Missing: Since January (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.5 stars Very good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 7.1 (3.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Brad Shoemaker
• Reviewed on: 06/30/2004
• Updated on: 05/17/2006
• Released on: 06/25/2004
• Originally published on GameSpot: Missing: Since January (PC) Review

If Missing: Since January weren't chock-full of video clips detailing its story of an occult serial killer, two stalwart investigators, and a decades-old murder, you could probably play the entirety of this Macromedia Flash-style game in your Web browser. At its heart, Missing is composed of a fairly lengthy series of puzzles and minigames--some based on logic and some on manual dexterity--that will help you unravel the mystery of a vanished couple who have been trailing a depraved murderer called the Phoenix. It's a decidedly unusual game, if nothing else.

Like EA's late, serialized adventure game Majestic, Missing tries to involve you in its storyline by interacting with you outside of the game proper, in the real world--namely, by sending you hint-filled e-mails from various characters and by requiring you to scour the Web for sites set up like a trail of bread crumbs by the game's developer, Lexis Numérique. This gimmick sometimes walks the line between being immersive and just hokey, but ultimately it does add a cohering element to what would otherwise be a disjointed, if mostly entertaining, set of puzzles and minigames.

Let's back up for a second: Your role in Missing is as an investigator trying to crack a mysterious CD-ROM sent to the employer of Jack Korski. Jack and Karen Gijman have been obsessively investigating a murder that occurred in 1975, Jack because he stumbled upon an old film reel of the killing and Karen because, well, her father was subsequently killed for filming it. This investigation leads the pair to many exotic locales throughout Europe, and eventually they stumble into the clutches of the Phoenix and are abducted. Once he's gotten his prey, the Phoenix's most sensible course of action is apparently to craft an elaborate CD-ROM program full of puzzles that, once solved, will reveal snippets of video that show Jack and Karen's investigation and will ultimately provide the location of the Phoenix and his kidnapped couple. This is, of course, where you come in.

Missing is broken up into a series of sections that each contain several puzzles for you to solve. After every one or two puzzles, you'll get a new video clip, as well as constant textual commentary from the Phoenix. Finish the five sections in the game, which will take you a good number of hours if you hunt down all the clues yourself (or naturally far fewer if you use an online walk-through), and you're treated to the slightly anticlimactic ending to the mystery, though the endgame does have a couple of interesting twists. The game is pretty linear and almost nothing changes between your first play-through and your hundredth, so there's not a lot of incentive to solve the case more than once, but at least it's pretty entertaining while it lasts.

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