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Developer: BAM! Entertainment
Publisher: BAM! Entertainment
Genre: Strategy
Region: NTSC
Format:
Release Date: 15 Aug 04
User Rating
8 (5 votes)- Preview
- Review
- Media
- Guide
- Secret
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- Best known for their educational PC games, Carmen Sandiego makes the jump to consoles with this uninspired and generic platformer.
Overview
I remember the good old days of my childhood booting up the computer playing "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?", an educational game that was done right. The game hosted lovable characters, interesting storylines, and just fun gameplay. It has been quite a while since we have heard from Carmen, but she is back in Carmen Sandiego: The Secret of the Stolen Drums for the PlayStation 2.
Gameplay
If you couldn't tell by the introduction to the game I do have quite a bit of experience in playing the old Carmen Sandiego games. What may come to even more of a surprise to many of you, I actually booted it up again in preparation of this review, and was still enjoying the game. As a college student I can still honestly say that I still enjoy a good game of "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?". So can bam! Entertainment bring us another memorable educational game or is this a game were just not going to want to find?
What surprised me right away was the fact the game has a heavy dose of action and not a whole lot of education. Normally I would be all for this, but not with a game such as Carmen Sandiego that's sole purpose is to help young people with learning about the world.
The opening of the game is looks pretty impressive with all sorts of gadgets at your disposal reminding me of the good old days. You will get plenty of e-mails from other ACME agents helping you along the way. I know if I read this it just seems like ACME has upgraded their gadgets and the gameplay is still the same. Well here is where things in Carmen Sandiego take a turn for the worse.
Sure all the gadgets are in the game, but being a detective is no longer a main part of the game. Now the game focuses much more on action then it does on anything else. The gameplay of Carmen Sandiego just feels very uninspired and it really lacks any sense of polish. Playing through the game it really feels as though the developers took the easy route on every aspect of the game.
You can see they tried to make the game more entertaining by adding special little moves like the sneak ability, and the double jump ability. The sneak ability is stealth at its most basic, and the double jump only seems to work some of the time. Carmen Sandiego: The Secret of the Stolen Drums attempts to make the few features work for the game but instead they seem to be more of an annoyance then anything. This is mainly because the game lacks any sort of consistency, so sometimes you will sit there wondering why your last double jump didn't work.
Taking in mind this is a game created for kids, it still doesn't help the games cause, as the controls are liable to make any eight year old crazy. Overall the game in my opinion made a bad judgment call in drifting away from what worked in the game, and going to a platformer that lacks any educational or entertainment value at all.
Graphics
Things don't get much better for our old friend Carmen Sandiego when we talk about the visuals of the game. To start with the camera in the game is one that seems to get in the way more often then not. The camera is something I really think should have been worked out before the game was released but nevertheless we are left with a game in which the camera is just going to annoy gamers from the minute you start the game.
The rest of the visuals in Carmen Sandiego score a little better then the camera, but not by much. The character models in the game are colorful but not heavy on detail. The only positive thing I can say about Carmen Sandiego is the smooth animation that never seems to waiver at all.
Overall the visuals of Carmen Sandiego are a mixed bag of good bad and really bad. Average that all out and you have a game that could have used some more work in the graphical department.
Fun Factor
I know I have said this already in the review but the old Carmen Sandiego games were a whole lot of fun to play and still are to this date. This game just plain isn't that fun to play. With the buggy controls, difficult camera, and lack of anything interesting or educational, the game really lacks everything that it set out to do. The game on paper has the potential to be fun, but in the long run it ends up being a lot less fun then the originals.
Overall
If Carmen Sandiego had more educational value I may have raised the overall a point, but with the lack of educational value, we are given a platformer that doesn't have a lot to offer. There are better educational games out there and there are better platformers out there. That leaves Carmen Sandiego: The Secret of the Stolen Drums to those hardcore fans who have to buy all of the series games. Otherwise unless you really curious about the game, I am not sure it is even deemed a worthy rental.
- Gameplay
4.0 - Graphics
5.0 - Fun Factor
4.0 - Overall
4.0
