Edutainment games were better back in my day. Sometimes. Actually, our topic of discussion, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (question mark for stylistic purposes), was first released in 1985, which is, by every definition, before my time. However, we’re not just looking at any Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, we’re looking at the Sega Master System version of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?.

The Sega Master System version is sort of the same as the home computer versions. However, it has one significant difference: deadly force against children.

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Generally, the setup is the same: you travel from country to country, following the trail of a criminal who has stolen a national treasure. In each location, you talk to people to get hints on where the criminal fled next. You then put the clues together, board a plane to the next country, and repeat as many times as needed. Along the way, you also need to pick up a description of the perpetrator. Hair colour, vehicle of choice, hobbies; everything you need to know about your date to get a warrant for arrest. Once you’ve got your warrant and clear enough countries, you can make the arrest and close the case.

The difference is that, while the home computer versions were entirely menu-based, the Sega Master System version has you control a little trench-coated dude around little representations of the cities you visit. Bright blue trench coat and hat, bright red boots, you fashionista, you.

Now, listen, I can’t claim to know every nuance about the early versions of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, but at a superficial level, it’s the same thing but with more walking. The box calls it a “text-adventure-action” game, which is really pushing the definition of a lot of those words. The cover also depicts a shadowy dude shooting at a fleeing luxury car, and I’m not sure what scene from the game is supposed to depict, but as far as things that were pasted over the awful Sega Master System white grid paper format, it’s pretty rad.

But it’s not too far off because the one thing the Master System version does that isn’t in any other version (that I know of) is the threat of bodily harm. As you advance along the perp’s trail, occasionally, dudes in striped shirts will step onto the screen and fling a knife at you. If you get hit, it takes some hours off of your clock to “recover.”

Then, when you actually find the thief, they confront you in the street and start shooting at you. Despite what you may think, the goal isn’t to get close enough to tackle them. No, you instead have to dance around until they run out of bullets so the police can arrest them. I’m dead serious. You dodge bullets so he’ll give up when the real police arrive. I’m not advocating for violence, but I think there are probably better solutions to an armed assailant than being a moving target.

Also, the game keeps track of how many bullets the thief has and how many they’ve used. If they hit you, they’ll back off the screen and come back a short while later. If they hit you with their last bullet, they will leave the screen and reload their gun with exactly one more bullet. The instruction manual straight-up tells you this, too. It is by design that the criminal just chambers one more round, which is very frugal of them.

It’s so funny to me. Maybe I’m imagining this wrong, but I’m pretty sure that all of Carmen Sandiego’s foils are kids. Like, maybe I’m just basing this off the old game show, but I always thought we were working with a jetsetting Nancy Drew as the protagonist. So, I’m thinking these criminals in trenchcoats come out with a Colt revolver, like, “End of the line for you, junior detective.” Which is more force than most child detectives have to face. Did Penny from Inspector Gadget ever look down the barrel of a six-shooter? I know she’s been tied up a lot, but who hasn’t?

Anyway, it sucks. You have so little room to maneuver, and the hit detection is bullshit. I am dead certain that a bullet was one pixel above my character and still counted as a hit. I’d go through my footage to find proof, but that’s too much work. Just trust me. You can also duck and jump by going to the bottom or top of the movement area, respectively, but it’s practically pointless. You’d think they’d give you an invincibility frame or something, but they actually expect you to time it so you’re out of the way of the bullet, which doesn’t work if they’re fired from the top or bottom of the screen. Someone should have told them the criminal aims for you, and jumping achieves nothing but stronger glutes. Or rather, someone on the dev team should have played the game, because I don’t think anyone could look at these sequences and think it was fine.

Getting shot is surprisingly survivable, though. Just like catching a knife, your junior detective just collapses into the gutter for a few hours. This increases depending on how high your difficulty is. Honestly, this was the most difficult part of the game. Forget the actual geography. Dodging bullets is way harder. As it should be, I guess, but I feel like the message is getting lost somewhere.

For the whole geography part of the game, you’re given a second instruction manual with all the facts you need. There are flags for each of the depicted countries and facts about them. The folks you talk to will say things like, “The perpetrator exchanged all their currency for Francs,” or, “They wouldn’t shut up about wanting to kick a moose in the face,” and that lets you narrow down where they’re going.

This makes me realize that I didn’t actually read the blurbs. With my massive adult brain, I have a general idea of where things are in the world, so when someone says the perpetrator had the smell of wine on their breath, I know they’re probably in Europe; most likely in France. So, I’d scan the blurbs to see which specifically mentions wine, and that’s the one I’m looking for. The fewer people you have to ask for clues on where to go, the more time you have later on to catch the thief.

I’m not sure if there are any actual safeguards to make sure you pick the right country, though. One time, the three hints I got were that the suspect left in a truck marked with a red, white, and blue flag, that she identified as a tweed buyer, and that she left in a truck with a red, white, and blue flag. Oh, well, that fucking narrows it down, doesn’t it? I guess I just need to remember back in school when I learned where tweed comes from. Frankly, I thought tweed was just a way to weave wool. Silly me! The guide doesn’t even mention tweed, and, like, half the countries fly red, white, and blue flags. It’s the United Kingdom, by the way. I discovered this because, if you go to the airport, you’re only given a choice between a few locations and, thankfully, only the UK had the requisite colours on its flag.

I was never really at risk of losing, though. The biggest obstacle I ran into is just how many cases I had to go through to nab Carmen Sandiego. I thought if I picked the highest difficulty, I’d fast-track myself to the end, but that’s not how it works. Not exactly. I still had to go through the game ten-or-so times before she turned up. On the plus side, I probably will never forget what the capital of Nepal is.

And the big prize I got for nabbing the elusive Carmen Sandiego is fuck all. The teletype that Interpol uses to talk to you barely acknowledges it. The whole “Good job, you nabbed the queenpin,” is buried in the same generic text you get when completing other cases. And then you just get spit back to the title screen. No image of Sandiego behind bars. No credits. No victory jingle. I had to look up a video of someone else completing it just to make sure I didn’t accidentally hit the button to skip it. Damn.

But, listen, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? is great as far as edutainment games go. I’ve kind of outgrown its target audience, and we live in a world where we don’t need to know facts since we can just pull out our phone and bring up the wrong information fed through AI or a bigoted propaganda puppet. Why do we even have brains anymore? The internet contains reality and we carry it in our pockets.

Back in the day, however, it was the best thing you were allowed to play in school unless they had Oregon Trail (which I never saw in Canada). It’s a well-designed way to trick you into learning something. The Sega Master System is just really goofy in the way it makes you dodge bullets to win the game.

Crap, I just realized I’m obligated by the website’s format to give it a score. How do I do this? Well, I’m pretty sure that the perps have six bullets at the highest difficulty, so I think we’ll go with that.

6/10

This review was conducted on a Sega Master System using a cartridge version of the game. It was paid for by the author.