Anaksha: Female Assassin
The free-flash-gaming drought continues, alas. There are absolutely no games that I can give a 5-star rating to this week. Even Nerdook has failed me with his latest creation, Monster Slayers, being repetitive, un-interactive, and dull. So, I'm going to review a game that I played last week. But, before we begin, know that I'm not a fan of shooting games, and that I despise them, to be brutally honest. However, one sub-genre is the exception to me, and that is the sniping, which in reality is just a bloody version of point-and-click adventure games. Games like Scope: First Blood, Tactical Assassin, Smoking Kills, those are my gun games. However, they all have art that I could probably make if you just gave me 5 minutes and MS Paint.
Anaksha: Female Assassin is a sniping game by Arif Majothi about Anaksha, who is a female assassin. This isn't your cut-and-pasted mysterious hired killer, however. Anaksha is a character with a personality. She is a feminist vigilante, shooting spouse-abusing men in the head. Anaksha is special in that she is relatable while still being awesome. She also dresses sensibly (I'll give her a grace period with the black lipstick) and, to put this into a nutshell, she is basically what Lara Croft should have been. Anaksha is a great female heroine, because unlike most female heroines in gritty shooters, she is not some dumb-ass, macho, greedy, soulless prostitute. Then again, she isn't white (she is of Indian descent), so that may explain everything. Alright, I'm officially tearing my eyes away from Anaksha's...black lipstick...now.
The setting of this noir grit is Santa Lina, a city of "broken dreams, tears, and lies". The police people are all as thick as bricks, the criminals run rampant, and their poor spouses are the victims of truly heart-clenching abuse. It is quite slummy, with bars, drug labs, and cinema clubs (look it up) on every street. The story of this game is truly a shining gem of the shooter genre (heck, of any genre), even if the gem is a bit rough around the edges at points. The black and white drawings do reverberate the noir grit.
The shooting part of the game does wet itself with some oddities. All of the shoot-able, squishy people roaming the streets are men...not a single lady anywhere. All of these men apparently wear body armor, because you can only shoot them in the head...in the game's favor though, all of the men DO actually wear body armor roaming the streets, with crime being so bad and stuff. Citizens trod merrily by crime scenes, not noticing any of the blood or gore...[sarcasm]but, hey, with crime being so terrible and all, I guess they are used to decapitated bodies laying everywhere[/sarcasm]. But, in the end, the game play is functional...you shoot people in the head, and they die, so at least it isn't a buggy affair.
Anaksha: Female Assassin is like a gem in the raw. It is rough around the edges, but it is brimming potential from every pore. I can only picture the sequel being the paragon of all sniping games ever. Despite the immersion breaking inconsistencies, it is just the best shooter I have ever played.
