Carmen Sandiego Word Detective

• Release Date: 1997
• Genre: Educational
• Style: Reading
• Similar Games: Carmen Sandiego Math Detective (Hybrid PC/Mac)

Game Description

Carmen Sandiego is at it again. This time, she is attempting to steal language itself through her Babble-On machine. Twelve other ACME agents have tried tracking her down, only to be captured and Babble-ized by Carmen. You are Agent 13, and ACME's last hope. You and Carmen's former ACME partner, Chase Deveraux will be working together on this mission.

Your job is to search through various hideouts of Carmen's henchmen, looking for coded passwords that will unlock keys to the Babble-On Machine. From four to six passwords are needed to unlock the Key Stasher, which is also hidden in one of the hideouts.

As you free each agent, they will give you a clue they have uncovered while searching for Carmen. After you have freed all 12 agents, you will need to decipher the clues to shut down the Babble-On machine. Good Luck!

Review: Overall

In Carmen Sandiego Word Detective, by Broderbund, you are on the trail of that criminal mastermind Carmen Sandiego once more. Not only does this game allow you to track her and her minions, but it also reveals some of her background. Apparently, Carmen was herself an Agent of ACME and partner to Chase Deveraux before deciding her talents were better used for crime.

Now, she has decided to steal language itself by use of her Babble-On machine, which scrambles the speech and thought centers of the brain so all that comes out is babble.

Passwords to the key stashers that will free the other agents that Carmen has captured are hidden in the hideouts of her henchmen. The password can be encrypted in one of five ways.

In the codebreaker, you need to find hidden words in stacks of tiles. In the searcher encryption, you need to find words from a set list. All letters must touch each other to be valid. In Code Builder, there are no set words, and you can make them up on your own. You can also change letters on tiles if you are really stumped.

In the fusion chamber, you create words from pieces, picking a word and a prefix or suffix and then matching it to a description.

In Power Pack, you must arrange a series of words into alphabetical order on the right of the screen. You can only move one word at a time, and words must always be stacked in alphabetical order.

In Micropix, you must repair a damaged microfilm by replacing nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs and punctuation. When you have replaced all the parts correctly, the password is decoded.

Finally, in the Spellanyzer, you need to repair missing, damaged or scrambled words. The voice says the word and you must spell it correctly to fix it. after you type, hit the "check" button or the enter key. After a set number of correctly spelled words, the password is decoded.

After you have freed all twelve agents, you need to do one last thing, which is to decode the self-destruct sequence for the Babble-On machine.

Also included is a Training Simulator, which allows you to practice on the types of problems you will encounter, and a Progress Tracker, which shows parents how well the child is doing against the various types of problems. You can also set the custom spelling lists.

Review: Enjoyment

Despite the different words used, this game gets extremely boring after continued play. There simply isn't enough that's different about the missions.

Review: Graphics

Fairly cartoonish, but excellent and immersive.

Review: Sound

The buzzes, beeps and mechanical sounds can get annoying after a while, but are otherwise okay.

Review: Replay Value

After solving the game once, kids aren't likely to want to go back and play it again.

Review: Documentation

Documentation is excellent, with the troubleshooting guide and manual covering every conceivable aspect of the game.

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