A group of four students and their professor have gone missing while carrying out a secret investigation on some deserted island in the Pacific. As a rescue pilot, you seem to be the most appropriate person to look for the group of researchers, so, to that end, you head out to Toto Island with no more clues than a distress call and a couple of pictures of the missing. This inhospitable island, which is known for its sudden weather changes and a rich ancient culture, holds a mystery, and you soon find out that the life of these people depends on your ability to solve that mystery. That's how your search through the mysterious island starts out.
The game is basically a point-and-click puzzle adventure where you need to explore several areas with your mouse, paying attention to the cursor changes. These will indicate puzzles, objects to pick up, places where you can move to, and hidden-object scenes. Puzzles involve such tasks as finding safe codes, using the tools at hand to get out of a sinking plane, or finding out how to open a lock mechanism following the given clues. Completing HOG scenes will grant you useful items that you can eventually employ to solve other puzzles. In this way, and following the clues left by the professor, you move on in the game while the story starts to unveil.
Overall, The Missing offers a good blend of intuitive puzzles and hidden-object scenes with some elements of adventure. However, and as it happens with many games of the type, the brilliant work on the graphical and visual aspects is not matched by the story. The topic of people lost on a mysterious island ends up getting too predictable after a while, and some moments will feel all too familiar to those who watched Lost.
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