Warm and fuzzy

Witness the fiery demise of Missing: Since January by The Adventure Company. The premise is this: A journalist and his friend have been kidnapped by a methodical killer and their captor has left a CD-ROM that gives you a chance to find them and perhaps save their lives.

It is a graphical mystery/adventure which advances by solving puzzles or playing arcade style mini games (bring your best mouse chops). Many times the answers to the in-game puzzles must be found by doing further research on the internet. Throughout the game you receive emails from the “team” working with you to crack the case. The implementation of the email function is a bit shoddy and a couple of the emails you receive contain the actual answers to the puzzles you’re working on. Where’s the fun in that? Though this aspect of the game could use some improvement, it doesn’t get in the way of your fun unless you let it.

The presentation of the game is very slick and the production values are quite good. (side note: I think I need to play something soon with terrible production values so I have something to say other than “great” and “quite good”. Something like “The voiceover production in Red Faction was pure balls!”) As the game progresses, clips of the journalist’s video tapes leading up to his kidnapping are presented as a sort of reward. These live-action video clips are very convincing and pretty much made the game worthwhile for me.

The end could have been better but overall I’d say this game is worth the money. You won’t see any nudity but there’s plenty of blood and gory imagery for you true crime fans.

Rating: BUY