Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

"Finally finding her doesn't make it any better."

Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
An old game ported to the Genesis and released around 1992. The premise is to catch crooks based on subtle and not so subtle clues, following them all around the globe.

Graphics.
This game is not much to look at. The whole interface is rather spartan (this is understandable seeing the original systems it ran on). There are also photos of the cities you visit which are displayed on the left of the interface during most of the game. These photos suffer, of course, from the limited colour palette of the Genesis, but even though this is the case I still think that they look decent. Most of the pictures are well taken and one can see immediately which city is meant by it.
There are various animations. These range from crooks showing all kinds of movement to rather simple ''footsteps'' (little lines). Judging from these animations, the game is directed towards a young audience. But some of them produced a chuckle from me also. The rest of the sprites are all simple and cartoonish, except the world map which looks realistic. Although the small size can make it appear a bit crowded sometimes.

Music and soundeffects.
There is only very little music and even less soundeffects. There is the title track and some little tunes which are played to accompany most of the animations. These little tunes are, judging from the quality, not all FM tracks, but also samples.
The soundeffects pretty much overpower the game, since they are very persistent and harsh. A selection of these are the footstep sounds and the clicking sound that is heard when an hour passes.

Gameplay and controls.
Since all of the game consists of menus and the choosing of values the game is very easy to control. The same can be said of the gameplay.
A crime is committed. You must then gather clues and deduct from these the next destination. Here you repeat the clue gathering again. This continues till you reach the final destination of the crook. At the same time that you do all this you also have to use those clues to issue a warrant.
This process is repeated 30 times (Carmen being the 30th arrest).
There is one big problem with this concept. It simply is boring. The main cause of this is the lack of difficulty (increase). Kids or victims of the American school industry might face a challenge, but everybody else is better off making some challenging puzzle.

Art.
Box art is not something I get all excited about. Normally.
But this game simply has an excellent cover. The colour combination is superb.
Also the whole style of the manual is very well done.

Replay.
When you first play the game and you are new to this concept it is entertaining for a short while. After playing a few rounds and noticing how you breeze through it, you will be tempted to turn it off and do something else.
I played to the end, as I will not review games which I have not finished, but if this game had more than 30 cases I might have ceased playing. The game actually made me drowsy and even in this state the clues were still clear as daylight.
If however you are challenged by this game, you might keep returning. I find that hard to believe though.

Genesis games are cheap nowadays. Don't hesitate to pick up a copy and judge it yourself.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 04/07/02, Updated 04/07/02