Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego?

Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego? is an educational game released in 1986 by Brøderbund Software, Inc. for DOS, Amiga, Apple II, and Commodore 64. I’ll review the DOS version.

We begin by learning that some crime has been committed, and we’re given a deadline for solving it–about a week, in the games I played.

The Great Serpent Mound has been stolen by a masked female! Who ya gonna call?

Once we’re told of the crime, we’re dropped in the city where it took place, so we can begin to investigate. There’s a little information about the city (education!) together with a fairly nice picture, and we have the option of questioning witnesses, leaving for another city, or putting what we know about the thief into the crime computer to figure out who the thief is and get a warrant.

Each city has three locations you can visit to question witnesses. Questioning them takes times, and there’s a deadline, so if you just need to know where the thief is headed, you don’t have to talk to all three people–only as many as it takes to learn the thief’s destination.

The witnesses generally tell you some clue to where the thief was headed next, together occasionally with a little information about the thief. In this case, the comment about the Bears tells us that the thief’s favorite sport is (according to wikipedia) football, which we can use to narrow down the list of suspects.

Once we know where the thief headed, we can go there, and question the residents of the new city to discover more about the thief.

If we don’t know enough–if we only know the thief’s sex and favorite sport, for example–the crime computer can only tell us who the possible suspects are, and we have to keep searching for more evidence to discover the thief’s identity.

Once we have enough information to positively identify the thief, though, the crime computer will issue a warrant, and all that’s left is to follow the thief to the next city or two and eventually catch her.

Success! Once again the day is saved, thanks to my rudimentary detective skills.

I’m guessing the game was intended for children around ten years old or younger. Despite the young intended audience, Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego? is really quite good. The graphics are nice, the game’s mechanic works, and kids may even accidentally absorb some knowledge about geography while playing it. It’s a little too simple for adults to play for long, but fans of educational games will surely want to give it a try, if only to see an early entry in the series which spawned over a dozen games, a similar number of books, and several television programs.

Abadox: The Deadly Inner War

A shooter this time, and a pretty good one, at that.

Since this game incorporates powerups, you begin, as in most similar games, with nothing but a pathetic little pea-shooter and no armor, moving very slowly indeed.

I had quite a bit of difficulty dodging the shots from the–very bizarre–enemies at first, but then I got a speed powerup and a couple of options and the dodging was no longer necessary.

After progressing through a level that looked like it was made of worms, or possibly intestines, and fighting enemies like flying mouths and eyeballs, I reached the first boss: some sort of skeletal dog with bits of flesh still clinging to it.

This boss just jumps around a bit while releasing a few shots, so it was no problem to kill. After defeating this boss, we proceed to the second level, which is rather like the first except in much closer quarters and with various obstacles which required dodging. At the end of this level was the second boss, a face made of intestines, with its eyes floating about in front of it.

This boss, too, was no trouble to beat, although it did destroy my options. However, after destroying this boss, the game changed from a horizontal scroller to a vertical scroller–which scrolled from bottom to top, just to make it more confusing.

I died a bit into this level, since I had no options and some enemies are only half-destroyed by a shot. This game is much better than most of the others I’ve tried. I liked Super R-Type for the SNES better, but this is also a pretty good example of the genre. Worth playing.

First Impressions: Tenchi wo Kurau II – Shokatsu Koumei Den

An RPG, and one that actually seems pretty cool.

After a very lengthy opening, we find ourselves in the castle:

Upon leaving the building, we gain two party members, and begin to explore the town. One issue I found was that although everyone starts with equipment, it’s not equipped, so you have to equip five items to each character, one at a time. An equip all feature would have been nice, but I guess you only have to do it once.

The graphics are actually pretty good for an NES game, as you see when walking around the town and then entering the world map.

I didn’t play all the way through this, but it looks good so I probably will. One thing of note is that you don’t have hit points in this game. Instead, you are (nominally) commanding an army, so you lose troops when attacked, and your damage is dependent on how many troops you have left. Strangely enough, though, herbs still ‘heal’ you and a revive still restores you to full ‘health.’ Possibly the designers weren’t thinking it through very carefully. The battle screen is reminiscent of Final Fantasy:

When you win battles, you gain experience, and your army levels up. You gain some kind of skills, but I haven’t played enough to see what they do yet.

Verdict: This seems like a good game. The graphics are nice and the battle system, while simple, is reasonably good. If it continues as it has begun, this game will probably be worth playing through.