Carmen Sandiego World Treasures of Knowledge
© 2001 The Learning Company
Another outstanding Carmen title! Players help two teen detectives as they track thief Carmen Sandiego around the world. Fortunately, Carmen leaves a trail of clues to her whereabouts; things like torn pages, notes, and keys. By clicking on countries on a map, you travel the globe in order to investigate. Each location consists of a side-scrolling scene. At various points, the cursor turns into a magnifying glass, revealing a clue or one of several hundred random facts about the location. In Red Square in Moscow, for example, you click on a large clock to learn that Russia has 11 time zones, while another click lets you know that St. Basil's Cathedral was built by Ivan the Terrible. Each clue is saved, like in a scavenger hunt, and when everything is collected, Carmen is captured. There are a total of eight missions, each involving about five countries and at least one logic puzzle. We were able to finish one mission in about two hours, and games can be bookmarked for later play. This is the 17th Carmen title since its launch in 1985, and you'll find this design smoother, the characters more "hip" and the game easier. There's a fact glossary for reference that lets you search by keyword and translate languages. Missing are real photographs or videos. We liked the fact that you can interrupt the dialog if you want (with the ESCAPE key) to move the game along. The bottom line? Geography can be a tough sell, but this is a knowledge-building program kids will want to play.
$24.99, Win, Mac
Teaches: world geography and history, logic