Just like the TV show, but neither satisfying nor creative.
Lost is the first and only TV show that I currently faithfully follow. I love it. I read about it. I'm interested in anything to do with it.
As such, I was skeptical about that game from the start, as any gamer would be of any kind of movie/TV show that is shoehorned into a videogame. I didn't buy it on release, but after reading up on some reviews, I decided to rent it. This was a very good move, and if you are considering playing this game, before you read any further please note that I strongly encourage you to rent this game. You will beat it easily during that rental time, save yourself over $30, and you can beat the entire game to 100% completion in that time frame to boot.
Now onto the actual review. The main character of this game is Elliot Maslow. You control him throughout the game from a third-person perspective. Within the game, he is a photojournalist on flight 815 (this character was created solely for this game and does not appear in the show) who crash-lands on an island alongside the Lost characters from the show. He gets amnesia from the impact, and the whole rest of the game is hinged upon recovering his memory. This is done in a very linear fashion, as the game is split up into "episodes," with a flashback taking place at the beginning of each episode. In this flashback, you use your trusty camera to photograph a special detail/event that takes place within the flashback in order to advance to a cutscene which advances you in your quest to learn about your past. If you miss the detail/event when it happens, the flashback simply loops until you figure out what to do, which makes everything run a whole lot smoother.
The flashback segments are interesting and fun the first few times, but since you can predict it happening very close to the beginning of each level, it gets to be very repetitive. After you take the photo, you are allowed to roam in the environment that your flashback encompasses, looking for three special "hidden" items each time, usually the same things over and over again. They're easy to find. This is a good concept but poorly executed. Mostly, it contains little easter eggs for fans of Lost with mentions of such things as the Hanso Foundation.
As a side note, at the beginning of each level/episode is a cutscene that details what happened previously-where you left off on the previous level. Some people have complained about this feature, but I actually enjoyed it because it is very reminiscent of the show. Overall, it's not a big deal.
If you are a fan of the show like me, you may have been looking forward to interacting with the characters from the show. The characters hang out on the beach for the most part, waiting for you to come talk to them. As I was playing, I was trying to figure out how the heck the developers intended for anyone but a Lost fan to play this game, because there really is nothing to help you understand the plot of the show. The problem is they just don't have much to say. What's more, very few characters in the game have the voices of their real life counterparts. I laughed a lot because of this. Especially Sawyer's voice actor. I know they try so hard, but it just doesn't work. The music in the game, however, is noticeably better than the voice acting. It just makes everything feel like Lost. If you appreciate the music from the show, you will appreciate it here.
As far as gameplay is concerned, there just isn't much. What's there would be all good fun if there was variety, but everything that acts as a novelty early on is rehashed until you can't wait until you are finished. You'll do a lot more running from the Smoke Monster than you might expect. I had imagined some epic chase scenes where I'm running through the forest at a blistering pace, dodging trees and bushes and such with the Smoke Monster hot on my heels and ripping up trees along the way. But it was completely dumbed down to "hiding in bamboo." You go from bamboo patch to bamboo patch, with the Monster seeming to be hunting you down. There is no reprieve. It's just waiting for you. All the freaking time. It's annoying. You progress little by little, looking for markers to guide you to the next bamboo section. There is no epicness whatsoever.
There is another segment that is frequently repeated where you have to travel through caves, apparently because this character is too cool to climb over things like the people in Lost the TV show do. This part of the game is far more frustrating than the Smoke Monster segments. It's pitch black in the caves, and you start with just a lighter. Then you can buy (via trading items such as coconuts. Yea. I was thinking the exact thing you are now), torches, and eventually a lantern, each of which have a time limit on how long you can use them before they need refueling. You have to avoid pits in the ground, tediously put out your torch at the sound of bats so they don't damage it, and of course put it out for waterfalls you have to walk under, relighting it afterward in a longish animation. And if you decide to sit in the dark, just for kicks and giggles, apparently the Smoke Monster is in the cave with you waiting to rip you to shreds in the first 30 seconds of darkness. Yea, I did it just to see what would happen. It wasn't even close to satisfying. It's just pitch dark, the controller starts to vibrate like a heart beat, and then the game notifies you with text that you died. Woohoo. The caves were the worst part of the whole game. A small one would have been fun once. But they are long, tedious, and frequent. Locke sends you into one to go soul searching. All he had to do was go in a tent and sit down (in the TV show), but yet he makes you traverse a pit-riddled cave without even giving you a flashlight.
The highlight of the whole game is, unfortunately, the graphics. I know it's cliche, but it's true. The jungle and beach and wreckage all look wonderful. And the character models, while they by no means stack up to the likes of Crysis, are much better than they could be. I don't really expect anything less than this from Ubisoft, which in my mind simply doesn't release ugly games. I thought it was a beautiful game. Not nearly as detailed as you might hope (wandering through the jungle is not fun, it just feels like wandering around in someone's backyard that happens to strongly resemble a jungle, then you run into their fence which happens to be an invisible border inside the game telling you that you have to turn back, or else), but beautiful in the grand scope of things.
The plot is good, especially so at the ending. It's one of those "What the crap?!?" endings. So if you like those, then you'll like this. I still don't know what happened in the story. One main issue with the game is that everything major in the show is trivialized. The loss of your memory seems of greater importance than the button in the hatch that must be pushed every 108 minutes. Imagine that. On a side note, I'm not sure why they included Michael in the game when there are other, better characters that didn't make it into the game. All he ever does is scream for Walt. Yes, even in the videogame. It makes me cringe. Also, the fact that the game portrays the Others as sitting up in trees, waiting for the Losties to wander through the jungle so they can shoot from their perches pisses me off. This is nothing like the show, and a feeble attempt to spice up the game. They are neither cool nor mysterious.
Basically, just rent it for the gamer points. You will be hard pressed to make it through this game in a reasonable amount of time without a guide. I recommend gamefaqs.com or if you have real trouble, Youtube for the caves. It's an easy 1000 points. You can get them all in a rental though. However hardcore you think you are as a fan of Lost, nothing warrants buying this game as there is absolutely no replay value. Also of note, I played this game thinking I would learn some cool stuff about the show, but then I found out that none of it can actually be counted as part of the real Lost TV story. It's all just fanfiction, essentially.
All of this is very unfortunate.
Sorry.
