nsps

Ubi Takes Charge of 'Lost' videogame

Recommended Posts

Ubisoft's Montreal studio is apparently developing a Video game for based on the brilliant TV series 'Lost.' It looks to be a wide development release, "for PC, consoles, and portable units sometime in 2007."

http://news.gaminghorizon.com/media2/1148325420.4204.html

I can see this being a very cool game or a train wreck. They supposedly met with the creators, so hopefully that will help things go well. In an interview a while back, the show was compared to an adventure.

It is like a big adventure game. You get to watch and say here's my theory about this and here's what I think will happen if they do this. I want them to do this. Why are they doing that? It is a story as opposed to a condition.

If you want the whole interview:

http://www.insidepulse.com/articles/44411

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

How is this going to work as a game? I don't see it at all.

Also, the 24 game was made in collaboration with the show's creators. That didn't quite soar.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think that it has the potential to work better than the '24' game. You can explore the island, maybe play one of the show's background characters and get to know some new characters. Objectives could build up on a scale from the basic survival aspects to war with the "others."

I see the biggest challenge as how they're going to create an arc for the game's story if it hasn't been resolved on the show.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I hope it's going to be a flight simulator.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hmm, on the one hand, its structure is very similar to a Video game - the island is a space that its occupants navigate in an effort to uncover fragments of backstory. On the other hand, it couldn't be less Video game-like - heavily character-driven and a very strong sense of mortality.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On the other hand, it couldn't be less Video game-like - heavily character-driven and a very strong sense of mortality.

Maybe David Cage should do it then. People seemed to want to die after playing Fahrenheit and it apparently didn't have a lot in common with gaming either.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Mmmm, I'd wait for gaming names to be linked to the project to see where this might be going... because right now, it's like saying Grim Fandango is being ported to the silverscreen while not knowing of Uwe Boll and Terry Gilliam who's going to be in charge.

In the current industry - and from my midly accurate knowledge of it - I wouldn't entrust the use of a license (whatever the original media is) to more than a handful of developers... and more than that Lost isn't really shaped to be adapted to an existing genre.

Plenty of questions here and plenty of potentially bad, BAD answers...

EDIT : what studio/game designer would you like to see working on the project?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Turns out Lost is really just all Walt's fantasy, and The Others are a collective image of his brother trying to sort him.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Hmm, on the one hand, its structure is very similar to a Video game - the island is a space that its occupants navigate in an effort to uncover fragments of backstory. On the other hand, it couldn't be less Video game-like - heavily character-driven and a very strong sense of mortality.

Yeah, I imagine they'll be doing away with the flashbacks, etc. I do think that it would be nice to play a game with a strong sense of mortality, both regarding people you kill and how you get killed. Maybe they could go "Bad Day on the Midway" on us and we'd just have to wander around and try not to die. (That's not going to happen.)

Shifting to some stuff that wouldn't be all that exciting to watch on a show, you could find tasks that are ideal for a game—figuring out how to make a shovel out of wreckage, bamboo and what not (there were two very different working models in the last episode). I think that this kind of stuff would be much more interesting than running around shooting others and what not.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think they'd be best off taking one of the unknown survivors of Flight Whatever, where he has his own sub-plot.

And I'd love to have some playable flashbacks. That would rock my world.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think there's a decent Trespasser/System Shock angle to aim for. You are just a guy in a boat/plane/etc who gets washed up on the shore of the island, alone and you go from there, surviving, exploring, etc. The way the storyline in the TV series is headed at the moment, there's a real

'utopian facility has an "incident" and when you arrive everything is utterly dystopian'

vibe that is very much in keeping with those other 'universes'. Plus the whole 'you are alone' thing brings so much benefit, because you get away from the problems of character-interaction, continuity and the fact that the TV series has answered so many of the questions that you'd be looking to pose for gameplay purposes - how do you survive, etc.

It's Ubisoft and they don't do lazy license games, so really, who knows what the limits of their ambition are. They seem to be pushing for believeable character tech in Assassin's Creed, so it's possible they could bleed some of that technology through into this game as well.

I don't think Lost is Lost without the flashbacks though. They would have to be interwoven somehow.

(That spoiler is very vague, I don't think it's particularly spoilerish, but I wouldn't want to piss off anyone who isn't up to date with me - the US progress of series 2.)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm a big fan of the flashbacks, but can't quite conceive how they could be game-able, although I'm sure it's possible. They could create multiple choice you can make in your flashback, and that slightly affects your play or motivations on the island.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now