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Where's Waldo? review

Game: Where's Waldo?
Platform: NES
Genre: Casual (Other)
Developer: Bethesda Softworks

Reader review by siegfried

April 27, 2003

PRE-INTRODUCTION

I sure hope you know who the Hell Waldo is because if you don't, well, it will be too troublesome to provide exhaustive information on the bum's whereabouts. But since I'm such a nice guy, I'll give you a hint: ask your younger brother / sister / cousin / nephew / dog. If all this still fails, that's too bad because you probably won't understand anything in this review. Actually, I'm exaggerating. There's really no need to be a Waldo fan / hater to understand this review, or even to pick this game up. This game was not designed specifically for people who know Waldo. Let's just say it was designed for everybody.

INTRODUCTION

I got this game a long, long time ago; longer that you could fathom. I must have been 11 or 12 back then. At that time, Waldo was a close buddy of mine. I'd watch him on television after school, and as far as I can recall (which isn't very much), it was an enjoyable show. Little did I know that there was a game about it! So, when I one day stumbled upon it while looking for porn flicks in the Chinese shop 4 kilometers from my house, I figured it wouldn't hurt to buy something other than dirty pictures and cassettes for once.

Then, I returned home and inserted the cartridge my brand new NES system. I was overjoyed to see Waldo instantly pop up on the screen. Of course, a game based on Waldo should feature him, but the sight still remains one of the most memorable experiences in my life. I just sat there and stared at Waldo in his white-and-red striped clothes, tears brimming from my equally white-and-red striped eyes. An eerie foreboding noise also played in the background, making the scene even more melancholic.

So, after ensuring that there was nobody to disturb me and checking that my hamster was still in the oven, I finally got to press the START button to start the game.

GAME PLAY

Well, at first I did not understand what I was supposed to do and was even considering returning it to the store. However, I then remembered my kindergarten teacher's advice, ''Ignorance is not an excuse'', so I tried to delve deeper into it. It was a good decision because I developed profound knowledge of all the game's intricacies within seconds.

Well, it's actually very simple, and now that I think about it, it's just as in the television show. The only HUGE difference is that the game is obviously more interactive, and I remember playing the game more than watching the show since we remember 80% of what we see, hear and do. Actually, for me, this number is very close to 95% =D (this smiley owns, doesn't it?). So, the objective is to find Waldo who's deliberately hiding in wide, wild, and colorful landscapes. Moving a cursor around the screen with the directional buttons does this and clicking on the appropriate button whenever you think he's within the cursor will achieve this.

But first, you need to make sure how much time is left since there is a time limit in each level, thus limiting the time left to find Waldo. If you fail to do so, I think you lose, but I may be wrong since it's so long since I last played the game, my mind is fuzzy and numb. Anyway, the inclusion of the time factor makes the game quite challenging. You may need to play it a couple of times before beating it. At the end, there's even a totally random slot game where you need to align three faces of Waldo, which approximately represents 66.667% of the difficulty.

So, you see, Waldo is a quite cool game. Now, let's dissect the game section by section, as I learnt to do in Biology class last semester.

STORY

Lost is Waldo. Find him you must.

GRAPHICS

Waldo looks just like his old self. He has long pants, a shirt and a hat. He also wears glasses, which make him easier to spot since most of the people making up the portraits usually lack this characteristic. There are also lots of colors everywhere, whole lots of them! Level 1, level 2, level 3, etc…Even the loading screens have colors! They are all magnificently colored and only a BIASED fool would say the contrary (note, this doesn't apply to you ;) (this one's lame, isn't it?)).

SOUND

Well, there's not much of it actually, but what's here is enough. It's not good, but it's not bad either. I guess I could say it's 'goad' LOL. The sound effects are pretty nice. They perfectly punctuate the action, even though this isn't actually an action game, so that should tell you everything about them. I guess I could just write the partitions for the music, but I'm a bit in a hurry right now.

CONTROLS

The controls are a bit sluggish, and I have to admit this rebutted me at first. After considering forking the game over to my dog, I however got used to them. Just give them some time, and within time, you'll forget about their lack of coherence in some instances.

REPLAY

Sorry, but there is no Replay option in the game. Try the FIFA and International Superstar Soccer titles for that.

OVERALL

As you must have already deduced had you been paying attention to my brilliant wording of words, Where's Waldo? is actually a nice title and is worth playing whether you actually liked Waldo's shows or not.

And that's a Wald0 guarantee!

However, since I dislike video games, I'll be giving it only a 5, which is an average score on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the lowest possible score and 10 the highest.

RENT OR BUY

Why opt for only one option when you can go for both?

(Note: This is a question that doesn't call for an answer.)

//Sieg

Rating: 5/10

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