Santa Lina is an old-fashioned kind of city: big, dark, ugly, and corrupt to its core. The streets are as dirty as those who run it, and poisons runs in the veins of everyone from the lowliest pixie-dust dealer at the school yard, to the tycoons who play with neighborhoods as if they were chess pieces. One of the small few willing, or even able, to take a stand and protect the helpless is Anaksha, a vigilante sniper dubbed "The Virgo Killer" by the press. Once a successful businesswoman, the murder of her best friend snapped something in her mind. And so Anaksha took to the streets, a lone huntress with a rifle, dedicated to the destruction of evil, no matter what the cost, ever-pursued by both the police and the criminal elite. But now an young girl has been found shot through the neck; killed by a very familiar kind of ammo. Anaksha must clear her name, yes, but she is not the only one with a role: private eyes with grudges, seductive women in red dresses, and a lost orphan teenager all have their parts to play on the streets of Santa Lina. Anaksha: Dark Angel is a sniping simulation adventure game by Arif Majothi, and its got atmosphere as thick as blood.
Anashka: Dark Angel has two different modes: one that features all the motion-comic story cinematics, and one that features just the sniping missions. Prior to each mission, you'll receive intelligence and mission parameters on your cell phone, and decide what kind of ammo and upgrades to use. During a mission, mouse your mouse to the place you wish to zoom, then hit [spacebar] to enter scope mode. [Q]/[P] and [A]/[L] zooms in and out to get a better shot, and a click of the mouse fires your weapon. Reload or switch ammo types by clicking the icon in the lower right of the screen. Some missions require specific kinds of shots, or certain conditions to be met before you can fire. Avoid shooting innocents. In addition to your mission target, gang-members (identifiable by their tattoos) can be shot for extra points to spend in the between-mission upgrade store, but doing so can draw police attention. Good luck!
Analysis: If one were to describe Anaksha: Dark Angel in a single word, it would be "impressive". Impressive graphics, impressive programming, impressive soundtrack, impressive plotting. There is such a mass of content, presented with such care, that it's impossible not to be impressed. Clearly every day of its 34 month development cycle was put to good use. It pushes the concept of its genre to its very limit. There are so many little details and bonuses to discover that even after completing the game (something that, if played with the cinematics, will not be done in one sitting), it feels like only the surface has been scratched. A look at Majothi's site makes it clear that he's created a whole world for Anaksha to play in, and a backstory we've seen only a glimpse of in the games and scripts he's released. The author has thought deeply about the implications and morality of his character and it shows... even in the numerous content warnings that attempt to separate the philosophy of author and protagonist.
Where the game falters is in its tone, which is quite uneven. The inspiration is clearly the neo-noir of Blade, The Crow, and especially Frank Miller's Sin City, and therein lies the problem. Like those works, Anaksha: Dark Assassin walks the fine line between the super-serious and the ludicrous, and it stumbles quite a bit. For instance, take an early scene where Anaksha tortures a low-level dealer for information. The violence is as over the top as an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon, but is played with such gravitas that it's like the game cannot decide what it wants to be. There feels a disconnect between the cinematic and gameplay sections: when the former is neon, the latter is monochrome. Where the former is tight and technical, the latter is loose and artsy. Both excel on their own, but like chocolate and mashed potatoes, it doesn't quite work together.
While this is a concern, this has little to do with the gameplay which, after all, is what matters most. In short, it's probably the best sniping game we've seen in years. Your ability to appreciate all the available effects will depend on your CPU speed, but when, even on the lowest setting, you can zoom in to see the Triforce on a random passerby's arm, it's very cool. The missions are varied and success requires close attention to detail. Each level does have random elements in it, which can be a pain when seeking out a specific achievement, but it keeps things realistic and adds to the replay value. The lack of center-mass shots goes against all the regular gaming-sniper instincts, and some mission conditions are strangely over-specific (is there really that much difference between a shot to the throat and a shot to the jaw?), but those are quibbles. You'll feel like Golgo 13 while playing, and that's what really matters.
There remains little to say: some will be turned away by the violence and mature themes, and some will enjoy the trip to the darker side of flash gaming. It's likely though, that Anaksha: Dark Angel will make it to the Best of 2011 list with a bullet.
I dunno. The first Anaksha was fairly aggravating - between the story (Anaksha stumbles across someone who is ALWAYS RIGHT about who the super secret bad guys who deserve to die really are! She goes vigilante on this one guy's word and there's nothing wrong with this!) and the objectives (No, no, no, you shot the moving target in the UPPER jaw, blowing his head to pieces, when you were supposed to hit him in the LOWER jaw! Mission failed!) I might give this a try, but my hopes aren't that high.
even though there's obviously a lot of time invested into the creation of the game, it's trying very hard to annoy me. from the self-advertisement during the loading time to the idiotic dialogue during cutscenes
This is an AWESOME game!! A little hard in some spots, but it's still a load of fun!
