If you grew up in the late 80s/90s, you instantly recognize this character, for sure. Waldo (known as “Wally” in Europe and “Charlie” in french) is a popular book series featuring this completely random character. Each double page in each book was a huge scene that made no sense with action and fun drawings everywhere and you had to find things. The things you had to find were written at the end of the book. And it was FUUUUUUUUUUUN!

Finding everything was fun and actually pretty hard, since everything was drawn in a way to make it hard to differentiate things and such.

Waldo did have a few video games, all of them not being very good, and this is his first game in 13 years.

Is it any good? Should Waldo fanatics buy it, or just stick with the books? Read on and see!

Developer: Classic Media Distribution Limited
Publisher: Ubisoft
Date of Release: September 22, 2009
Platforms: DS, Wii, PC (I played the DS version, though I’m guessing all of them are pretty much the same)

Genre: Finding stuff game… or something…
Players: 1

Looks and sounds
It’s actually hard to comment on this… There’s a big problem on this aspect: It’s the original “The Fantastic Journey” book(also known as “The Great Waldo Search”). There is literally no difference. They added a few animations and sounds, but overall it looks the same. The art style is still really fun and original, and it’s still a blast to look at, but it’s disappointing that they didn’t really make this a new game. At first I start playing and think “this looks quite familiar…”, and after looking on Waldo’s page on wikipedia, I realized that I had already played that book. It’s quite a disappointment. There’s music added to this as well, which can make it slightly more enjoyable.

Gameplay
I played on normal mode. The game starts out really easy. Basically you have to find Waldo, Wenda and the Magician dude, and then find other “objects” though the stage. For Waldo, Wenda and the magician person, you have to look through all of the stage. When that’s done, you can select what “hidden object” you want to look for using the L and R buttons. When you change item, the picture moves around, and sticks you in a small area to look for the object. That makes things very easy since you know what range to look into and you’re forced there so no chance you’ll look too far away. After finding all the hidden objects, you have to find a scroll to move on. This either opens up the next level, or lets you play mini-games in other levels. For each level, you’re graded on the time you take to finish it and… that’s about it. I think. From 0 to 5 stars.

The game is also rendered even easier because of a few other elements. The fact that you have a super close-up view of everything makes it a lot easier to see everything in detail, so finding things is never as hard as when you looked for them in the books. Also, some “hidden objects” have items attached to them. Some will reveal to you exactly where an object is, other give you extra time on your bar, some stop the “timer”. And there’s a hint system. Using bones you find in the levels, you can press B to summon Woof’s help. He’ll do an annoying bark and move the screen to the part of the picture where the object you’re looking for is. And from what I’ve seen there’s no penalty to using the hint system. Other than the fact that it’s limited, but some stages are FILLED with bones.

The “mini-games” add a bit of variety. Woof’s stages require finding a number of differences between 2 pictures. Odlaw’s stages require finding Odlaw(it’s never hard) and then finding a bunch of yellow and black stripped animals scattered across the picture(now those can be pretty tough to find). And Wenda’s stages are like the normal stages, but they require looking for where exactly she took pictures in the image and it’s a lot easier than finding hidden objects. Gathering stars probably unlocks things, but I didn’t bother after finishing the game on Normal difficulty.

Overall
I think this is probably the best attempt at a “Where’s Waldo” video game yet. It kinda sucks that it’s just “The Great Waldo Search” in video game form, it would’ve been great to actually have a completely new Waldo game. Heck, it could’ve been really awesome if it was a compilation of most of the main series of books. At least the mini-games add some variety to the original book, but it’s still nothing incredible in that aspect.

A Waldo fan might want to rent it just to feel the nostalgia, but I can find no other reason to get this game. You might as well just get the books, they’re CHEAP.

Pros/Cons
Pros
- It’s Waldo
- It’s kinda fun
- I like that you don’t have to JUST find Waldo, you’re forced to find many more things instead of just being able to flip the page
- Nostalgia!

Cons
- Takes just a little bit over an hour to finish
- It IS one of the books(not just based on it, it’s the same drawings and all), instead of being completely new, or a compilation of many books… lame
- A lot easier than the books (might be a pro or a con depending on the person, but for me it’s a con)

The Save Factor
The game has a way too high starting price of $30 ($20 for the PC version). It wouldn’t be very bright to pay more than $10 for this, considering how cheap the books are. Get the books, skip the game… that’s my verdict.

jobocan Console, ds, Games, Handheld, PC, Review, wii