Blogging the Salt Game
Day X Exists – Mission 9:
This is it. The final chapter. The last week of nine for the online game found at www.dayxexists.com, a tie-in into the July 23rd release of the Angelina Jolie starring movie Salt. I’m kind of sad, really. To my surprise, more often than not, these playable missions were fun, although of wildly varying difficulty. This last week’s game is by far the most entertaining to play of all of them, being an out and out shooting gallery.
Last week, on Agent Salt’s (or presumably Agent Salt’s) surreptitious directive, I was pointed at a meet-up of agents that I’d been tracking as part of the Day X conspiracy and was told that the play-nice time was over. Time to lock and load: I was gonna snipe these jerks. It was no problem for me, only, once the dust cleared, it turned out the folks I was pointed at were actually CIA agents on the task force to track down Day X operatives. Big oops. Knowing something was rotten in Denmark, as far as Agent Salt was concerned, and now on the run from my own agency, I tracked down Salt to a Day X safehouse and went inside, guns-a-blazing.
This game is a target and shoot, with three levels of difficulty. There’s a lot of these pesky buggers to take out, but head shots work REAL well. After a few unsuccessful attempts, I finally battered my way through the ruffians to find a wall covered with pictures of Day X operatives and a phone call from Salt who had tricked me and was NOT there after all, telling me I’d asked all the wrong questions, especially where she was concerned. With my ex-boss and his boys on his way in to slap me in cuffs, all I have left to ask is…WTF, Salt? What a bitch move.
What happened? How does this tie into the movie? Is Angelina Jolie going to actually be an evil agent after all or is this entire thing a red herring? Regardless of any of that, this was a fun series of games to play which certainly whetted my appetite for the upcoming movie. And hey, I still have to focus on figuring out all the bonus clue codes (they get progressively harder…a LOT harder) and see what that nets me. Maybe it’ll deliver a happy ending. I need a happy ending.
Click here to Check out the Mission 2 Recap
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Day X Exists – Mission 2:
We’re one week closer to the release of the spy thriller Salt, starring Angelina Jolie as a super-agent who is forced to go on the run when she is accused of being a double agent working against the CIA for the evil folks over at some sort of ‘Day X” conspiracy. It must suck to be Agent Evelyn Salt, who Jolie plays in the film, but it’s fun to be her contact at the CIA who believes in her innocence, the role you can play online at the Day X Exists website.
After the ‘how well can you lie to your boss’ game from last week, which I’m sure many of us came away from as an important lesson if we’re playing it at work, this time around Agent Salt calls us on our illicit cell phone to point us at a command level operative of Day X who is making an exchange in a nearby park. So, high-end super zoomy camera in hand, we go to a nearby rooftop to take pictures of the meet. The challenge of the game is to take pictures in focus so that the people involved can be identified. Which, is not anywhere near as easy as it sounds.
I had to use the left and right arrows on my keyboard to keep the image in focus as the camera lens pointed towards three suspicious folks in the park. Occasionally a red target would come up which meant it was time to snap away. A man and a woman known to be Lithuanian nationals converged with a third man who may very well be the higher-up guy we’ve been looking for. They exchanged an envelope with a strange symbol that even the CIA database didn’t recognize. But now, there’s actually some info to go on until week three.
A helpful hint here is that the game is point based. Try the best you can to get the camera in focus, but the moment that red reticule pops up, just click the mouse like crazy as close to it as you can get. Otherwise you’ll fail. Like I did. Three times. Tighten up your clicking muscles, my friends or you’ll get told exactly what a failure you are. If you manage to get it right, and believe me there’s certainly plenty of room for improvement on my score which I’d imagine with come out to around a C minus if it was in school terms, your boss from the first week game explains the situation and what we’ve learned from the pictures.
So another week, another game I’m going to beat my ahead against the wall to get the highest score I can, and, don’t forget, another secret word hidden on the site. Look carefully at the mission report text in the four boxes that come up once you’re done to figure that one out. I’m not sure if the bonus codes have started to be planted yet on the accompanying twitter or facebook sites for the film. But I’m sure looking. See you in another week.
Click here to Check out the Mission 1 Recap
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Day X Exists – Mission 1:
Hollywood is not filled with dummies, despite some reports to the contrary. The powers that be are taking advantage of the potential of interactive content online to compliment their cinema releases. Lots of big films get fun mini-games on their associated websites. Some TV shows have even had ridiculously complex ‘search the internet’ games that requires hours and hours of work to uncover clues. Luckily, the folks behind the website connected to the new Angelina Jolie spy thriller, Salt, are more concerned that you just have a good time.
The film follows super-agent Evelyn Salt who is forced to take it on the lam when a KGB defector points at her as being a sleeper agent for a underground organization full of nasty folk trying to bring about an apocalyptic “Day X”. The game, Day X Exists, (you can play it here) places you as a CIA agent who Salt contacts to try to help her clear her name. Nine weeks will present nine different missions with nine different types of gameplay all eventually leading up to the film’s actual release on July 23rd.
The opening mission begins with a relatively high production value flash movie. Agent Salt contacts you through a hidden code and you skip out of the “Day X” staff meeting at the CIA building in order to find a phone that you can use to covertly communicate with her. Problem is, when you get back, the boss is pissed about you missing the meeting. The week one game consists of responding to him with either “truth” or “bluff” as he asks you questions about where you were. You’d have to be pretty much trying to screw up to lose the game altogether but the trick is to get it precisely right.
Everything is scored, you see, and you can even pick up bonus points through looking for clues in text files on the website and later, on the website’s accompanying facebook and twitter pages. I’m guessing/hoping that higher scores mean extra content revealed at some point. Either way, I’m one of those points fanatics. I’m gonna keep hammering away at it until I match the listed highest possible score. I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to ways to procrastinate from my work.
What does all this add up to? An entertaining way to spend 30 minutes once a week, a fun little mystery, and a cool advance look at stuff about one of the neater looking spy thrillers on the horizon. I’ll definitely be checking back in again next week for a look at mission two…
