Snap Judgement: Lost: Via Domus

So here we go again, sorry it's been so long.

Lost: Via Domus is the official video game adaptation of ABC's hit show.
Unfortunately - the game is a 4. (on a scale of 4-42)

Despite an actually interesting connection to the show (the guy who is slammed into the roof of the plane during the crash in the pilot is actually after the character in the game) and terrific in-game character models, the game falls flat in every other respect.

Lets start with play mechanics. Is it 1997? Or is not being able to jump a retro thing? On the serious - the game control is atrocious. Your character (no name - he's a photographer with amnesia! SO ORIGINAL!) runs about the jungle following Vincent the dog or runnign from fuselage to fuselage navigating your way around. The sensitivity is ratcheted way up, so a simple tweak to the right spins the camera around like it's mounted on a stick of butter.

Stick of butter? Where did that come from?

Like I said before, the models are terrific (Claire looks a bit like a pregnant zombie) John Locke is a spitting image of Terry O'Quinn and Jack Shepard is a doppleganger to Matthew Fox. That being said, the quality of voice work runs the gamut. Jack's voice actor sounds pretty believable and Michael Emerson voices Ben Linus (the same character he plays in the series - other actors voice their video game counterpart).

The game is basically a 1999 PS1 survival horror game with prettier graphics and better sound. I wish that Ubisoft - the studio that created the relatively great Assassin's Creed had done more with this license that has such an abundance of terrific content and writers. But alas, as most licensed movie/tv games do, Lost: Via Domus fails to live up to it's source material.