Missing: Since January
“Missing: Since January” is
not exactly a new game. It was first released in Europe and Britain
under the name, “In Memoriam” The developer, Lexis Numerique/Eric
Viennot may not be entirely unknown to those who play family based
games. Before this latest venture, he was the creative force behind
the imaginative children’s titles, the “Uncle Albert” series. These
games used a mix of interactive pages. Bugs would crawl and
butterflies would flit across the page in one instance, as you
grabbed after them to trigger a new event or chapter in the story.
Any number of innovative interactive surprises were built into this
lovely set of adventures. Given Viennot’s drive to push the
boundaries of his creative output, “Missing” promised to be
something entirely different from the usual adventure fare.
The result is unusual. Missing
is in fact quite different from most games; though there is a
structural similarity to aspects of the online web site based games
of Majestic and a free game based upon the movie, Artificial
Intelligence. However, with it’s strong story and stylish cinematic
presentation, Missing has its very own unique position within gaming
history and varies in may key ways from these earlier online
offerings. One of the best distinguishing points is the base line
story. Missing would lead us on the trail of a serial killer, track
him to his lair and even worse - perhaps take us deep into his mind.
Sadistic Meanderings...
This game is played out
through a series of relevant web sites and madman’s ramblings.
Essentially, you have to play along with the mysterious killer that
is presumably behind the disappearance of Jack and Karen. In return
for participating in his macabre puzzles and meanderings, you get
snippets of tape and clues that shed light on his motives (sane or
otherwise) and his methods. Ultimately, this montage of facts and
conjecture should lead you to Jack and Karen, the game’s missing
pair. Even better, you race against time and events hoping to find
them alive. In theory this is an excellent premise for a plot, game
or a movie. In practice – well it lacked.
As you move forward in the
game, you go from one web based page to another. Each page is a
cipher of varied difficulty. So, you are really moving through a
series of imbedded puzzles to get your reward of another piece of
the over riding mystery. Sounds like fun and it should have been.
Unfortunately, too many of the puzzles were video arcade styled
games. Move the piece along a maze while avoiding killer drones.
Snatch at pieces of video flowing past to re-arrange them. I would
have preferred the style of web sleuthing that was present in the
web based game A.I. Even better it was free. You had to delve into
web pages, imbedded coding and other tricks to discover hidden
places, sites and buried info. But the pace was set by your own
curiosity and available time to ramble along the pathways the web
sleuthery presented.
Now to be fair, not all of the
puzzling was twitch or quick fingered oriented. There were many
devilish challenges that I truly enjoyed and these brought me back
into the spirit of the game and captured my imagination. There were
even a few of the trigger fingered games that were still highly
unique and enjoyable. At that point it was not too far fetched to
start seeing the elusive Phoenix as a true nemesis out there,
taunting and baiting you – while two people s lives possibly hung in
the balance. If this had been the entire gameplay – it would have
been a quick tumble into the chase, with the relentless pursuit
uneasily turning into the feeling of being the hunted. I say leave
out the pacman clones and bring on the obscure and the mystical, if
there is a sequel built upon this web based hunt for a madman.
Graphical and ambient
chillers
Some of the best parts of the
game were the odd bits of film both recent and old that surfaced in
your research and as parceled out by the Phoenix. The parts that
were 8 mm truly haunted. I could see this as being a real incident
from the past and see it’s impact reaching far out into the future.
At these points in the game – I was my most riveted and truly
impressed. The web sites them selves added greatly to this eerie
ambiance of the game. I would say this is where the game truly
excelled to me. Donnie Darko and such come easily to mind. Odd
snippets of tangled music – fleeting images and spooky ghost typing
that appears as you go from site to site and represent communiqués
from your quarry build as you move through the maze of sites in the
game. I would give the developers high marks for this aspect of the
game.
The Players in this Dance
Macabre...
