Gaming Trend Review
Where's Waldo The Fantastic Journey
- Official Site
- Platform: Wii
- Publisher: Ubi Soft
- Developer: Ludia
- Release Date: 09/22/09
- Genre: Puzzle
Pros
- Beautiful artwork
- Minigames and alternate gameplay modes
Cons
- Not enough content
- Limited replayability
by Alan Au
When it comes to search-and-find games, Where’s Waldo is a classic. Created by Martin Handford 20 years ago, these family-friendly books have been tremendously popular, and in many ways Where’s Waldo The Fantastic Journey is an ideal fit for the Wii. Development studio Ludia has done a great job of implementing this game, with good production values and a good variety of game modes. Unfortunately, despite these efforts, the game ultimately suffers from longevity and replayability issues, which detract from its overall value.
Anyone who has seen a Where’s Waldo book will instantly recognize the art style. The images are actually based on the Fantastic Journey book, with a few things moved around to keep players on their toes. The artwork itself is beautifully drawn, and many characters feature small animations (like waving their arms) to make the scenes more lively. The colors are vibrant and the graphics are clean, so it’s easy to tell what you’re supposed to be looking for.
I was also pleasantly surprised by the music and voice effects in the game. The level introductions are fully voiced, and the characters will chime in with feedback from time to time. The music is interesting, appropriate to the theme of each scene, and yet subtle enough that it doesn’t become bothersome. My only real complaint is that the looping music clip that plays on the loading screen is way too short, and so it repeats over and over and over. Some of this is a problem with the loading screens taking too long, but a longer music loop or some alternate loading music would have been less irritating.
Screenshots
The Wiimote works just fine as a pointer, and the game is somewhat forgiving if you click near (but not exactly on) the item you’re supposed to find. Scrolling around the picture is a bit of a chore, and it would have been nice if players could use the Wiimote directional pad to pan around. Instead, players hold down a button to "grab" the canvas and move it around to see different parts of the scene. In fact, this is really a one-button game, but that’s okay because it relies more on player perception rather than skill with the controller. There are a couple of things which require the player to wave the controller around, but these are mostly to get rid of penalties. For example, the player waves the controller to shake off visual effects that interfere with visibility.
As you might expect from a Where’s Waldo game, the game focuses on search-and-find gameplay. The game is split into 12 scenes, and the player is asked to find a set of objects within a given time limit. One big advantage over the books is that many characters and items are overlays, and so they can be placed in different locations each time a player loads that level. This adds some variety, and forces the player to search instead of just memorizing locations.
Typically the first task is to locate Waldo and his friends. Then the player will be asked to locate a series of objects or people before time runs out. Fortunately, the time limit is fairly generous, and getting a "perfect" score doesn’t require superhuman effort. In fact, I sort of think the game is a bit too easy, although I guess it’s preferable to having the game be too hard or frustrating.
There’s also a "party mode," which is basically a split-screen search challenge with two teams racing to find objects. It’s nice that the developers thought to include a multiplayer mode, but it’s still really just a variant on the same search-and-find gameplay.
Sadly, the game is a disappointment on the value and replayability end of things. Interestingly, I’m not talking about problems with the player memorizing object locations. (There are so many objects that it’s almost impossible to memorize where everything is located.) This is extended by the alternate play modes, which challenge players to revisit scenes and look for different things. For example, one mode asks players to look for black-and-yellow creatures that have been added to the scene. Another mode puts two similar sections side by side and asks the player to find the differences. These additions extend the playability, but you can only look at one scene so many times before you’ve seen everything it has to offer. A minigame takes about five minutes, and if you run through each of the 3 minigames twice, on each of 12 scenes, you'll have seen everything in 6 hours of play. That's not terrible, but the books are inexpensive and probably give you about the same amount of enjoyment.
Where’s Waldo The Fantastic Journey is an authentic experience, with wonderful artwork depicting interesting scenes. The overall production values are excellent, and the gameplay is straightforward. The game also features various search modes, which add variety and extend the gameplay. It also has several advantages over the books, like being able to place objects in different locations each time someone plays. However, consider that you can get a Where’s Waldo book for a much lower price. This would have been a perfect Wiiware offering or budget title, but as a full-price retail product, it simply doesn’t offer quite enough value.
