Lost in Blue is a really fun game, but there's no denying it is extremely sexist and portrays women as helpless and unable to look after themselves. In this game's world, it's very much all about ‘traditional' gender roles - that is, the woman staying at home making house and cooking dinner, and the man going off and having exciting adventures, providing for the lady, but spending very little actual time with her. I found the backstory as to why the two young castaways have to do this to be wholly unconvincing. It's rare that a game makes me angry for reasons other than frustration at being stuck, but Lost in Blue did.Two young survivors of a shipwreck - Keith and Skye - find themselves washed up on the shore of a mysterious and (seemingly) deserted island. I have to admit, the idea of finding myself marooned on an uninhabited island has always appealed to me since first reading Robinson Crusoe as a young girl. I loved the idea of getting away from the pressures of modern life and living a simpler existence somewhere where the sun shined every day. So I bought Lost in Blue as soon as I could get hold of a copy to live out my fantasy in a game.I realised quite early into it that I didn't really like either of the two characters.

Shortly after the start of the game, Keith discovers Skye washed up on the beach, and glad of some company, rushes to check that she's ok. Skye comes to and explains that she has lost her glasses and can't see without them.

Keith offers to look for them for her, but having found them, manages to step on them and break them beyond repair. This is when I started to dislike Keith, and I really don't understand why this was written into the story. Wouldn't it have been easier to simply say that she'd lost her glasses while on the lifeboat in the choppy sea? If I had been Skye, I certainly wouldn't have been so forgiving or nonchalant about it - I'd have decked him. Everything she says and does is simpering, obedient, and subservient.Without her glasses, Skye is apparently as good as blind and can't see more than about three inches from her face. After taking two steps on a perfectly smooth, sandy beach, she promptly collapses, proclaiming that her eyesight is just too bad to walk unaided. Keith seizes on the chance to play her knight in shining armour by holding her hand to lead her around, something he has to continue to do for the rest of the game for her to go anywhere.

Her atrocious vision means that once Keith and Skye set up camp in a nearby cave, Keith gets to do all the fun stuff like exploring the island and hunting animals, while Skye is stuck inside doing the cooking and weaving baskets. Come on, how blind is this chick? If her vision is really that bad, then wearing glasses wouldn't have been much help in the first place. How on earth did she survive day to day life back in the real world? She's so pathetic I couldn't find much empathy for her either.One of the game's mottos is 'let's work together' and the idea is that you'll need to use both Keith and Skye and their unique skills to finish the game.

Pitched as an 'angelic love comedy', the game's plot has two girls, blessed with magical powers, tasked with saving the protagonist from the clutches of a mysterious witch and ancient evil. Brittany Vincent of criticised the game's perceived juvenile plot and lack of central direction, finding it to be 'pretty to look at, but utterly devoid of any redeeming value,' awarding it a low score of 3/10. Further installments A follow-up visual novel, titled Sakura Angels, was released in January 2015.

Mar 20, 2007  Lost in Blue 2 for DS game reviews & Metacritic score: Washed ashore after their cruise ship goes down at sea, young Jack and Amy must struggle to survive as they search for a way off a deserted island. The teens co.

In reality, Skye's just a mechanic to slow down the gameplay. As she needs Keith to go and fetch her food and water, you'll need to keep backtracking to the cave to sort her out with supplies before retracing your route back halfway round the island.

If you don't manage to get back to her before she runs out of food or water, she'll kark. Which I personally don't think is much of a problem, but unfortunately, that also means it's game over.Occasionally, Keith will come across a puzzle on his travels which needs two people to solve - for example pushing a really big stone out of the way. For this, he'll need to let Skye come out of the cave and see daylight briefly and drag her along (quite literally) to wherever they both need to be. Once she's helped out, Keith escorts her back to the cave again and goes on his merry way.Skye cannot be directly controlled, at least in the main game. Keith interacts with her by bossing her around from a series of dialogue options - he can ask her to make something like baskets or rope, cook him his dinner, give her some food for her to use to cook him his dinner, or tell her he's off ‘out' for a few days.

Everything she says and does is simpering, obedient, and subservient - for example, if the fire goes out, she says she's really, really sorry, but she just can't do any cooking without heat, could he possibly, if he doesn't mind and he's not too busy, go out and get some firewood so she doesn't freeze to death?I don't really consider myself a feminist, but something about this game really made me mad. I think it was the fact that the developers didn't even go to the effort of thinking up a good back story to explain the reasons why Skye has to stay in a cave for the entire game. It doesn't make any sense that however short-sighted she is, she cannot even manage to go outside and walk a short distance to find food and water and will instead starve to death without Keith's intervention.

