Big ol' Raspberry Game Review - Lost in Blue: Shipwrecked

So the latest game to come my way from my friendly rental service was Lost in Blue: Shipwrecked for the Wii. Let me begin by stating that I love sim games and I love exploration games. I can spend hours and hours with Harvest Moon, and I thought Endless Ocean was pretty nifty. I'm generally forgiving of a few interface issues, some translation glitches, non-top-notch graphics, etc. if I find the main game satisfying. Unfortunately, I found Lost in Blue: Wii edition to be far from satisfying.

Since I didn't play the game long enough to give it a thorough pannning, let me just state the following:

1. Bars that go down constantly and must be refilled are a tricky game mechanic to do right. The Sims is still trying to get it right, and they've been making the bars less demanding with every iteration. Lost in Blue's bars go down steeply, and the food bar goes up veeery slowly. They did not get the balance right.

2. On the topic of getting the balance wrong, forcing the player to make their little guy down 20 coconuts, 18 berries and an entire boar in one day in order to meet his nutritional needs while attempting to explore an island is not fun. At all. That stinking boar should have lasted days. DAYS, I say!

3. So the little guy meets a fellow shipwrecked passenger, a blonde ponytail girl who somehow thinks it's a good idea to keep wearing her high heels on a deserted island. Despite the fact that she's been smart enough to set up her own base camp and keep herself alive for days before you meet her, she turns suddenly helpless at the sight of the player character's raging testosterone, or something. Maybe she's seen his metabolism and is afraid he'll eat her. Either way, you have to do everything for her and don't have the option to send her off to do her own thing. This is both sexist and not fun.

Back to the rental service with you, Lost in Blue!

On Video Game Reviews

Why write video game reviews? Franky, I've been dissatisfied with the reviews I've read over the last few years. It seems like today's world diverse gamers and cross-genre titles is difficult for mainstream reviewers to handle. Recently, I've seen reviewers give an RPG a low score simply because it had turn-based combat, and they preferred real time. I've also seen sites mishandle their Wii game reviews simply because they prefer a traditional control scheme or because they want to see HD graphics in every game they play. As a reader, I don't care if you don't like turn-based combat or using the Wiimote. I care whether the game implements turn-based combat well or whether the Wiimote control scheme is intuitive and fun.

I'd like to write the kind of reviews I've been missing. My reviews won't use a numeric system to measure games, but will break the games down by control, presentation, and fun factor. My goal will be to introduce readers to unusual games that they may not have heard about, and to give an honest assessment of the games' strengths and weaknesses. Because this site is aimed at the wider community of gamers rather than the hardcore gaming crowd, I won't always review the latest releases. You should still be able to buy the games I revew, hopefully at a discount!

I hope you enjoy my reviews, and your comments are welcome!