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Where in Space is Carmen Sandiego is the eighth Carmen game to come out.
Plot[]
No longer satisfied with the riches of Earth, Carmen Sandiego has shifted her V.I.L.E. operations to space with her gang of alien outlaws, stealing everything from sunspots to Saturn's rings. It's up to the player to climb to the cosmos and track them down. This game uses the familiar gameplay of the Carmen Sandiego series to test astronomical knowledge.
On board the ACME Detective Agency, Intergalactic Division's outer space surveillance craft, your main source of information is the VAL 9000 computer. Val provides information about the history, science, and mythology of space that will aid you in your search. Your search may be extensive. The game includes 32 locations and 1100 clues!
Development[]
Developed by Broderbund, Where in Space was designed by Bob Arient, John Baker, Michael Barrett, Christa Beeson, Michelle Bushneff, Jim Everson, Ken Goldstein, Lance Groody, Tom Rettig, and David Ross.
Technical specifications[]
Running Where in Space Is Carmen Sandiego? on an IBM PC compatible required an Intel 80386 processor (or compatible), VGA graphics, 640 kilobytes of random-access memory, eight megabytes of hard disk drive space, and DOS 3.1 or later; a sound card and mouse were recommended. No digital rights management was built into the game.
On the Macintosh, Where in Space required ten megabytes of hard drive space.
Characters[]
- Carmen Sandiego
- Bea Miupscotti
- Verna-Lee Kwinox
- Marcy Bo Koo
- Rita Laboudit
- Avery Littlebit Phelps
- Liebsen Bounz
- Kit Incaboodle
- Infinity McMath
- Nebulus Dolittle
- Enzo di Galaxy
- G. Whiz Bang
- Astro Fizzix
Locations[]
Reception[]
Charles Taft with PC Magazine was happy with this new outing of the already-venerable series. Small aesthetic and gameplay changes kept players' interactions fresh, while the core gameplay stayed true to the series' formula. Where in Space Is Carmen Sandiego? did not ship with a hard copy of encyclopedic resources, and Taft touted how the equivalent built-in Val 9000 database was available to end-users without running the game. Clayton Walnum wrote for Compute! that not only was Where in Space a "wonderful" entrant to the series—though the few animated sequences became quickly repetitive, the VAL 9000 alone was worth the US$79.95 asking price. Computer Shopper praised the game's graphics (both original and of space), and commended the game's animation, user guide, and "well-scripted powerful musical score". This magazine also conceded that, while fun, Where in Space could become repetitive. Of the Macintosh version, in 1994 Dwight Silverman of The Register-Guard said "[t]he graphics are gorgeous and the script witty".
For Computer Gaming World, Charles Ardai thought the animations were great but too few, the audio was creative but became grating and repetitive, and the puzzles were fine but lost their trickiness after repetition; after questioning the relevance of the game's lessons in comparison to the previous entrants, Ardai ultimately thought that Where in Space was merely satisfactory. As strictly a game, PC Player wasn't impressed with the game, citing the grind of the process; however they rated the game at 73/100, saying that the graphics would probably attract both children and adults. Despite technical improvements over previous Carmen Sandiego games, PC Games only recommended Where in Space as a reference work, rating it at 69/100. When Computer and Video Games rated the game a 65/100, they said that "it becomes boring extremely quickly."
In 2015, Bustle ranked the intro music from Where in Space as the second-best piece of music from the Carmen Sandiego franchise, behind only the theme music from the Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? game show.
Gallery[]
Screenshots[]
Trivia[]
- In this game, aliens are plainly seen, but in all other installments aliens are just speculation.
External links[]
- Where in Space Is Carmen Sandiego? on Wikipedia
| Carmen Sandiego games | ||
|---|---|---|
| Video Games | Broderbund | World (1985) • U.S.A (1986) • Europe (1988) • Prodigy (1988) • Time (1989) • North Dakota (1989) • Japan (1989) • America's Past (1991) • Space (1993) • Junior Detective (1995) • World (1996) • U.S.A. (1996) • Time (1997) • Word Detective (1997) • Math Detective (1998) • Amtrak (1998) |
| The Learning Company | ThinkQuick Challenge (1999) • Treasures of Knowledge (2001) • The Secret of the Stolen Drums (2004) • Gameloft (2008) • Mystère au Bout du Monde (2009) • Adventures in Math (2011) • Luggage (Unknown) • Facebook (2011) • Returns (2015) | |
| Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | Trivia • Google Earth • Handheld • To Steal or Not To Steal | |
| Board Games | Original Franchise | World (1992) • U.S.A. (1993) • Junior Detective (1994) • Space • (1995) Time (1996) • V.I.L.E. Files |
| Reboot | World Card Game • ACME's Most Wanted • Capitals | |
| Other | The ClueFinders: Mystery Mansion Arcade (cameo) • Music • Universe | |