I also loved the Golgo 13 reference, Tricky! Don't hear much about Mr. Duke Togo in a casual game site.
I love this game. The sniping is fun has hell. It's always satisfying to see a baddy's head blow up into small red bits. The story is also quite smart. It's full of intriguing twists and turns and characters with very human qualities. It's not a story about some cold-blooded assassin, as you may assume, but it is actually a story about HUMANS. The cutscenes are good as well. You know that the story and animation are well done if you start looking forward to the cutscenes between each mission. The ability to rewind and replay each cutscene is a nice touch.
Although some missions seem a bit annoying, this game deserves no less that a 5 out of 5.
I just don't see a way to make this guy's death look like an accident. The cracked building doesn't break and fall when shot, the electrical wires apparently can't be knocked down, and there's really nothing else the guy runs past.
A really fun game, but if there's going to be a reward for earning shields on all the levels, there should be some option to go back to a level you've completed, even if you only unlock this option after beating the game.
Tenzhi,
Shoot a bullet near him to panic him - then he'll run right, and you can drop one of the light globes on his head. It may take a few tries.
This game would be decent if the objectives weren't so obtuse. As it is, it's just too annoying to really enjoy.
After trying 10 times to hit a guy in the jaw, I must say: This game is annoying.
I feel sorry to say this after Majohti put 34 monthes worth of work in this game, but neither the story nor the gameplay are worth playing this.
This is a good game, but it's hampered by several bad design decisions. First of all, the upgrades and briefing, which you'll need to read closely every mission, are restricted to a tiny cell-phone screen with tinier text. Meanwhile, the message box to the left hardly ever has useful information but takes up a good 2/3rds of the screen. This is a completely backwards UI.
Also, the upgrade progression is very uneven. Later missions let you get really creative with special ammo, and require such creativity, but to get to anything more fun than vanilla bullets to the head, there's a truckload of useless upgrades to get through. First, the rubber stun bullets are useless. In 15 missions, I was able to spot maybe one person before they called the cops, and the cops almost never arrive in time to stop you. So that's three missions of R&D before you get any useful special bullets. And if you want to do anything with these bullets, then you'll need a few more clip upgrades. Otherwise, your target will escape long before you can pull out your fancy flash bullets and stop him.
Finally, some of the missions require a lot of luck, particularly if you're going for the gangsters. A police car might show up the instant you take a shot, giving you no time to switch to the smoke shot to cover your tracks. A gangster might never go indoors where you can safely take him out, or he might spawn right next to the target, in which case you're probably SOL.
And this last one isn't really a game design issue, more a storytelling issue, but I find it hard to like Dee when she's constantly making my job harder by asking me to shoot specific parts of the head.
These frustrations aside, this is a pretty good game with some really creative parts, and the story's good if you suspend your disbelief, since it's basically Batman with more flexible morals. It's just got a bunch of annoying bits that kept me from enjoying it as much as I could.
Overall, great game, really liked the storyline (reminded me of Max Payne more than anything else) and the style of the cutscenes, and the missions are (mostly) a lot of fun.
The one significant complaint I have is that, for some missions, the focus on exactly where you shoot someone becomes tiresome. OK, I understand, maybe the "shoot him in the jaw" makes sense (not necessarily fatal), but if you're going to blow someone's head apart, having the mission fail because you shot the front half of their head off, rather than the back just makes no sense.
I couldn't tell who was a gangster and who just had a tattoo. I kept ended up killing innocent people and ended up walking away.
Lots of promise but the gameplay needs work.
Ambitious and impressive! I'll definitely give it another try later. Because if you're not in the mood you'll definitely get bored of 90% of the time watching cutscenes and 10% playing.
Some problems I personally have with the game; While I love the idea of shooting the person with the right description, reading the briefing on that microscopic screen, trying to filter the essential information, makes the ritalin in my blood stream run thinner. I would let it pass, since presenting this kind of information in any other format would be time consuming... but that's no the case here! with all the cutscenes this game has why not devote a tiny fraction of it for the briefing of each mission? The text could then be used to make sure you understood, check or recheck some detail etc.
There is a mission when I'm supposed to
lure a pair of "rasists" from their house. I try to shoot a button 102 by the door, but nothing happens.
What to do? Thanks.
