Fuck Off Friday: Carmen Sandiego

I love all my childhood games. Up until 5 years ago, I still owned my apple IIe with 300 baud modem, and old floppy disks with games like Wishbringer, Oregon Trail, and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.

International criminal and a snazzy dresser.

International criminal and a snazzy dresser.

First off, I think my son’s childhood is a little less awesome for not having the Carmen Sandiego game show growing up. He told me they were going to start some kind of Carmen Sandiego cartoon, but I’m afraid it’ll end up like Dora the Explorer. Or Go Diego Go.

Go, Sandiego, Go. I can see it, and it makes me sad.

Luckily, it looks like they may be rebroadcasting old episodes. Which really pleases me. A lot.

To celebrate, I bring you a few emulators for the old classic games.

Let’s start with the 1990 version for you 90’s kids. It’s a good emulator, though the Java Applet is a little wonky if you scroll at all.

For you Nintendo kids, there is the slightly later (1992?) release of Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego. I played it a couple times as a kid, but it never felt quite right to me. Still, I won’t begrudge you your nostalgia if you don’t begrudge me mine…

One of my favorite sites, Virtual Apple, has the exact game from my childhood. As soon as I booted the disc and got those midi gunshots, footsteps, and police sirens, I was 8 years old again at Dad’s computer.

*sigh* I remember the days I used to be nostalgic.

One more note: I discovered you can follow Carmen Sandiego on Twitter. That just seems like cheating.