MattKendrick.com

Years ago back in elementary school I can remember spending breaks during class playing Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. Next to Oregon Trail and Math Blaster Plus, this was one of the greatest educational games ever made. What started as a video game to help teach people about geography, spawned into the longest running tv game show on PBS. I can also remember rushing home to watch the show after school. This was only after watching the now defunct, Reading Rainbow of course. Yes I was a bit of a geek. My wife reminds me daily that I still am. But anyways back to Carmen Sandiego.

The game puts you in the role of a gumshoe detective. Your job is to travel around the world looking for clues to help solve a case. You must complete a warrant for an arrest and proceed to follow that person across the globe. Once at the final destination you will watch an animated cop chase. Then listen for the musical foreshadowing  to tell if you’ve won your case.

After so many successful cases you will be given a chance to answer questions. These questions require research. The game says you can find the answers in a World Almanac. My wife and I felt like it was a ploy to sell more of these fact books. If you do not have a World Almanac, the answers are easily found on Wikipedia. After successfully answering the questions you are promoted. After a number of cases you will answer another question and be promoted again. Once you’ve solved enough cases and have been promoted a few times, you’ll get your chance to capture Carmen Sandiego.

A few weeks ago my wife and I played the game for the first time in over a decade. I found it online through an abandonware site called Abandonia. At first we just played around with it. But then we were sucked in all over again. We felt the need to play through and find Carmen Sandiego. A few hours later we captured Carmen Sandiego. However the ending to game was not as glamorous as we remember.

When capturing Carmen Sandiego (at least on the older versions of the game) you only get your name on a Hall of Fame list. Big deal right? You don’t even see a picture of the captured boss character. In fact the only picture of her, are in the dossiers files. Granted I know this is an old  game, but they could have made something special out of defeating the main boss. Oh well. But we still had fun and there was some teamwork at play.

Now it’s your turn to find Carmen Sandiego and get your name on the Hall of Fame. You can check it out on Abandonia’s website or download it for yourself below. I’ve posted the DOS version of the game. You will need to find a DOS emulator to properly run this game. I recommend DosBox. Have fun!