Tired of the geography questions of Trivial Pursuit? Looking for something that's actually a challenge? Then this game slaps the glove straight in your face. Although it is an educational game, and thus aimed at kids, it poses a decent challenge to everybody and is probably too hard for children. Nonetheless, it's worth playing.
Where in The World is Carmen Sandiego? Deluxe is a remake of a remake of the classic game. In contrast to the previous versions, the effort on the audio-visual part was greatly increased with this one. The entire game is now made as if it's played on a high-tech phone. Well... high-tech for 1994.
All animations in the game are in cartoon style and mostly take place on the phone's video screen. It's a slight breach of style from the full-color photos in there that show scenery specific to your current location. By checking options on your notepad, you check places and people for evidence and hints as to where the criminal has gone. If you're at the right place, you'll get a zany little animation showing that the culprit just left or is still there. Other animations play when you've caught the right criminal or when you are using the phone.
When using the phone, another big change is evident: full speech, with a text box that shows what's being said. The quality of the speech is pretty high for the time and the resources used, and is all in all a pleasant addition. The music is nice but stays in the background. That way, it never gets annoying.
Another feature worth mentioning is that you can keep a list of the criminal's characteristics and have the game look up who could be the culprit, and then issue a warrant for that person. If you're not sure about it, you can search through the dossier with all possible criminals. Also, as an additional aid, you've got a list of countries at your disposal with some basic information about each, a map, and a list of the surrounding countries.
All in all, you can hardly recognize the first version in this game, although it followed the same concept. That's not a bad thing, though, as the changes didn't affect the game itself, but made it far more fun and easier to use. Two thumbs up for the remake.
The game works even in Windows XP, but you'll only hear the PC-speaker, so it's best to try playing it in DOSBox or with VDMSound.
Part of the Carmen Sandiego Series
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