All of the game characters,
those seen and unseen, were excellent. I am hard pressed to think of
any other game that had this high a caliber of talent. The actor who
portrayed Jack in the game also provided the narration. His voice
work was superb. In fact, I thought all those filmed for the game
were perfect for their roles. The credibility of their characters
never faltered. I have to admit that though I truly disliked many of
the challenges or perhaps mini games that you have to “beat” to
progress to the next level or segment. The reward was almost always
worth the effort. These snippets of video and film footage varied
depending on the source. Some provided semi biographical moments
from Jack and Karen’s investigation into a series of murders,
beginning with the brutal and unexplained murder of her own father
many years before. This same footage also details the course of
their evolving close relationship. Other pieces of film are shot
from a black and white hand-held camera. These short pieces appear
to be the work of the elusive Phoenix. He is the architect of a
series of brutal murders that we uncover, while following the same
trail that led to Jack and Karen’s disappearance. This ordinarily
would be scant reward for a parasitic version of wack-a-mole. But
this game while missing much in some regards – hit it out of the
park with these “tape rewards”. Time and time again, I found myself
forgetting my irritation with the last mini game I struggled through
and instead was deep into the story line again thinking, … “this is
one amazing situation.”
And then there was the mystery
man himself – the Phoenix. Just when you told yourself – “
whatever.. it’s just a game” … along would come an e-mail. Or that
spooky auto typing backed by a haunting musical overlay. Then you
reach the end, which I found to be shockingly abrupt. I actually sat
there and thought..” What ?…This is it!” .. Well I won’t say more,
but endings have an odd way of not necessarily being what or even
when you expect them. What does this mean? Well, let’s just say I
was left feeling a bit ripped off at the end of this game. But, then
I found that games sometimes linger on your hard drive and the end
isn’t always what it seems. Cryptic…well yes. So I will leave it to
you to decide what this means. I do think though it was not very
long, I did detect a small shiver later on when I thought about this
cryptic madman and his legacy. And what was he really? Madman,
twisted killer or perhaps avenging angel. Again, I will leave it for
you to decide on your own.
You’ve got mail...
Although much of the game is
based on internet sites, some built specifically for the game and
others that are independent pre-existing sites. There is a layer of
interactions and devices within the game that are offered up as part
of the gameplay. Sometimes this works, other times it really is
inconsequential. Before starting the game, you are directed to use
your existing e-mail account or to create one. The point is to have
an e-mail contact for messages from within the game.
Now there are times when this
messaging enhances the mood of the game. Unfortunately, you really
don’t have a give and take in this and what started, as an
enhancement becomes a distraction. After a while I ceased to even
check on whether I had any in game related e-mails. Useful, not
really. I did read them after I had finished Missing and was
surprised at how many had accumulated in my mailbox. Would they have
helped or added a layer to my involvement, that is hard to say. For
me they were so superfluous – I never remembered to check back once
I had gotten the few tools I needed to continue certain puzzles. But
for those who like these sorts of interactions – you will encounter
numerous people that arrive to “help out”. They are a number of
web-based helpers or assistants of sorts who periodically
communicate via e-mail to give you hints, guidance and tools to make
your search easier. It would have been nice if this feature had more
of an interactive flavor. Meaning you could mail them and get
responsive mails back – but it does add a small note of realism to
the gaming experience.
There was one moment that was
an exception and that was when you got a very personalized message
from our nemesis in the game. I truly regret that this wasn’t a
larger part of the e-mail base. This lone message truly drew me back
into the game and gave me that edgy – “this IS just a game right?”
sort of feeling. Unfortunately, this device was abandoned after that
point. I really think the developers missed a unique opportunity to
expand the depth of the gaming experience by their scant use of this
device.
Why won’t
you just die…
This sub-title really is just
to represent my level of frustration with the way the game played on
my PC. There is a patch out that I dutifully downloaded, but the
thought did occur later that perhaps I should have left it off. I
spent a very long time trying one fix after another and fiddled with
the set up the best I could. I truly do not know whether it is an
anomaly with my system config or the game itself. So take this part
of the review with a large caveat attached. However, I could not
ever get the in-game web search engine to function consistently.
