So since I had a lot of store credit today and I heard rumblings about the Lost game actually being good I decided to pick it up. Let me just save you some reading and go ahead and tell you that was a mistake.
I suppose the best place to start with my gripes about my short experience with the game is the 7 minute install. I know 7 minutes isn't an eternity but I'm really starting to hate this practice. I play console games to get away from installs and patches and now most every game has some sort of patch and now a lot of PS3 games are making you wait to play. I hate this.
Alright, into the game. You play as some dork who has lost his memory and is some kind of photo journalist being chased by some guys. You interact with the stars of the show and kind of take place in events from the show. It's cool that you to take part in these things but then kind of annoying because you know it's crap because he was never there in the show. Anyways, you start off in the jungle, wander around, and eventually meet Kate. So far the Lost experience is actually good. Sadly, it just goes downhill from there.
The island in this game looks really good up close. When you look far away it just looks a little bare and that is because things haven't been drawn yet. As you move, things flash white and draw in. It's a little odd but if that was just the case I would be cool with that. The game still looks good and I don't mind them using little tricks to take care of draw distances. Sadly though, that isn't it. Items that you can pick up or interact with flash white. So every time an object in the distance flashes in it looks like some object you can interact with. It gets incredibly annoying.
So the island looks good but sadly the characters don't look that great. I wouldn't go as far to say they all bad (some look decent actually) but for the most part they aren't that good. The main character didn't get much texture detail or even a high texture resolution and a lot of the main characters just look a little off. It could be because I'm comparing them to the real life versions so heavily, but whatever, they look funny. Throw onto that the boring animations and the shitty lip sync though and anyone can agree that it doesn't look good.
For the gameplay, I haven't experienced much yet but I already hate a lot of it which has me worried. The first grievance you'll notice are the camera controls. First off they're inverted and I didn't see a way to change those but I also didn't look that hard. That isn't what really bothers me though, what bothers me is that the camera always recenters the vertical position after you let go of the analog stick. So if you're looking down for luggage, fruit, or whatever, you can't just look down and be done with it. I know a few other games have done this and I've never liked it but it's just really annoying in this game because I want to look down a lot but the camera won't let. I'm always running over objects and then I will have to stop, search, and find them again.
The next part really aggravated me. In order to get your memories back you have to take pictures in your flashback. The problem is you have shitty camera controls and it really just isn't fun. They give you a screen of a picture ripped into pieces and then you have to take that picture in the flashback. So you're sitting there fiddling with the annoying controls trying to get the focus and zoom right. It really just isn't fun because the scene is only about 5-10 seconds and it's completely obvious where you're supposed to take the picture. On top of that you have unlimited film so you're spamming the take picture button.
So you finally get on the beach with the plane wreckage and the what could be a really cool scene instead is pretty lame. You have most of the main characters standing around doing their thing. You can talk to them but they really aren't that interesting. You eventually come to the fuselage where you have to complete some silly circuit puzzle to keep it from exploding. I really don't remember that in the show.
Anyways, after that, you wander about the beach collecting coconuts and water. Ever wonder what the losties do all day? Apparently they just collect coconuts because they are worth $2 and you can barter with Sawyer for torches. Nevermind that you can find a gold watch and do absolutely nothing with it since Michael is supposed to pick it up later.
So eventually you need to go in the jungle and you find Lock standing in some trees. He tells you a certain type of tree is great for hiding in in case the black smoke monster comes and then tells you how to navigate the jungle. When going through the jungle you have beacons that are generally wreckage or some kind of landmark. You get to a beacon and then you can look at the next beacon. It's a neat idea but the game really didn't pull it off too well.
So I start walking from beacon to beacon and the black smoke monster suddenly appears so I run in some tree. I sit there and do nothing for a minute or two and wait for the monster to leave. I leave my trees and completely lose my heading since you don't come out the same place you go in and the screen switches perspective while you're hiding. No worries since there was a beacon near me. I get my heading again and the monster returns. I go back in the trees, do nothing for a few minutes, and repeat.
I don't know how long I kept just repeating that right there but it was fucking annoying. You would hide, wait for the monster to go away meanwhile just sitting there with absolutely nothing to do, emerge from the trees, the monster appears again, and you repeat. This was probably the least fun I've ever had in a game.
So probably about 30-45 minutes I got past that part. I get to the next screen and suddenly some guy starts shooting at me while I'm getting my next bearing. I start running of course, he hits me and the screen goes red and fuzzy and I can't see where the hell I'm going. I start running around in circles because I can't do much else, the screen turns normal 10-ish seconds later, get a bearing and he starts shooting me again. This time I died because I ran into a stump and couldn't tell and have to restart. This time I just bolt and eventually come to Michael chopping wood.
He tells me I have to go through some cave to get where I'm going and I need a torch. That's cool, I have lots of papaya I collected on the way to him that's worth $1 and a torch is worth $10 so I get two. I shouldn't need anymore than that right? If only I knew.
Before I go in the cave he tells me to watch out for bats that like to put out my torch and not to get it wet. That was a little odd but I wasn't too worried. I start navigating the cave and the torch does shit for light. I got turned around at one point and ended up back at Michael. So I start navigating again and my first torch goes. Shoot. I get out my second.
I navigate some more, I get further, some bats bring my torch life down, and it eventually goes out and I'm in the middle of a huge cave that apparently two torches wasn't enough for. I get out my lighter that lasts for about 5 seconds burst and takes 3 seconds to light and dumb my way through.
I start walking with the lighter that gives off even less light than the already crappy torch did and all of a sudden I die. The hell? Apparently I fell down a hole.
Oh. Ok. FUCK! I have to start that shit cave all over again! Maybe if they let me look down I could have seen the hole coming with the very small amount of light I have! AGH!
And that's about as far as I got before I turned the game off because I seriously had some Angry video Game Nerd moments coming on.
