For anyone born after the year 2000, it may be kind of unfathomable just how huge Carmen Sandiego was. The infamous criminal was always jetsetting around the world, committing devious capers and we the audience were left desperate to wonder just where in the world IS Carmen Sandiego? There were computer games, comic books, a cartoon show and even a competitive game show!
But the crimson coated criminal fell somewhat into obscurity in the 2000s with only a few attempts to return her to the world of gaming. That is, until 2019 when Netflix reimagined the character as a super thief turned super spy, taking down the organization that once defined her. But this latest virtual offering is somewhat of a mixed bag. It’s got some interesting ideas but they’re delivered in such a mediocre package, it gets old fast.
Following the Netflix series, Carmen Sandiego sees the titular anti-heroine is called into action by the Agency to Classify & Monitor Evildoers (A.C.M.E.) when her old syndicate: Villains’ International League of Evil (V.I.L.E.), kick off a worldwide crimewave. Using her particular set of skills, she’ll have to chase these criminals all over the world to recover the stolen goods, and put an end to V.I.L.E.’s scheme once and for all.
It’s a fairly simple plot that begins somewhat in medias res—I guess the assumption is that you’re familiar with the Netflix show. It’s got a pretty loose structure, and that’s fine for a game attempting a “whodunit” style of plot and does well to serve the primary function of Carmen Sandiego, which is the gameplay.
“Following the Netflix series, Carmen Sandiego sees the titular anti-heroine is called into action by the Agency to Classify & Monitor Evildoers (A.C.M.E.) when her old syndicate: Villains’ International League of Evil (V.I.L.E.), kick off a worldwide crimewave.”
Much like its early PC predecessors, Carmen Sandiego takes the form of a globetrotting investigation, where Carmen will need to combine her super thief skills with a little bit of sleuthing in order to find each chapter’s real thief. Players are given a limited amount of days to catch each criminal, and every action eats up a bit of time, so players will need to plan effectively, and use a bit of deduction in order to not let their collar slip through the cracks. Once players have enough clues, they’ll need to filter them through the A.C.M.E. Database in order to pinpoint a suspect and issue a warrant for their arrest.
However, what kind of surprised me about Carmen Sandiego was how much it was attempting to be an educational game. Its early PC predecessors had educational elements, but they were mainly meant to be silly and fun. However, much like The Oregon Trail, Carmen Sandiego was also published by both Gameloft and Harper Collins, so several details about each geographic location are available for players to learn a little bit about where they’re going. It’s not going to help you pass any exams, but it’s interesting.
However, Carmen Sandiego segments its gameplay into two parts, which feels like needless padding. While the gameplay for both is fundamentally the same, the main campaign—titled “A Campaign Most Vile”—has players partaking in small minigames as Carmen in order to collect clues. Sometimes they’ll zipline across rooftops, or stealth their way through an area. It’s simplistic, borderline mobile game mechanics, but it adds a little something to the proceedings.
“Carmen Sandiego isn’t terrible, but it’s certainly not memorable either.”
However, each chapter of the Campaign is locked behind a level requirement. Players do earn experience through gameplay, but not enough to unlock the next chapter. This is where the A.C.M.E Files come in. In this mode, players perform the same basic investigation but in a kind of MS-DOS picture and text style. While it does throw in an occasional minigame, it’s mainly just asking witnesses for information and hoping they give you actual details about the criminal. More often than not I reached the end of a mission with two possible suspects and I had to just guess—it was a 50/50 chance, right?
While I wouldn’t mind this as optional side missions, the fact that Carmen Sandiego forces you to do it in order to unlock the main game is just incredibly aggravating. This game is nowhere near as complex or interesting as something like Phoenix Wright and really didn’t need to force players into a rudimentary version of itself so players could practice and prepare for the main game—I’m assuming.
Visually, Carmen Sandiego is a bit lacking. For a game this simple, it really needed to nail the aesthetic, but in most moments it comes off looking like a Wii-era game, with some shockingly low-poly models, little in the way of animations, and overall the presentation is just mediocre. The audio fares a bit better, lacking a wide variety of themes but maintaining a sort of intriguing James Bond-esque ambiance throughout the proceedings.
Carmen Sandiego isn’t terrible, but it’s certainly not memorable either. If Gameloft wanted to revive the classic PC games in a modern way—much like with their The Oregon Trail remake—they needed to do something far more interesting than this. The legendary thief deserved better than this.
