"Lost in Bordem"

Storyline is simple. You're on a ship for a three-hour tour, the boat starts getting tossed, and you are then stranded on the island with the Skipper, the Professor, and Mary Anne.

Wait, wrong storyline, let me start again.

Storyline - 4/10 - You're stranded on an island with another survivor- a chick that can't see anything without her glasses. Great. You need to live and get off the island.

Sounds clichéd and boring? Yes. It is.

Graphics - 7/10 - Everything looks like what it should look like, and some of the island's environment is actually quite pretty, but nothing really stands out. The artwork does its job, but doesn't excel at its job.

Sound - 4/10 - I'm not sure why they even bothered hiring a composer for this game in the first place. Or hired the composer they got. The tracks are all forgettable, and most of them are slightly annoying after a while. The sounds effects are mostly appropriate, but mediocre as well.

Game play - 4/10 - I will give the creators one nod on this game. They truly made an expansive island. They also tried to include in several realistic factors like time, hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. Problem comes in combining the two. Most parts of the island are pretty far from your make-shift home, so you are likely to be away for a full day to possibly two forging for food, useful items, and finding a way off the island.

Problem is that your companion will forget that there is water in a nearby barrel that you had left for her and will start dying of thirst if you don't take her by the hand and MAKE her drink water. It gets to the point to where you almost wonder at times if she is suicidal or just stupid.

Glitches also are abundant here, and you will have to save constantly to be sure you don't lost a few days of hunting for food because your inventory screen locked up.

Finally, there are some mini-games you must do for some tasks in the game, like building furniture, hunting for animals, or finding items on the ground. A few of them are done well enough that you can reasonably succeed, whereas others will take extra effort of wasting resources just to get them right that it ends up making the game feel as real as it should. These tasks are chores and the game makes sure that they feel that way to the player.

Overall - 4/10 - The idea is interesting, and the game does have a lot to explore, but I felt bored playing this title and put it down after a week of playing.

Buy or Rent? - Rent this one first. If you like it, buy it, but it takes a special kind of person to want to play a game that entails babysitting a blind girl who has an eating disorder and having to do mundane chores to survive.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 01/22/07