So i decided to download "Where's Waldo: The Fantastic Journey" for my PC, because the price was low, and it would be a nice little detour from all the fast paced action you mostly get in popular games. To my surprise i actually came to like this game, despite of it's short and not all too challenging story mode.
There's no real story in the game. It introduces you to the characters Waldo, Wenda, The Wizard, Odlaw and Woof the dog, and these characters will provide you with the quests of each level. Each character has their own way to make you search the map. Wenda will have you look for things she only have half a picture of, in the Odlaw levels you will seach for him and his "Swamp-creatures", and in the Woof stages you will be shown 2 similar pictures that he needs you to find the differences in.
There's a good amount of levels and the variation of the different quests is a good way not to make you tired of just seaching a map a finding stuff. Unfortunately, the game is a little easy and most players will probably run through the game in a couple of hours.
The gameplay is simple, and only the mouse is used. You will be shown a map, and you need to find the items or characters shown in the bottom of the screen. Since showing the full map on the screen wouldn't give the amount of detail you need, the game is soomed in and you will need to scroll around the map to find the things you're looking for. To not have your scrolling through the whole map time and time again, the player is limited to a smaller outcropping of the map to search around, making the scrolling a less of a hassle. A zooming function would have been nice, since players with a larger screen will feel a little too soomed in a wound have benefitted from a different angle.
The graphics are purely 2D and therefore doesn't require much hardware. Before every stage you'll be shown a little animation of something happening on the map, but in my case these animations we're really choppy, even though my hardware is current standard or above. Other than that issues, the game runs smoothly.
The voicework is fair, clearly directed towards children, with characters speaking a little slow so everyone can keep up.
I really ended up liking this game for it's simple gameplay and cozy style. This would be a great game for kids, or just a little break from the fastpaced action if you're a little more mature.
