My 
generation was blessed.
We had Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego
back when you needed a PC and an almanac to
bring that double-dealing diva to justice.
She was like Arsene Lupin III with a red trenchcoat
and a cadre of idiosyncratically-named henchthugs.
She set the bar high.
So when National Geographic rolled up with
their new Geography Edutainment Video Game-like
substance, I had to give it a critical eye.
No crimefighting?
No silly sense of humor?
No one singing the blues from the Red Sea
to Greenland?
I’m sorry.
WHAT?
Just one of those names uses a scrabble game
and a half’s worth of Qs!
I was kinda scared that the questions in a
game like this would be mindnumbingly basic,
but some of the categories were enough to
beat the hell out of me.
And I’m a nerd!
You can choose from 40, 60, or 80-question
quizzes, each focused on a particular continent.
It’s pretty much your standard multiple
choice quiz, save for some rather weird bits
where you might have to identify a picture
that keeps flipping all memory-card-game-style,
or gets blown out with a weird lighting effect.
Your representation in this quiz format is...
oh, what the hell is this.
This diving-suit-guy is MIMING.
This seems as good a time as any to mention
that this game has PlayStation Move support,
y’know, in case pressing one of four buttons
to choose between one of four answers was
in any way less efficient than flailing around
like a... miming deep-sea diver.
But this is all stuff that Derek covered in
the Wii version.
The primary innovation offered by the PS3
is... jigsaw puzzles.
With pieces that automatically turn themselves
to the correct orientation.
And there’s only 20 pieces.
And once you put enough pieces together, the
entire thing starts to animate, in case you
needed an extra layer of creepy-icing.
And there’s also a “Squares” mode, which
is exactly the same except for the jigsaw-ish
bits.
So you might have a number of pieces with
almost-identical white sky above the Hollywood
sign, and nothing but trial and error by which
to figure out which is which.
And just to lay another layer of absurdity
onto it all, there’s even a slider-box puzzles
in the first place, which will remind you
exactly why you never liked slider-box puzzles
in the first place.
Only now it’s got a picture of some Asian
statuary on it.
Look, you had me sold with the difficulty
of the quiz mode.
It’s a fair challenge, even if I don’t
happen to know off the top of my head how
many train stations there are in Greenland.
But to tack on some puzzles just for the sake
of it...
C’mon.
You could at least let us chase Esmerelda
Losangeles as she makes her getaway with the
Mason-Dixon line.
Can you imagine what would happen to the Steelers-Ravens
rivalry if we can’t tell where Pennsylvania
ends and Maryland begins?
That’s compelling writing, people!
Get on it!
