Lost in Blue 2
Ages: Everyone 10+

This is a big game. In your hands you hold the tools for you and your friends survival after being washed ashore on an island when your cruise ship goes down at sea. This is not the Survivors you see on television where personalities and voting people off are the big thing. This is down to earth survival and it's TIMED!

You can play as either Jack or Amy, of course I chose Amy, but I think that the game is worked through better by playing as Jack. In the main game, the two players can be linked by holding hands, which allows them to partake together of food and drink. As Jack, the linkage together worked well in the nourishing part, but as Amy I had trouble getting linked with Jack to give him water.

You can tell by the meters visible on the top screen what's important in the game -- stamina, thirst and hunger. Since food looms as one of the most important things in the game – the difficulty in finding it is a big fault in the game design. They didn't even make it easy at the beginning to encourage players to continue into the game. You will have to find food, gather and cook it and throw stuff away when it gets past the pull date. The more tasty the food your prepare is, the longer it will satisfy. Meat is good as it has a greater satisfaction level -- vegetarians will just have to work harder to survive.

You can die on day one if you don't get something to eat. Now, that seems unreasonable since I know that you can last at least a week without eating and a couple of days without water. Should you find enough seaweed and shellfish and you are starving, can you eat them? Noooo! You can't eat them unless they are cooked (tell that to a sushi lover). First you have to find a cave, then you have to gather firewood, twigs and bark (easier if you are playing as Jack), make a tool for fire making, then twirl it, then blow on the smoke to make a fire. Now can you eat? Nooo! You have to chop up and cook your food, and in some cases consult a recipe book before you can eat it. Meanwhile – time is running out.

After having survived the first few days, you get down to making tools to hunt, set traps, explore, build furniture. And things happen – earthquakes, tsunami, animals attack, but if you persevere you have a chance to get off the island.

Konami, in attempting a game of this complexity on the DS deserves some credit. They have made excellent use of the touchscreen. Practically everything can be done on it. Shoulder buttons are used to change the images on the top screen. I only wish the game were more user friendly. The step-wise sequence of how things are done can be frustrating in a timed game. Picking up items is ambiguous, since there is no confirmation that you have the item and you are left to check for it on the item list.

I think this game would be better on a console. Finding food would be much easier to spot, the map could have more details and handling items would be simpler – and you wouldn't have to blow so hard to start a fire. The instruction manual is at a bare minimum in what you need for this game. Go online for walkthroughs and tips.

Fun Factor: The frustration keeps the fun out of reach.
Female Factor: With a little more effort you can play thorugh as a girl.
Player Friendly: Grrrrr. Not enough hints and and lean instruction book.

Reviewed by: Editor - 05/07