With many games these days seemingly offering "more of the same," it's nice to see a developer take a chance and try something a little bit different. With Missing: Since January (originally published in Europe as In Memoriam), French developer Lexis Numйrique and The Adventure Company attempt to break the mold and truly take a stab at offering something that is very different from your normal adventure game.
The game is set up as a real life adventure. Someone known only as "The Phoenix" has kidnapped Jack Lorski and Karen Gijman, two journalists, and it is up to you to track down their whereabouts before something dreadful happens. It starts when a video clip of one of the abducted, Karen, is seen obviously distraught being followed in the dark by an unknown cameraman. This video, along with a mysterious CD-Rom, is your only clue to find Jack and Karen's whereabouts. Upon loading the CD-Rom, you find that Jack discovered an old 8mm video recorder with an old tape still in it-one that seemingly contains footage of a murder-the murder of Karen's father!
The plot is advanced through video clips of Jack and Karen's investigation that are played for you, tantalizingly, by the Phoenix as a reward for solving a myriad of puzzles. This helps to tell a complex tale ranging from Renaissance Europe through to modern day.
As I said, the developers have set this up as a real life adventure and attempt to blend the game with reality. As such, you will receive numerous e-mails from a number of different sources — including the enigmatic Phoenix. These e-mails generally help to further the plot and to provide clues to the puzzles you are required to solve. And this brings us to the main focus of the game: puzzles. What would an adventure game be without puzzles?
You must solve a series of puzzles that are on the mysterious CD-Rom that was found and, in doing so, unlock another series. These are not ordinary puzzles, however, and you will have to do a little thinking and little Googling to find the solutions. That's right; you will have to do a little Web-work to track down some of these solutions. Many of the puzzles will contain only a word, a Web site URL or a picture, and you must type in the password to continue. Some of these point to "fake" Web sites planted by the developers while others will take you to actual Web sites detailing real places, events or ideas. If you get stuck too long on a certain puzzle, another investigator will often send you an e-mail giving a little nudge in a certain direction to help.
However, one problem I ran into — and this is in no way the developer's fault, simply a testament to Google's power — is that when trying to find clues, I would invariably stumble across a walkthrough for the title. While there is no possible way to combat this, it was a little frustrating to inadvertently stumble unto an answer spelled out for your rather then having to do the actual legwork.
These sorts of investigative puzzles make up about 50 percent of the game, with the other half consisting of small Macromedia Flash games. These often consist of using the mouse with great dexterity to manipulate some sort of object through an area with lots of objects in your way. These sorts of puzzles are a great contrast to the investigative sort and are not often what you would expect to find in an adventure game — which is both good and bad. I welcome the attempt to mix things up a bit; however, toward the latter parts of the game they tend to be more an exercise in frustration then an element of fun.
Another complaint about these puzzles and the game in general is that it does not scale with the resolution of your monitor. The game is designed run at a resolution of 800x600, and anything greater than that will result in the game being displayed in a little box surrounded by black bars on all sides. This makes some of the dexterity-based puzzles difficult when playing at a greater resolution, and I found I had to lower my screen size in order to accommodate the game the full extent of my monitor.
The interface is very straightforward and will be instantly mastered by anyone who can use a mouse. While simple, it affords the player everything needed and is only a mouse click away. The video clips are done in QuickTime and are virtually DVD quality and present the information they need to very well. The transitions from puzzle to puzzle can be a little overwhelming at times as they are often presented in short, abrupt clips and are meant to reflect the seeming insanity of the adversary in the Phoenix. This does an excellent job of keeping your nerves on edge — especially with the lights turned down low and the sound turn up!
I applaud the unique approach taken for this title and found that the realistic element created for a more immersive title. However, this immersion was often counteracted by the tedious and frustrating dexterity-based puzzles. I have very mixed reactions on this title as can probably be inferred-what they got right, they did an excellent job with and created an innovative experience, but this was unfortunately brought down by what they got wrong. A fun and imaginative adventure game that will please most fans of the genre but will likely infuriate as many as it will delight.
I've been playing games ever since I was a wee lad. My favorite games as a child were the classic Pitfall and a game called SNAFU, which was a sort of puzzle game along the lines of Tron Light Cycles. I've had most of the major console systems since the early days and have a wide range of tastes of games and I'm always eager to give a new one a try.