All of those things make me even more angry that the game was ruined for me by the needlessly sexist roles given to the two characters.Once the main game is complete, you have the option of playing as Skye, but this is pretty much as dull as it sounds. In this mode, at least she can wander around a little bit, although she can't go as far as Keith since apparently she can't jump or climb as high. In this mode, you concentrate on basically, well, waiting around for Keith to do his thing so you can get off the island. In the meantime, you'll make him a packed lunch every day, ask him how he's feeling, milk the goat, and try to make him fancy you.I loved lots of things about this game - my favourite part was fishing, which sounds completely boring, but it was actually really fun, honest! Foraging for items and hunting animals were very addictive, which is just as well, as to get to the end of the game I needed to do an awful lot of both. I enjoyed exploring the island, although the backtracking to the cave got extremely tedious. All of those things make me even more angry that the game was ruined for me by the needlessly sexist roles given to the two characters.

Grown up gaming? With so many different perspectives it can be hard to know where to start - a little like walking into a crowded pub. Sorry about that.But so far we've not found a way to streamline our review output - there's basically too much of it. So, rather than dilute things for newcomers we have decided to live with the hubbub while new readers find the they will enjoy.What sort of gamer are you?Our each focus on a particular perspective and fall into one of the following types of gamers:.: Creative reviews created by artists from all walks of life:.: Reviews from each stage of family life, every step of the way:.: In-depth videogame analysis and commentary from experts:.: Enthusiastic hardcore commentary about the minutiae of gaming:.

With the popularity of the TV show 'Lost'?, I was surprised that a game involving being stranded on a deserted island didn't come out sooner. And given its premise, the developers chose not to go with all of the, X-files-ish goings-on that make the show such a hit, but rather stranded its protagonists in a decidedly 'real'? world island. Problem is, maybe it might be more fun fighting polar bears and finding strange traps rather then finding food and trying to make fire.

OK, well maybe that isn't fair of me to say. I'm sure if any one of us was stranded on an island it would be anything but fun. But since we're talking about a video game, I think there is some validation in my statement. Star control 3 help. So let's examine the dynamics of this title further. In Lost in Blue, you can choose to play as either the boy Keith, or the girl Skye. Playing as either involves playing a decidedly different adventure, but the other character is still involved in the story. The whole point of both though, is to survive your lengthy stay on the island. Unfortunately, the game has a clunky control scheme while you roam the island. The D-pad isn't as smooth or as friendly as it should be, or has been in previous DS titles, which is a shame. AND, the game doesn't allow you to do the kind of exploration that you would think being on a deserted island. Not because the game has limited boundaries, but because of the game's other glaring problem, which is'

The purpose of the game, which of course is to survive the island, but rather then make this a constant evolving challenge, you are forced to maintain your basic health. So often I would be off trying to explore, and the DS would start warning me that my character was hungry; that I needed water badly or any other number of frustrating things that stopped me from doing things that I thought would be more fun. And due to a plot twist, I was forced to constantly lead around Skye by the hand as she was not able to do so, on her own.

Another disappointment was the hot and cold graphics. Some part of the game looked so much worse then others, you might think you were playing two different titles. The little sprites that represent the characters weren't as smooth as I would have liked, but then the game has these really decent fire effects. It was weird, although hunting and fishing was kind of a hoot with the pseudo first person perspective, the land and other textures of the landscape weren't at all convincing.

Now not everything is so bad, I mean I did rate it 'Fans Only'? after all. You do have some nifty play dynamics with a title this different. One of the more notable ones is trying to start a fire. While doing it you must blow on the DS microphone to oxygenate the flame. I'll admit it, a smile crossed my face the first time I did it, and it probably will do the same for you.

The overall feeling I got after playing this title was 'what could it have been'?. Maybe it's the action guy in me but finding herbs to make a more nutritious meal isn't my idea of awesome gameplay. It may be yours, but it wasn't mine. The two different games make for some additional play, but it would take a real special gamer to play both characters to completion. My hats off to Konami for coming up with yet another, 'original'? game idea for the DS, but to me there are far better RPGs to play out there. Try it if you are up for some 'odd'? gameplay, otherwise you could buy something else.