Where In The World is Carmen Sandiego?; Full-Time Dads Issue 24

Full-Time Dads;

The Magazine for Caregiver Fathers

Issue 24

Where In The World is Carmen Sandiego?

From Broderbund

You'd have to be living in a cave not to have at least heard about the Carmen Sandiego craze. What started as a computer game turned into a public television kids show, now in it's second incarnation, and several different software versions. There is also a board game and quite a few peripheral products: t-shirts, watches, etc. Carmen, the slipperiest villain of them all, is everywhere.

The list of Carmen Sandiego games is long: Where in Time, Where in Space, Where in the USA, etc. Most of those are for older kids, and require a knowledge of geography or history. They are fine games, but this particular edition, The Junior Detective Edition, is a great place to start. It is a game that the kids can figure out for themselves. My two expert testers both enjoy it. 5-year-old Robin can navigate the "Gizmo Tapper," the on-screen communications device that the game is built around, and 8-year-old Ben is rapidly rising through the ranks.

What happens is one of Carmen's gang of creepy crooks steals something, the Panama Canal for example. The detective's mission is to track the crook around the world, following clues as to what country the crook has fled, before the battery in the Gizmo Tapper runs out. Once enough evidence has been gathered, the crook is identified and captured. Solve enough cases and the Chief, a surreal, wise-cracking figure, will promote you. Along the way, your detective will pick up all sorts of useless trivia about the countries of the world, and a solid understanding of geography.

The game includes plenty of noises and characters. The display on the Gizmo Tapper depends on photographs from each country. It's all point-and-click navigation, and the pace is fast enough to stave off boredom. Games can be saved, and your Detective will rise through the ranks to finally get a crack at Carmen herself. No one from our Precinct has gotten that far yet, but we're slowly closing in on her, and she won't be free much longer.

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