Let's be honest. If you didn't play either Carmen Sandiego or Oregon Trail growing up, you may not be a real human.
Originally by Broderbund software, the Carmen Sandiego legacy spawned a myriad of computer games, a number of console versions, a cartoon, 2 TV game shows (remember the song? I do.), books, and, as I discovered on Google, an innumerable amount of pretty awesome Halloween costumes ideas.
Originally by Broderbund software, the Carmen Sandiego legacy spawned a myriad of computer games, a number of console versions, a cartoon, 2 TV game shows (remember the song? I do.), books, and, as I discovered on Google, an innumerable amount of pretty awesome Halloween costumes ideas.
For those that weren't lucky enough to have grown up with it, the game is pretty simple. You're a detective for ACME, beginning with the handsome title of "Gumshoe". Each mission, one of Carmen Sandiego's V.I.L.E. henchmen steal something of great historical value. It's your job to question witnesses, look for clues, and research where the henchmen might have gone. Some information you're given tells you where the culprit might've traveled, and some give you clues to who the henchmen is. Even if you find out where they've gone, if you don't collect enough clues about who it is, you'll get to them with no warrant, and no arrest for you. Completing enough missions and earning the highest of detective ranks will get you chances to catch Carmen Sandiego herself.
The original computer games sent you all over: the US, the World, America's Past, the World's past (Time),
Space...Carmen really got around. The scope of the game determines it's difficulty. Where in the US and Where in the World can be played by most who have at least some idea of history and geography. America's Past, Time, and Space are much harder. With the original games, you were given a reference book that you had to look up all the clues in, and pictures of the henchmen to figure out who it was. Obviously you get no such book when you download the game, so Google and Wikipedia are your best friends.
Not only do I think these games are great fun, but they're also great learning tools as well. Everything in it is historically accurate (I'm sure most of the geography facts were true at the time, but you may run into something that may have changed in real life since then, such as a country no longer existing). Now that I've gotten thinking, I'm really surprised we haven't seen an iPhone or Android version of any of these games yet. They could be ported in as is and still be much better than a lot of the crappy phone games put out recently.
Abandonia offers pretty much all of the PC versions for downloads. I've read that whatever company took the license from Broderbund made a couple bad games in the later years, so I won't bother looking for those. Here's the link's for all original PC version:
It makes me a little sad that kids don't have this to play in school anymore, but I definitely plan to one day show it to my own kids. Educational games that are genuinely fun are pretty rare these days. I highly recommend everyone at least try one of them.
Case closed.
