not really a Lostaholic or whatever the fans of the show are called,
so one thing I can’t do is vouch for the authenticity of the
game as compared to the series. Based on the television series, the
game introduces a new character who mainly interacts with recognized
characters from the show without drastically altering any established
storylines

The
game is spread out over seven episodes and incorporates flashbacks
to flesh out the backstory. The hero of this particular story –
our protagonist – is a photojournalist who is the sole survivor
of an airplane that tore apart in mid-air and crashed on a seemingly
deserted Pacific island. An island which also happens to be home to
The Losties and The Others. As luck would have it, the photojournalist
has – here it comes, maestro a drumroll please if you will –
!AMNESIA! and cannot remember anything from his past or the plane
crash.

His goal is to discover
why his plane in particular crashed on this island, especially as
the flight seemed to contain so many suspicious characters important
to his life. This is done via a series of flashbacks that are triggered
by certain events or by speaking to others on the island. The new
character fits in nicely and is, of course, treated with suspicion
by those who are already on the island.

The
game’s major failing is its puzzles. Well, not really, as there
aren’t any puzzles. The majority of the puzzles consist of restoring
power to various fuse boxes, which quickly becomes boring and tedious.
There are also a few awkward arcade sequences that involve shooting
a gun and one that involves escaping killer Black Smoke that is extremely,
extremely frustrating.

The graphics are honest-to-gosh
drop dead gorgeous. It could be that they were enhanced by the X-box
360 and that the game was played on a 36” HDTV. And to be honest,
after playing a few games recently on an HDTV everything else blurs
in comparison.

Lost:
Via Domus is actually not too bad – though I understand
the PC version does have control issues which I did not experience
with the console version – and there is a nice twist to the ending,
but it’s not so much a game as it is an interactive episode
of the show. Unfortunately, you could also watch about three or four
episodes of the series in the amount of time it takes to complete
the game.

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

System Requirements
(PC/Windows):

• Supported OS:
  Windows Vista®/Windows® XP (only)
• Processor:
  2.4 GHz Intel Pentium® 4C or AMD Athlon™ MP 2400+ (3.5
  GHz Pentium 4/AMD Athlon or 2.5 GHz Core 2 Duo/Athlon 64 X2 recommended)
• RAM:
  1 GB (2 GB recommended)
• Video Card:
  128 MB DirectX® 9.0c–compliant, Shader 3.0–enabled
  video card (256 MB recommended) (see supported list)*
• Sound Card:
  DirectX 9.0c–compliant sound card
• DirectX Version:
  9.0c (included on disc)
• DVD-ROM:
  4x DVD-ROM drive
• Hard Drive Space:
  5 GB
• Peripherals
  Supported: Mouse, keyboard, Windows-compliant gamepad or
  joystick

*Supported Video
Cards at Time of Release:
ATI® RADEON® X1300-1950/HD 2000 series
NVIDIA GeForce® 6600-6800/7/8 series

Laptop versions of these cards may work but are NOT supported.

These chipsets are the only ones that will run this game.

NVIDIA® nForce™ or other motherboards/soundcards containing the Dolby® Digital Interactive Content Encoder required for Dolby Digital audio.

NOTICE:
This game contains technology intended to prevent copying that may
conflict with some disc and virtual drives.