The Great Waldo Search (Genesis) review "This’ll be over quick. It won't be pretty. "

This’ll be over quick. It won't be pretty.

Some things should never be used in a video game, and Waldo is such a thing. The Great Waldo Search, is a collection of minimally-animated pictures that you scroll through to find the stripy-topped fool, who some might recall had quite a successful line of books as well as his own animated show. Bully for him; one step too many is taken you’re made to scroll a magnifying glass across jerky backgrounds to search for poorly-hidden items.

Note: When you scroll the magnifying glass over something, it doesn't magnify.

That's the entire concept here; you lean into your TV screen and search for blocky items within a sea of blocky items. They're never well-hidden and the few distractions attempted fall flat. Find a clock item and it freezes the picture in place -- useless unless that part of the picture contains something you're looking for, and even then, you have to wait forever for clock to restart again. Find Waldo's mangy mutt, and you'll be launched into a mini-game where the hound sits atop a magic carpet and collects bones to the accompaniment of a poorly-dubbed barking noise. For no reason whatsoever!

Video games are, by definition, interactive, something that never happens here. The Great Waldo Search is a failure as a game and as a continuation of franchise. It's simply a non-event.

Community review by bside (December 14, 2006) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.