Download Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego

Brøderbund brought us several high quality games (such as Lode Runner, Karateka, Prince of Persia, Stunts), but I guess their most successful series is without a doubt Where in ___ is Carmen Sandiego?

After you’ve chased Carmen down in Europe and locked her up, she escaped and is now on the loose in the USA.

This game already features VGA graphics, with animated V.I.L.E. henchmen, but the sounds are still quite dull. You can use the mouse to control the game, or stick to the keyboard. Actually this is not the original game, but the enhanced version. You see the Carmen Sandiego games were so popular, that enhanced and then deluxe versions were released later on (and they were all remakes of the original games Where in the World, in Europe, in the USA…).

This time you will travel through all 50 states of the USA, trying to capture the gang of Carmen Sandiego and finally her as well. Again you need to find clues to the next location of a culprit who stole a valuable piece from a city and you need to find the identity of this culprit to get a warrant for the arrest.

I must admit I know far less about the USA as I do about Europe, so I did use Google for some references and I have to admit there are a few things I learned. Still I found some inaccuracies as well. I mean, do you really expect me to believe that in a populated city you get to see a mouse standing in mush without any building in site? Also it’s somewhat irritating to read that the suspect went to Aspen for skiing, but you’re taken to downtown Denver instead (with ski slopes there instead of a city). I can understand that it would be too much to cover every city and that the travels are therefore limited to state capitals, but why did they have to write clues that point to other places? I mean all you need to do is locate the state the clue points to and go to its capital, so why not point at the capital directly (or actually add some more cities to each state)?

Anyway, it’s a solid edutainment game and the game most similar to Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego (gameplay and graphic wise). As usual I really loved the animated villains and their sad faces while they were dragged off to jail.

Part of the Carmen Sandiego Series