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Okay,
let's be honest. Why the hell was this game made? I know the books were
popular, but seriously, do we really need to search for this striped
fuckass in video games too? Why do we always have to find him anyway?
Is he lost? Why doesn't he come find us?
I want to spend as little time on this game as possible, so here goes.
As you can infer from the title, this is a game where you're presented
with a still screen and are expected to find Waldo just like in the
books. You move a cursor around the screen, center Waldo, and press
a button. If he's inside the cursor, you move on to the next level.
If he's not, you lose a certain amount of time from a clock that is
constantly running while you search. The idea is to get through all
the stages before the time runs out.
Someone
should have explained to the designers of this game that the NES
is not exactly the wünderkind of Captain Detail. The screens you are
presented with have teeny tiny little drawings that barely resemble
humans or objects. You're never
gonna see Waldo's face, you're never gonna see any details. At
the most, you will spot Waldo as a couple of 1 millimeter red
stripes under a tiny circle for a head, maybe two lines of blue
representing his pants if you're lucky. The whole point of the books
was to hide Waldo cleverly so you had to really search to find
him, NOT to have to really search in order to make out whether
what you're looking at is supposed to be human. And to throw you
off, because otherwise the process would just be too easy, there
are other similarly undetailed people wearing red striped shirts.
But they're NOT Waldo! And wait till you get to the level that takes
place in a CAVE where you can't see anything! Ha ha, good luck! |
Where's Waldo? Who fuckin' cares?
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Oh! There
he is! Well I'll be damn, what fun!
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Going
by the credits, this game was created by a lead designer who went
on to make... an early departure from game design.
Hasta la pasta, Paul Coletta. There might be a God after all. This
game doesn't even make logical sense and should never ever have
been made. Sure it's got some difficulty levels and a little more
interaction than the books do, and the timer's even a little clever.
But when you can't SEE ANYTHING, you're reduced to moving the
cursor onto anything that might look striped, pressing a button,
and hoping you're right. Seriously guys, is this a test to see
if you're a re-re?
For the record, the picture on the left is magnified by about
50%. It's never this clear in the game.
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Never get this game. Ever. It deserves every last percent
of the 0 score it gets.
-reviewed 4/6/02 - game copyright 1991 THQ, Inc.
I suppose the best thing about this game is that it didn't tank
Julian LeFay's career before he started the Elder Scrolls series.
And it didn't bankerupt Bethesda before the same.
If you digitized the concept of worthlessness, you'd get this game.
Where's Waldo on MobyGames
Gameplay video at NESGuide
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