I've really got to echo Talanic's comments from when I first played this game in 2007. This game's story is all kinds of hackwork, and since it came out when flash games had even worse stories than they do now. It's very rare that a story is so bad that I will refuse to play, so it's worth adding that the gameplay was shoddy enough to put me over the edge. What an abysmal mess.
Does anyone have a tip on how to shoot a moving target in the jaw without specialty amo?
Close to rage quitting on level 13, hitting the temples of two moving targets is more than this game's hit detection can handle.
Overall, a disappointing game.
The sniping mechanic is nothing new (although the detailed placing of the shot, at least when it comes to the head, is worth exploring), the plot is vague, and the writing is terrible.
The arcade mode is supposed to let you avoid the bad writing and the pointless plot, but the obtuseness of the mission briefings kind of runs counter to that. You have to scroll all the way down (by clicking on scroll arrows? seriously?) past the descriptions of all the horrible, horrible things your target has done (that you don't care about) to get to the relevant details.
It's obviously a very full game (content and story-wise), but it's just not very fun.
@sam:
Why don't you have specialty ammo? The game clearly told us which upgrades to start with to make sure you had it when you needed it.
@username:
try flashing them first. I flashed them, then shot both in the kneecaps to bring them down. After that, the temple shots weren't so bad.
I exited the browser after saving my game and came back about an hour later, and now there's nothing clickable on the game screen. Is anyone else experiencing this bug? I'm using Windows 7 and Firefox 9.0.1.
@DAM
I didn't have specialty ammo because I was still researching it. But I did figure out how to make the shot
to hit the jaw instead of the neck which I was doing just raise the aim slightly
@DAM: If the game allows you to get in an unwinnable state, it is the designer's fault, not the player's. And frankly, I don't blame him for not pursuing the specialty ammo, because the first two specials are totally useless. If they're going to require certain upgrades for certain missions, then why not give out the upgrades at those missions, like they did for the Rottweiler upgrade?
To actually answer sam's question, aim a bit higher than you'd expect, not at the bottom of his face. When I got it, I thought I had just gotten a normal headshot.
@Aegeus
Dont think theres any design issues here because Ive actually completed the game twice now using nothin but normal rounds. The first two special bullets arent too great but the later ones were real useful if youre having trouble
I agree, if the game wants you to get those upgrades, they should figure out a way to make them mandatory. However, as I said, the designer clearly states which 2 perks you should start with, and why. Don't blame them if you didn't read it.
Black screen -> Please Wait, chacking server status
And the loading page, where the bar is already à 100%, saying "Loading Core Engine ...", and nothing else ...
I really can't stand the patronising way everything is written, it's like the creator is bigging himself up at every turn and the FAQ's are like a platform for him to demonstrate just how much detail he has thought of to include in the game and how very clever he is. It made me not feel I could concentrate on the story as I was just waiting for the next braceted phrase (ooh you're going to hate me for this...) etc. A real shame as I think the game could have been fantastic and I do love the attention to detail and graphics but I just don't want to be told about it every 10 seconds, I would rather appreciate it myself. Also there is definitely way too much cutscene to gaming ratio. If the balance was redrawn it would be a really good game I think. I found it difficult to work out what to do on each level though, maybe that's just me as I'm definitely not the best at problem solving but I found some things really tenuous to work out. Definitely a good effort none the less!
At the countryhouse, I shoot the outer guard, shoot the control panel with the flashing light, then the second guard leaves the house, and I shoot him too. But how do I lure the other guard out? Any ideas? Thanks.
@Liza
Wait for the second guard to reset the control panel before shooting him. Then shoot the panel again to lure out the third guard.
How do I shoot the running guy in the kneekap?!O_o
@Miss
For any running shots, just be sure to stun them first using speciality ammo such as flash rounds or rubber bullets. It'll be easy after that
My thoughts on this game. I quite enjoyed it, but it did suffer from problems that have been pointed out by others. A solid 4/5.
* Gameplay was generally good. I also found the precise headshot business to be a little annoying, but once you have special ammo you can stop those targets running away and then hit the exact point on the head about 80% of the time. Maybe more often if you break their kneecaps; I didn't really experiment with that.
* The game is actually quite easy if you get shields in all of the early levels (by killing both gang members) to drive research into special ammo.
* I like the way the cutscenes have been implemented, and that you can pause and rewind them.
* I thought the writing was competent, but not good. It just wasn't very convincing. The plot was interesting. I felt that although Anaksha ends up being a fascinating character, everyone else was generally a minor variation on a clich�.
There were some odd turns of phrase, the one I remember at the beginning was a paramedic saying "She's going into hypotension!" Also, there is a point at which a character uses their injured arm to cover their mouth in shock...
* Overall, worth the time required to play. I had more fun with the Mini-Adventures though.
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