Where’s Waldo? (NES Review)

Where’s Waldo?
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Released July, 1991 or September, 1991
Developed by Bethesda Softworks
Published by THQ
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

Riiiiiiiiiight.

During Christmas at my house, we have a rule that everyone must get everyone else two specific gifts in addition to all the cool stuff we actually want. One must be something homemade (or as close to homemade as you can get) that’s “from the heart” and the other is everyone has to give everyone else a joke gift that’s usually a little kid’s toy. Angela, my adopted sister and the future Spielberg of her generation, is the absolute best at picking out the joke gifts, because the stuff she gets us is actually stuff we always end up playing around with. I got a Slinky this last Christmas, which my little deaf wiener dog Kunoichi absolutely despises and growls at even if it’s sitting still on my desk. I’ve walked into my bedroom more than once to see her up on my bed and snarling at it because she can see the Slinky being used as a paperweight. We assume she thinks it’s a skeleton of her breed. So that’s fun and kind of insane. But it was the year before that where Angela gave me one of the best “joke” gifts ever: a complete box set of all seven main-series Where’s Waldo books called “The Ultimate Waldo Watcher Collection.”

Genuinely a ton of fun and I recommend it to everyone of all ages.

Everyone laughed when I opened it. They weren’t laughing soon, though. No, we were all gathered around, calling out when we found each thing. “Found the scroll!” “Found the wizard!” “Found the camera!” And the best thing is, if you owned the original version of the books, they moved the locations of Waldo around AND added the Wizard, Odlaw, Woof, Wanda, and tons of other stuff to find. It’s for sure a top-10 all time Christmas present. I got it for Christmas of 2023 and didn’t finish the whole thing until around Thanksgiving of 2024. We didn’t mark the pages either, so after it was finished I gave it to my nieces and nephew and they enjoyed it. So, I’m a big Waldo fan, and in my authority as a fan, ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME?

What the f*ck is that sh*t? Now a Waldo video game where Waldo’s location changes from game to game isn’t the worst idea, but if this is the best the tech can do, you need to apologize and get your money for the license back. This is embarrassing. Can YOU spot Waldo in the above picture?

HE’S NOT EVEN WEARING RED!! Apparently that’s a twist they added to NORMAL/HARD for difficulty.

Jeez louise. Now fine, it’s the NES so it’s not like the elaborate pictures of the books could be recreated here. Hell, it can’t even recreate the two early books where the pages weren’t completely spammed with characters like the later books tended to do. But those books weren’t just about finding one guy dressed in stripes. Even if you ignore the other four characters, Waldo books have other things to look for and tons of skits and sight gags to admire. When you finished the book, there was even a checklist of more things to find involving those gags. They had genuinely funny bits and memorable character design. Waldo isn’t about Waldo. He’s a means to an end. The chucklef*cks who made this game didn’t understand that at all.

Uh, no.

And it is only Waldo you have to find. No books. No cameras. Now granted, I don’t even think Whitebeard, Odlaw, or even Woof had been invented yet when this came out. But, there were always more things to find than just Waldo, but for the five total “find Waldo” screens it’s really just him, and they’re awful. Waldo often doesn’t look like Waldo, and there’s no humor or personality or gags to be seen. Just these “find Waldo” screens alone would have made this one of the worst NES games I’ve ever played, but then you get to the grasping-for-straws mini-games and that’s the point when it becomes clear they had no passion or drive to make a quality game at all and simply did not care. In the cave, you have to just move around at random until you see Waldo moving, then click him.

In the Subway, you have to change the direction of these different octagonal pathways and find both Waldo and his glasses. While you do this, at least on NORMAL and HARD difficulties, a wizard jumps around to the empty spaces. BUT, instead of being limited to jumping on only a space next to him, the wizard can teleport from anywhere across the playfield directly on top of you. Sharing a space with the wizard quickly drains the time you have remaining, and because his only rule is that he doesn’t go on the playfield edges, there really is no way to plan to avoid him. Are you serious? Hell, you can’t even time it, because the intervals of when the wizard jumps aren’t fixed. More than once I waited for him to move before moving spaces only to have him immediately teleport to that space. So there’s no excitement to the chase because it’s not actually a chase. It would be like if the ghost monsters could randomly teleport on top of Pac-Man. I’ve never seen the likes of that level of thoughtlessness. How stupid can game design get?

And then there’s the grand finale. Is it one of the “find Waldo” segments that’s really the only reason anyone would want a game like this in the first place? OF COURSE NOT! It’s a slot machine! Yes, really! With all the time you have remaining, you have to time the three reels so that each one comes up Waldo.

Total time to beat the game: probably around five minutes.

I’m actually really angry about Where’s Waldo because kids in the know weren’t this game’s target audience: their clueless parents were. Where’s Waldo was released in 1991, at the height of the books’ popularity. It’s not hard to imagine a well-meaning parent who knows their kid loves the Waldo books buying this for them, and it’s so unlikable and lazy. There’s only five “find Waldo” screens total, along with the above mentioned “mini-games.” Five whole levels that give players the type of Waldo they’d actually want. Shameful. It’s not like this was the best they could do at those, either. The cursor only has one speed, and that’s full steam ahead. Just aiming the cursor at Waldo when you find him is an act of frustration. But the fact that they ended the game on a slot machine instead of a puzzle or anything remotely related to Waldo was the final straw for me. This really is the worst NES game, and a legit contender for worst video game ever made. For all the crap E.T. for the Atari 2600 gets, at least that feels like the developer had the best of intentions. Not this. Where’s Waldo is right up there with Defenders of Dynatron City and Action 52 in the heartless cash-grab hall of shame.
Verdict: NO!

Christ, this is a franchise.