Lost finally returns to our screens this week, and no doubt you’re just as confused as I am with where the plot is going. Thankfully you can now fill in some holes, or just make yourself more confused than ever, by playing through Lost: Via Domus.

The game casts you as an entirely new character, Elliot, a photojournalist and yet another miraculous survivor of the doomed Flight 815. This allows the developers to make up an entirely new story without messing around too much with the stories of the TV programme’s main characters. Elliot also happens to have developed amnesia, which is always a convenient crutch for lazy writers. Yes, you guessed it; the objective of the game is to figure out why you’re on the island through various objectives and the series favourite flashbacks.

When it comes to the TV programme’s main characters they’re all here – including Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Locke, Hurley, Sayid and Ben to name a few – but strangely enough most of them aren’t voiced by the real actors. You’d have thought that since Ubisoft managed to secure rights to make games out of Lost (which was most likely a bit of a bidding war) they’d have thrown down a little more cash to secure the real actors. It’s slightly annoying for diehard fans of the series, and you’ll probably never get used to it.

Apart from the dodgy voices you’ve got a story made up of various episodes. This is an attempt to make the game feel like a real season of Lost (complete with “previously on Lost” introductions) and it works pretty well. Flashbacks will occur throughout the episodes, which is where Elliot’s career as a photojournalist comes into play. The start of a flashback offers a glimpse of a torn-up photograph and it is your task to figure out the rest of the photograph as a sequence plays out. The sequence then loops while you focus the picture, zoom in and frame your subject. Once you’ve taken the correct photograph the sequence is played out in full and offers yet another piece of the puzzle to Elliot’s back-story. It’s a unique twist in an otherwise fairly unoriginal game. I say this because; while there are puzzles they’re pretty repetitive and get extremely dull after the first few times. That would probably be because there’s only one type, and that involves the incredibly exciting task of fixing a fuse box! Oh yes, there’s also two chase sequences that don’t do much but add a little more drama to the proceedings.

If you’re not a Lost fan then there’s no real point to picking up this game, even at the low price of £9.76. In the end it’s little more than an interactive story and one giant big Easter egg for Lost fans, albeit a fairly interesting one. Anyone else would find the game extremely confusing, and, yes, I know the fans of the series are just as confused. The difference is they like the series and will lap up anything connected to it, devoted fans as they are. Even for Lost fans the game is extremely short – clocking in at around five hours – but we’re not talking about full price here. This kind of game should always be released at less than £20, even if only the fans of the franchise will pick it up.

The short nature of the game makes me wonder if it could be considered a ‘bargain’, as there’s not much on offer here, but £9.76 for a current generation game that isn’t actually that old has to be some sort of steal; just don’t ask me why.

This is part of the Bargain Bin series, which is dedicated to bringing you excellent games for mere peanuts. Got a bargain you know of? Hit me an email!