REVIEW – Carmen Sandiego is not a very well known character in non-Engish speaking regions of the world, but she has been quite popular with the younger generation in the English-speaking world over the last few decades. Gameloft’s game has twisted the formula a bit, and the result is quite acceptable… and perhaps it will also raise awareness of the recently released Netflix animated series. It was a bold move to take such a franchise and put it into a game.

This time, the former troublemaker becomes the hero we’ve known for forty years.

VILE is evil spelled backwards

That is no coincidence, as the story in Gameloft’s Brisbane game revolves around VILE. Important technology has been stolen by the gang’s agents, and our heroine must get it back. To do this, she must collect clues and solve puzzles in several locations around the world to get the right agent’s grabber in time. This clue-collecting element was already used in 1985’s Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego. The levels are divided into several locations, and you use the clues to find out who the right agent is, and that’s how you find out your next location. You get quite a lot of time per track, but it starts to decrease with each step. Even if we search all the locations, we will still have time to get everywhere and solve the case. But remember one thing: this is an educational game. That’s why each location is a kind of encyclopedia, and the knowledge gained will be important in finding the next location. Each town or location is divided into three mini-games, and in most cases it consists of the VILE agent dropping clues. Sometimes there’s a lot more interaction (a small area for Carmen to explore, and there are puzzles).

It’s simple, but you won’t complain about the variety. For example, there are times when you have to sneak up to the agent and steal something from his bag, and other times when you have to create a disturbance to find out what they’re up to. The style of Gameloft (a company still associated with smaller or mobile games, even when it had ties to Ubisoft) will be a bit of a downer, as there will be no shortage of standing characters and simple dialog windows. The lack of complexity is understandable, given that the game is aimed at a younger age group. They didn’t want it to be annoying or confusing. They are colorful, transparent, have tutorials, and don’t have to think about quite complicated tasks (opening safes, untangling cables, connecting the right words). The game feels designed for smaller, handheld devices with UX in mind. Indeed, larger logos can be just right on an iOS, an Android, a Nintendo Switch, or a handheld PC. This in turn affects the controls, because while it’s good on DualSense, it could be better on a touchscreen. The game is “too big” for a desktop console, and yes, that sounds a bit silly when you think about it, but it doesn’t have a significant impact on your rating.

From exploring the world to saving it

The mobile origins (we might recall this game originally available first via a Netflix subscription for mobiles?) can be discovered elsewhere. There is a slight lack of sound effects and animations. Okay, there’s an opening scene where we get a glimpse of Carmen Sandiego’s world and situation, but after that it’s all superficial. It would have been a good idea to take the style of the Netflix cartoon series and make the gameplay much closer to its style and construction. There are bits of text that are not accompanied by speech. There are scenes that would be better if they were at least minimally animated. It all feels a bit sparse, and it detracts from the atmosphere when the agent is suddenly, oops, caught.

It all feels unpolished and a little disjointed. It’s on these little things that it slips from a higher rating, although it could have gotten it, as it captures the style of the past well. It can educate, and it does so in an entertaining way – this is what they call an edutainment game (there used to be a lot of them… Mario’s Time Machine, Mario Is Missing, to name two mainstream examples). It all feels so distractingly mobile, but it is, and that’s also true of the length of the game, which can be played in about four hours. There’s not much replayability here: Carmen Sandiego comes, sees, then puts her hat on (literally, because she’s wearing one, and it’s red). So, in the end, the negatives are mentioned because they are there. The only question now is whether the game missed its target platform… because, as already mentioned, it felt very mobile, from the interface to its shortcomings.

We’re not going on vacation because of this

Carmen Sandiego can’t get much better than a 7/10 rating because it feels like a mobile game on console. Consequently, it doesn’t have much to offer graphically (even the art style is average at best). It doesn’t really stretch the IP formula, but it should be entertaining enough for younger players. The game is good, but it’s not something we’ll be revisiting for years to come. (25 reviews in one week on Steam? Hm…)

-V-

Publisher: Gameloft

Developer: Gameloft Brisbane

Style: Logic adventure

Release date: March 4, 2025