Lost

S.O.S.?

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Honesty is always the best policy, so I think it prudent to reveal to you off-the-bat that I'm something of a Lost fan. I spent the latter half of 2007 in agony, owing to the prolonged absence of the sci-fi drama series (with added human interest) from our screens, and Ubisoft's worrying silence around the official videogame tie-in didn't help.

It is fair to say then that with season four now kicking-off, and the game on shelves, my appetite for all things islandy and mysterious is once again being satiated, and my viewpoint could be considered a little blinkered. Taking off the rose-tinted glasses for a moment, I will try to be balanced in my appraisal of the freshly released Lost game, a third-person adventure title developed by Ubisoft Montreal.

As a drooling, rabid fanboy, I was of course hoping that the Lost game might offer-up new clues to some of the television series' most pressing questions. What is the smoke monster? Where is the island? What's the deal with the polar bears? How can "the others" travel? And why do the credits roll just when things are getting interesting. Sadly, while these questions are once again posed by the game... it doesn't really offer-up any new evidence and certainly never delivers anything approaching an "answer".

What we're offered is a new survivor of Oceanic 815, a faceless Jack-alike (in appearance), who has lost his memory in the crash and must piece together his past while trying to fathom the "way home", using a mysterious compass discovered in a cave.

Of course, our hero does uncover the secrets of his past, via some well-directed flashbacks, and works out his name (no, I won't spill any beans here), while interacting with famous faces from the series.

A third-person adventure game, the title generally romps along at a fairly reasonable pace, although only occasionally delivers all-out action (there's a couple of shoot-outs later on, and moving between key areas of the island will see you chased by the devilish smoke monster, the player taking shelter in the Banyan trees in order to avoid this sometimes too-common stumbling block). The rest of the time, its all about overcoming obstacles.

This takes the form of story-driven puzzles, generally another character needs to be persuaded to help you - or at least not hinder you - in some sense, and you'll need to adopt a silky-tongue on occasion. Collecting objects (fruit for starters) for trading with other characters will also help you gain vital objects, which can be used in some of the games various puzzles. Your brain will also be trained via some circuit-based mini-games spread across the adventure, which require you to use valves to re-wire electrical panels - which are surprisingly frequent (save your co-passengers from the exploding plane wreckage, unlock a motorised door, et al).

As you piece together your past, you'll also be coming across flash-backs, during which you'll need to snap photographs of key instances in order to trigger your memory and reveal more of your back story. This story is actually surprisingly well-told, and it is good to witness the care the producers of Lost took ensuring your new character is interesting, mysterious and convincingly morally-grey in his own right.

The game is also blessed with plenty of the series' more intriguing elements: characters having to work out the 'issues' of their past, strange visions from other places, the motivation of the 'others', and more besides.

The title also takes in locations from the show: the beach, the 'dark' jungle, the Hatch, the Black Rock and a few other mysterious sites besides. These locations are beautifully realised, rich in detail; debris, foliage, music and sound effects coming together to create a living and breathing digital interpreration of the island. Fans will be pleased.

The use of popular characters with (sometimes) the same actors providing the voicework is also impressive, although this is more of a mixed bag (Locke just doesn't have the same mystique without Terry O'Quinn).

The gameplay is fairly well-implimented, then, providing sufficiently diverse entertainment to see you through the five to seven hours the game will take to complete without too many cracks appearing - in what is ultimately quite a linear offering.

Luckily, the polish applied by Ubisoft Montreal sees Lost: The Videogame emerge as a fitting homage to the television series, awash in mystery. Like the show itself, it occasionally frustrates and certainly isn't as complex or involving a proposition as the best examples of the third-person action adventure genre. Nor does it do much more than scratch the surface of what is possible. Then again, we are offered up a compelling story, classically 'Lost' in fact, and fans will be more than titillated by this.

Those that aren't fans, however, may find the game's story less invigorating while the simplicity of the gameplay experience itself may be more jarring. Still, as a tour through key elements of Lost seasons one, two and a bit of three, this official tie-in is a cut-above the fate that might have awaited many a licensed videogame.

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By Luke Guttridge