Lost: Via Domus

David Hollingworth isn’t much of a fan of Lost, but he does like a good game. Does Via Domus deliver?

There are going to be two ways people approach Lost: Via Domus. They are going to be absolute fans of the show, the kind that have made the Lost thread on our forums one of the biggest ongoing discussions. For them, this is just one part of the greater puzzle that is Lost, and they’ll snap it up as a matter of course.

The other approach to the game is one of curiosity. You might have seen a few episodes, but have fallen behind, and now feel daunted by the sheer level of myth and canon the show has generated. Perhaps a game is a good way to catch up, and if you’re an adventure game fan, it can’t be that bad, right?

Well, we’re not sure that either party would be especially pleased with the treatment the franchise receives at the hands of Via Domus.

The game casts you as a previously unknown survivor of Flight 815, Elliott Maslow. He’s a photographer with a nasty case of amnesia, two ham-fisted plot points that pretty much shape the game’s entire story. The game covers the first 70 days – so, the first two seasons, roughly – of the show’s own convoluted storyline, while also heavily featuring, in true Lost style, many flashbacks that slowly reveal Maslow’s own background and inevitably dark secrets.

It’s actually the flashbacks that feature arguably the game’s best gameplay element. Maslow, being a photographer, tends to think in photographic terms, and as he walks through each flashback, he must search for the correct angle and shot to replicate the photo that triggered the flashback in the first place in order to unlock a cutscene. It’s very reminiscent of similar photography-based gameplay elements in titles like Project Zero, and it also locks in nicely with the style of storytelling employed by the show itself.

However, outside of happy-snapping your way back to total recall, there’s not a lot to recommend as you blunder about the mysterious island. There’s a lot of get this, deliver that style gameplay, a whole mess of BioShock-style electrical puzzles, as well as running around avoiding the smoke monster; and of course the inevitable conversations with established characters to make you feel a part of the action.

This is where both types of player are going to end up disappointed. Ultimately, the game is badly made fan-service. For one thing, it was plotted out by the show’s Executive Producers. The story does a good job of placing Maslow in the context of the show in a sensible and believable way, but it’s also remarkably linear, with practically zero replay potential.



Players looking for a good adventure game will be equally let down. The electrical puzzles are more of a frustration than a challenge, aiming for a level of realistic presentation that can only be appreciated by, well, electricians, and trading and interactions with the other survivors quickly reaches the point where you have the entire island’s torch market cornered, at which time you can ignore everyone else.

Finally, and perhaps most unforgivingly, the game is short. And we mean play-it-in-an-afternoon-and-never-touch-your-copy again short. There’s nothing wrong with short games per se – look at excellent titles like both Max Paynes – but you expect some trade off. When you pay over $100 for a five hour or so experience, you want that experience to rock your world, not simply make you look at the screen in consternation, realising that you’ve just spent a quarter of the week’s rent on a shiny new beer coaster.

It does look good, though, and some characters are even voiced by the actors who play them on the show. But it’s just not quite enough to make Lost: Via Domus (and it should really be Via Domum, which means The Way Home) a viable fan experience, while the tired puzzles and run-around gameplay will leave everyone else cold.