Retro Video Game Reviews: Where's Waldo? (NES)

Where's Waldo? is one of those late 1980's/early 1990's phenomenon that flared up and, for its moment of fame, was a red-hot property on the market of capturing the attention of children and providing a branding bonanza with a recognizable character and associated products.

For the Waldo franchise, that guy was Waldo, the man with the round black glasses, red-and-white striped shirt, blue pants, and the poof-ball hat that matched his top. Starring in a wonderfully intricately illustrated series of large-format books, Waldo would hide in the richly detailed scenes, waiting to be found before the reader could advance.Like the Berenstein Bears or Cabbage Patch Kids, surely a popular entity like Waldo could spawn a fun, successful video game, right? Sure enough, one emerged on the Nintendo Entertainment System from developer THQ in 1991. But was this cartridge title as fun as the literary works of the same name?

Gameplay

Using the directional pad to control a magnifying glass on screen, the player "followed" Waldo through different areas such as a forest and save as he, apparently, sought to buy a ticket to the moon. Once each screen opened up, the player had to place the magnifier over Waldo and hit the A button, thus "finding" him and advancing to the next level. All is accompanied by a time limit, which has ten seconds removed for each incorrect guess.

There are multiple difficulty levels, including a Practice mode, with the allotted time decreasing per difficulty mode and the screen expanding in the Hard game, requiring a scroll to the side.

Graphics

This game looks atrocious. There is no need to cling to any shred of formality, kindness, or politeness here: Even in an 8-bit age where console developers were finding, then pushing the limits of a greatly expanded color palette and graphical capabilities over previous Atari systems, this is still a terrible-looking game.

The "overworld" screen looks half-decent enough, with the recognizable character of Waldo walking to each labeled area. However, once the search actually begins, it is rendered in such a soulless, lifeless way, that it robs every screen of the humorous, visually clever magic that the books had. The characters are globular, pixelated messes, and the props and accessories are virtually unrecognizable. The appearances, in fact, are so bad that, rather than seeking Waldo's iconic figure, you are instead essentially looking for any blob that looks remotely red, white, and blue, then "guessing" it in hopes that it supposedly represents the target Waldo. Miraculously, these half-blind attempts are sometimes right, since Waldo never appears with a face or other features that you would otherwise think were rather essential.

The most profound travesty of the game's graphics is that a better job could have obviously been done. This is not a situation where the NES was too crude of a system to offer a true seek-and-find premise; no, the creators clearly devoted too little time crafting the artwork. In fact, a later sequel Waldo game for the system would look much, much better, proving that it could have been done in the first place had the original developers not been so careless.Sound

This title is utterly devoid of any sound effects, except for the absent "buzz" of incorrect clicks and the occasional beep-and-click menu items. Otherwise, there are only repetitive, annoying background music tracks to provide the auditory accompaniment to a gamer's already-poor experience.

Creativity and Innovation

Aside from trying to pave the way for Waldo-type seek-and-find games, the game lacks any inspiration, and is a little too obviously set up as a vehicle for promoting the Where's Waldo brand and seeking to cash in on a quick, gullible, shameful buck or two. That, in itself, is certainly not a creative nor innovative idea.

Conclusion

The only facet of this game that saves it from a 0-star rating is the fact that it does, actually, offer a beginning-middle-end quest. It is possible to sit down and play through a session where a player will complete each level, beat the time limit, and get to image Waldo blasting off to the moon. Just this aspect, of providing a loose storyline and a linear gameplay experience, is arguably a step above some other NES titles. Other than that, though, this is a cart that is too obviously underdeveloped and stinks up the bottom of the barrel with a half-star out of five rating.