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Let's not waste any time: as a videogame, LOST Via Domus completely sucks. I have learned this because I have played the game to 100% completion, not once, but twice, on two game consoles. Yet there may be a small minority of people out there who will enjoy playing the game. Crazy people. Like us.
Reading the previews about this game, I was very excited. The LOST writers contributed a lot of good things to the game, helping to create a brand new character, Eliot, a survivor of Oceanic Flight 815 that we've never seen before. The main problem is that Eliot has amnesia and people are trying to kill him. This is really cool, because Eliot has his own flashbacks that you play through and his own mysteries that will be uncovered. He has connections to Locke and the Widmore/Hanso conspiracy. Eliot will explore many key areas of the island that we've seen in the first three seasons of LOST, from the Black Rock to the Hatch to the Others camp. Due to what he learns about the Hanso foundation, Eliot is driven to escape the island and triggers a wild ending that appears to be approved by Damon and Carlton (Lost's showrunners). Damon remarked on an ABC podcast that the Via Domus ending is not a dream sequence. It echoes some of the time-bending island aspects that we've seen in Season Four.
However, the game play really sucks in LOST and it won't be worth it for most people. Eliot really does not have very many moves in the game. He shoots a gun, very briefly, in 2 scenes toward the end. He runs through the jungle a lot. Eliot can interact with the famous LOST cast members (Jack, Locke, Ben, Juliet, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley), but only a few of them are voiced by the real actors. In order to barter for things like torches, lamps, guns, etc., Eliot has to collect stupid things like coconuts, papayas, and candy bars. There are many levels in the game that are extremely frustrating, such as navigating through waypoints in the forest and ducking into banyan trees whenever the smoke monsters is around. Navigating through dark caves, which you do twice, is also miserable, because there are no clues of where you need to go. In order to get through the flashbacks, Eliot has to take pictures with his camera, at exactly the right angle and the right moment in time.
I am such a die-hard LOST fan that I just had to play it as soon as possible. Gamefly had it readily available for the Playstation 3 and I received it a few days after it came out. It was frustrating, but with the help of an IGN strategy guide, I made it to the ending. Then I realized, this game may be one of the few that I can get 1000 achievement points on XBox 360. I rented it for that console and in a few hours did receive the magic 1000 point achievement of my dreams.
Bottom line: if you are not crazy, don't buy it. If you have to play it, then rent it. Nuff said.
LOST Via Domus ending on YouTube
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