Techtite.com Editorial : My Two Bits, V2

First of all: Spoiler Alert, BIG TIME. Here's the deal: I just finished Lost: Via Domus, the cool (IMO) video game from the people who bring us the actual Lost TV series. As with all Lost stories, this one has a cool ending, leaving the gamer with many conclusions, just like the actual series. I'd like to offer my thoughts and in turn hopefully people will send Letters to this site offering their input as well. However, this presumes you want to discuss the ending to the game, so yeah: SPOILER ALERT. You've been warned.

While we wait for people to leave who might "accidentally" peruse the second paragraph, let me give my encapsulated review of the game as a Lost fan. Simply put: it's a game made by the makers of Lost, for fans of Lost. It is not in any way a game anyone else will "get." The nuances, look, and feel of the game is strictly for "Losties" and their fascination with the idea at hand: to explore classic areas of Lost canon. With no spoilers worth mentioning (yet): yes you get to explore the hatch. Yes you get to "type in the numbers." Yes if you want you can not type in the numbers to see what happens. Yes you get to play cat-and-mouse with the dark cloud creature in the jungle, for what I feel was one of the best "puzzles/challenges" of the game. Yes you meet all the major players of Lost lore, and while only a few of them (the supporting players, mostly) agreed to voice act for their characters in-game, the overall game is cool.

That being said: let's get to the spoilers, since even on my high-def PC monitor I had to scroll down to this paragraph, and if you're here, you read my spoiler warning and want to talk about...the ending! Okay, here's a quick rundown for people who either forgot the general story already or don't own a PS3/Xbox360/high-end-PC or simply don't want to buy/play the game. Your character in the game is Elliot, one of the many until-now nameless survivors of the crash. Like other survivors you have a past that makes you "Lost," so to speak. Which is to say you did something stupid, making you a "lost soul," of sorts. I know I'm delaying the ending-spoilers for one more paragraph. I'm just setting the mood to explain the ending...somewhat.

It turns out in "Elliot's" flashbacks (not unlike a real episode of the series), that he was investigating the Hanso Foundation, with your ex-girlfriend ---a rival investigative reporter--- hot on your heels. You betray her to get the story first, and in so doing, you get her killed by the bad guys. You then leave Australia to come on on, you guessed it, the infamous flight of Lost. So, yadda yadda yadda, after seeing major moments in Lost lore, Elliot eventually finds a boat, with Locke's blessing. He leaves the island only to get into a time loop of sorts (consider the theme of recent season-4 episodes to understand this). How bad of a time loop? He actually sees the flight ---the flight he was on!--- crash above him. Then he opens his eyes and he's on the island again!

That's not the weird part yet! For one thing the game opens with Elliot waking up in the jungle, with the first castaway he meets being none other than Kate. This time around (parallel universe? Alternate timeline?) he awakens on the beach a la Jack. What's more; his supposedly dead ex-girlfriend runs up to him with a totally relieved look on her face, saying, "We made it, Elliot!" What's going on here? Well, I have some ideas, and they make for the perfect edition of My Two Bits!

The big question is: can we view this as Lost canon? Yes and no. The makers of the game, who are also involved in the series, confessed in interviews that it would have been unfair to tell diehard fans that they had to buy a game system and a game to see "all" there was to see about season four. So this, they say, is not "canon." It does, however, follow the nuances, so to speak, of the series. Consider the Star Wars video games. They are not Star Wars canon, and yet they follow the formulae of the film series. There's the Force, light sabers, the evil empire, the Sith, the Jedi, and so on. Similarly: this game is not a part of the Lost story, and yet it follows the "reality," if you will, of the Lost universe. Which is to say if Elliot was or was not part of Lost canon is immaterial. The fact is: the island he faces is the same island, with the same hatch, the same characters, and the same...physics, if you can call it that.

All that said: what is the deal with the ending? This requires a deeper look into Lost lore than is often considered. It has been said that "where" the island exists, isn't as important as "when." It was recently confirmed on the fourth season that if you don't approach the island in a set course, you encounter a time paradox within your own timeline. You need an "anchor" (or so the episode about Desmond claimed) to get back to the "present" of your timeline. So we can presume the ending alludes to a second game, where Elliot must now try to change his past for the better, with his ex-girlfriend ---who is now alive and not an "ex!"--- as his "anchor." Why is she still alive? Because you already saved her, somehow. Time paradox stories are like that.

On a side note, I really like the time travel subplots of Lost lately. I'd dare say this is the direction they were going since season one. You know all those scattered voices people hear, seemingly from nowhere? That seems an awful lot like that classic Star Trek episode to me, about the race of aliens who were stuck in a "faster" timeline. You can't see them because they are shifted out of our timeline somehow. That would explain the voices...you know, on a science fiction level.

There's also parallel dimensions to consider. Elliot may have accidentally warped to another dimension, where he never betrayed his girlfriend and she never died. The real puzzler: which of these "dimensions" is the one from Lost canon? Think about it. The Elliot in this game had amnesia. By the time the game ends, he has his full memory back...and his girl is still alive! Well, maybe this is the "real" world, then. He lost his memories because he was in a parallel timeline. He has them back because he is now "in sync" with the real world (of the series anyway) and everything's cool again...you know, aside from the whole "he is still on the island" thing!

Here's where things get really fun: if they have already established the game is not Lost canon, and they are saying (maybe) this guy is experiencing alternate Lost "timelines"...why not have fun with the idea, in the inevitable next Lost game? Elliot is now back at the first day on the island, with all his memories intact...and not just his own life. He remembers the hatch, the Others, Desmond, a possible escape boat; everything. So why not have fun with a sequel game where he ---or more specifically, WE!--- can alter Lost history? It would be cool if you had free roam of the island and were able to alter the timeline of the series' story. What if you could save the life of any number of people who died in the series? Not only the recently deceased Charlie: there was also the supposed siblings-in-law Shannon and Boone, just about the entire season two "tail section" survivors, and don't forget the cult favorite, Mister Eko! You could, in game form, save them all, in a wonderfully brilliant "parallel universe" game where anything goes. That would be so cool!

That's one of many reasons I loved the ending...as open as it was. Yes you're back on the island. Yes, your girlfriend is alive and well and still talking to you, all for no discernable reason (yet). Given the nature of season four so far, it's safe to say this all makes sense. Not unlike Desmond altering Charlie's fate so many times, someone (maybe Desmond?) saved your girlfriend's life. In addition: your own past was altered so that you and she never had that spat that made her your "ex." All that remains now is the question of why they didn't resolve the open ending with more game. I'd say that's for one simple reason: that there are things about the island they didn't want revealed until they are shown in the series, aka "Lost canon." I can relate to that. Once those secrets are revealed, though, I'm really hoping they release another Lost game...and we get to see all that cool "alternate timeline" stuff I talked about a paragraph ago. After all: how cool would it be to save Eko, even if it's the "parallel universe" world of a supposed not-exactly-canon video game?

Agree? Disagree?

...or perhaps just agree to disagree? Feel free to give your own "two bits," via Techtite's Letters page. Editorial Submissions are also allowed. Editorials do not have to agree with the views of other editorials at Techtite.com, though they must be relevant to entertainment topics of this web site (movies, TV, games).

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My Two Bits
(The Editorial with one-quarter byte!)

Lost: Via Domus,

and that weird ending!

My Two Bits (The Editorial with one-quarter byte!)

Lost: Via Domus,

and that weird ending!

My Two Bits
(The Editorial with one-quarter byte!)