Review of Lost Horizon by Doom

Lost Horizon was a pleasant surprise. Yes, the protagonist and the whole story are blatant Indiana Jones rip-offs, and the game actually acknowledges it, not to mention some outrageous puzzle solutions reminiscent of the Tunguska games. And yet it has such a class - I almost forgot how much effort European developers put into those 2.5D adventure games back then. We don’t truly appreciate what we have until it’s gone.

Six chapters with plenty of locations to explore (Hong Kong, Tibet, Morocco, India, Nazi Olympics and a castle in Germany), surrounded by multiple movie and ag cliches/references that make up for a fairly long and exciting adventure. Not to mention art and animation that still hold very well: the devs felt no need to come up with excuses like “this is our vision and you will get used to rubber faces and abstract art”, all backgrounds are beautiful, some are even magnificent, same goes for cutscenes - and there are plenty of those, the hero is a clumsy badass who gets into all sort of trouble.

And while the gameplay is often hit and miss, with puzzles being both on easy and crazy side, it actually gets better with every chapter. The last two were my favourite, the one where we play as two characters stuck in different time periods in particular, similar to Day of the Tentacle. The game also successfully avoids timed/death sequences despite it often feels like there’s one on its way, even the last fighting scene (with some awesome choreography) feels like a parody of quick time events: you just choose your tactics and watch your character (the third protagonist) fight, always with different results. And then you could replay it in a “Bonus” menu.

Speaking of which, it also has another awesome addition that opens after you finish the game: a prototype game they developed 2 years earlier to attract producers. It plays like an additional chapter, or a short prequel, a game within a game! Wish more devs would’ve done that… Anyway, it might not be among the best adventures, but it’s definitely one of the more enjoyable games from the 2000s. Looking forward to the sequel!

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Time Played: 10-20 hours