starters,
many of the puzzles are needlessly difficult. Built on a system of modules, each
containing a handful of challenges that need to be completed, the puzzles will
range from hair-pulling to very simple. The flash games, for the most part, are
just silly: flying a target to knock parasites off a table, moving a moon through
a maze and avoiding skulls ala Pac-Man, and slinging a ball through a maze
of obstacles are just a few examples - none of which inspire fear for the couple's
situation or the villain. The non-flash arcade puzzles are no better: keeping
stove lights lit by making sure the gas stays on and dragging a lit match over
the holes; moving a lit match around a dark room, avoiding holes that shoot out
air; and using a combination of pills to make a roach-like insect turn dials.
I actually enjoyed only one of these games, and it was a flash game where a cube
had to be slung from certain points along a wall, avoiding obstacles and the wall
itself. Some of the puzzles, though, seemed to be throwaways; one was simply putting
a card back together from six pieces. However, there was one that was so annoying
that it went head and shoulders above the rest, and almost made me quit: it consisted
of multiple dials that have to be turned in order to isolate a single noise out
of about 4 of the most annoying sounds I have ever heard, all of which are played
really loud, and it took me forever to find the right combination - here
is the correct position, just because I love you. It's an uneven mix, to be sure,
and one that isn't skewed to the positive.
The detective puzzles were
better, but not by much. Many of the puzzles were just so random that I had to
guess at what to do, primarily because, not only did they make no sense, but no
direction was given; there is a help box and hints given by The Phoenix himself,
but in several puzzles neither will offer up anything. Another significant problem
is that the game has been out for months in Europe, under the title In Memoriam,
so looking on Google, their preferred search tool, would actually cause answers
to pop up because of the search finding a walkthrough for the game; also, just
by the nature of search engines, quite a few of the generic sites set up by the
developers are buried under mounds of forum posts about the game and unrelated
sites - although, I am surprised at how often the needed sites would appear on
the first or second page of results.
When the puzzles did make sense,
the game was actually pretty fun. A few that are particularly good include piecing
together stills of a movie to have it play in the correct order, and memorizing
an eerie nursery rhyme and playing it back by selecting the right order of sounds.
But, for every good puzzle, there are several that are just pointless, like one
that is nothing more than pixel-hunting for a spot to cause a movie to play at
the correct speed. And it isn't that getting no help is bad enough, but the fact
that emails from others, which often look like spam and have chit chat that comes
off as stupid ("CUL8R") rather than realistic, offer answers to the puzzles after
I had already solved them. Only one out of the dozens of emails actually had an
answer I needed.
I also had a problem with the game's villain. The Phoenix
is yet another psychopath with the Hannibal Lecter Syndrome - that is, he loves
astrology and all the signs and figures that lie within that field, foreign languages,
especially Latin, and takes pride in trying to come off as intellectual by spouting
off about higher truths. This is made even more irritating by emails from a psychiatrist
who does nothing but repeat himself about how The Phoenix is a genius and how
crazy he is - thanks, I think I figured that out myself. The whole story revolves
around persecuted philosophers, the occult, the renaissance, and anything else
that would allow the developers to use art from the 1400s.
The character
of The Phoenix really speaks of the game itself: he's a cliché villain
for a C-rate thriller - which, in the case of the game itself, is in regards to
both story and gameplay. Granted, the story doesn't try to be anything more than
what it is, but the whole game gets very tiresome towards the end. The puzzles
get more inane and the main characters get more annoying as the very anti-climatic
ending comes about. Not to mention all the super-sleuth-shots, like the camera
zooming on Jack's pencil as he writes out a word, circles it, then draws multiple
arrows to other words - because making a connection between two words written
an inch from each other would be impossible otherwise - and Karen putting her
head in her hands or staring intently at an old book just seem so hokey. There
are also times when both Jack and Karen are in the video, which means that an
invisible camera man was filming their adventure. The developers were also big
fans of showing random grainy images really quickly, which seem to be what passes
for creepy these days. There are also plenty of grating sounds accompanying the
long muzak tune that lasts throughout entire game - ah, the joy of hearing elevator
music mixed with the sounds of metal tinging and scraping - to go along with the
rapid-fire video sequences. The effort put into the production is evident, though,
the results just weren't impressive.
Overall:
5.5/10
Essentially, Missing: Since January is a straight-to-video
thriller mixed with puzzles that rarely shine of ingenuity. However, the experience,
despite being marred with plenty of problems, is still a unique one. While it
isn't necessarily a uniquely good one, it's still something that will undoubtedly
enjoy a cult status among gamers. With the state of adventure games being not-so-hot,
most following a rigid formula, Missing comes along like a warm breeze
on a hot day - while it doesn't really satisfy, it's still kinda appreciated. [
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