Fortunately, by jimmy rigging downloads and such, I was able to get
all the essential tools needed to complete some puzzles integrated
into the game. The review copy came with a list of solves to web
based challenges, so for those that I couldn’t get to load from
within the game, I did have whatever code was needed to open up the
next video sequence. I managed the rest by locating and installing a
copy of In Memoriam. I played through this version with little
difficulty, but it felt a bit odd to finish up a review of one
version by way of playing another. From what I could tell the games
differ in no real way on plot, game play, web sites and such. Since
it was such an odd way to finish the game for review purposes, I
felt it deserved to at least be noted. I have my specs listed at the
end of the review, so it might be worthwhile to take note of them in
case it is an nvidea or some other hardware related issue.
Regardless, the game felt
glitchy and disjointed to me because of the ever-present technical
difficulties. So consider yourself fairly warned… this game may not
play well on all machines.
This is the
end my friend…
This is a difficult game to
write about. First, it is not structured like any other mainstream
adventure title out on the market. This is a mixed blessing. It does
result in moments of fascinating gameplay and storyline. By being
played online it sets itself apart from predictability of some
games. The layer of personalized interaction provided by accessing
your e-mail account can be intriguing. However, it also likely means
creating a new account just for purposes of playing this game, to
avoid clutter in your main account. Some people are not adept at
this. The e-mails were also not employed in the most engaging manner
and were never truly interactive. Just once, it would have been
great to hit the “reply key” and actually engage in a dialogue with
one of these people. Hmmm, if it had been the Phoenix himself, well
that would have been fun. Another real problem with the game was the
inability to save. The game auto writes your progress and has just
the one save point. This was not always a problem, but worse than
some of the mini games was the fact that if you failed at any one of
their increasingly difficult levels you had to go all the way back
to the start of the puzzle and begin again. Arghhhhhh.
The film pieces were
fascinating and beautifully made. They also created a point of
separation from the figures at the center of this story. You watch
from a distance like a web voyeur. I think the intent was to make
the player feel like they are side by side with the Phoenix watching
his macabre plans unfold. But it never quite reached that level for
me as a player. There were too many aspects that stopped game play
abruptly, so that I was pulled out of the story and reminded that it
was indeed just a game and one that truly frustrated at times. So in
the end, I felt separated from everything and just felt isolated.
Despite my reservations about this effort, I remain captivated by
what the developers were trying to accomplish creatively. I think
they took a real risk and hate to see that dissuaded. I also think
that much can be learned from what worked and what didn’t for future
efforts. So, I am looking forward to the sequel, rumored to be in
the works right now. They missed the mark in a few places, but are
on an interesting path with their style and mode of game
development.
What does
all this mean in terms of recommending the game?
If you are a traditionalist
about your adventure games, get massive headaches over anything
arcade and think one save point is some cruel joke – then wait a
bit. I am not unhappy that I played the game at all; I just wasn’t
as mesmerized as I had hoped for. In my opinion, the older game “
Point of View” has a similar serial killer motif, a great music
track, excellent FMV’s, strong acting and a more accessible story
line. Start with that game and work your way to “Missing”. Pick it
up, when you feel more daring.
Now, if you are comfortable
playing games online, don’t mind toughing your way through the
arcade styled mini games posing as puzzles, adore unique and mind
stumping challenges and enjoy well-crafted FMV sequences. Go for it.
You may not have a game of the year experience, but this game is so
unique and different it is well worth a try.
Ambiance, innovation, acting and
filmed portions – A
Game play, interface and game
construction – D
Overall game
grade – C or 75%
The game
was played on the following system:
Pent 4 - 2.6
GHz
XP home
edition
512 RAM
Nvidia Ge
Force 5200
128 Mb video
SB Live sound
card
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2004
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