The player's goal is to help Waldo get to the Moon, by finding Waldo in various pictures in order to progress through the game.[3]:4
There are eight levels in the game. In the picture levels, the directional buttons control a magnifying glass and that must be placed over Waldo in order to "find" him and move to the next level and a new picture. In the easy and practice mode, the pictures are still images the size of the screen in the levels. In the Medium and Hard modes, the player has to scroll to the side to see the rest of the area, and Waldo will change color to make it more challenging to find him in the picture levels.[3]:6
In the Practice mode, there is no time limit, but only a select number of levels are open (the Train Station, Forest and Caves). The time limit for the other levels varies based on difficulty setting; on easy, the time limit is 16 minutes, on medium, 11 minutes, and on hard, 7 minutes 40 seconds. If the player selects an incorrect location for Waldo, ten seconds is deducted from their time.[3]:6[4]
Not all levels in the game have the same format of finding Waldo as in the other levels; in the cave level, the player must find Waldo in the dark. To help, Waldo will pop up briefly to give a clue as to where he is. In the subway level, the player must go through a maze and collect Waldo and his dropped glasses in order to exit the stage. The player must also avoid the Wizard Whitebeard, who can quickly subtract time if the player lands on his spot. In the final level, the player must match three pictures of Waldo in order to get him to the Moon.[3]:8–9
Development
Where's Waldo was programmed and designed by two Bethesda Softworks staff, Paul Coletta and Randy Linden, with the visuals done by Nancy Freeman. In an attempt to ease-up programming graphics using only character sets, Linden programmed a tool to draw bitmap graphics that would be converted into character sets that would be randomized every time the game was loaded up.[5]
Responses towards the game from reviewers were negative. One of the most known criticisms of the game is the graphics; some of the pixelated objects in each of the game's levels had similar colors and stripes of Waldo's shirt and in some levels Waldo would even change color, which made it hard to find him. Cracked.com wrote that Where's Waldo has the worst graphics of any NES game.[13]Nintendo World Report, in addition to calling the graphics "boring", criticized its short game length and absence of music in the stages, negatively labeling it as nothing more than a pixel art collection.[10]
ConsoleClassix.com said that, although fans of the book may enjoy the game a little, other players may get bored.[14] In an issue of Game Informer, they have rated it a 1 out of 10, citing it as being "a game for those too lazy to turn a page". Writer Cyril Lachel of Defunct Games wrote: "It's hard to believe something this pointless came out of Bethesda Softworks [...] Where's Waldo? Hopefully in a landfill, because that's where this 8-bit piece of garbage belongs".[6] A reviewer of Yahoo! Voices, who gave the game 0.5 out of 5 stars, even criticized the sound effects.[12] Some reviewers, such as GameCola, also noted of the game's lack of replay value.[15]
The game was listed #12 on Seanbaby's "Worst Nintendo Games".[16]
↑ Andy McNamara, ed. (January 2006). "Retro Review: Where's Waldo (NES)". Game Informer. No.153. Sunrise Publications.
↑ The J Man (April 6, 2002). "Where's Waldo". Just Games Retro. Retrieved October 3, 2020.
1 2 Gibson, Casey (August 9, 2018). "Where's Waldo (NES) Review". Nintendo World Report. Archived from the original on December 21, 2021. Retrieved October 3, 2020.
↑ "Where's Waldo". VideoGame (in Portuguese). No.9. December 1991. pp.36–37.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
