Where in Space is Carmen Sandiego?

The chase leaves the planet

Where in Space Is Carmen Sandiego? (1993) launches the whole franchise off Earth. The crimes scale up to match — somebody's lifting the spots off the Sun and the rings off Saturn — and to fit the science-fiction setting, Carmen's crew get rebranded as her “henchthings.” You trade flights between cities for hops between worlds, and geography for astronomy.

VAL 9000

Your reference this time isn't a book in the box but a computer with an attitude. VAL 9000 — a wink at a certain film — holds the data on planets, moons and the history of space exploration, complete with digitised NASA photographs, plus the criminal dossiers and a log of where you've already been. It also keeps up a running stream of sarcasm about your detective work. The game packs roughly 32 locations and about 1,100 clues, and the gang are voiced as a menagerie of chatty aliens.

Mind the fuel gauge

The big mechanical twist is what replaces the case clock: fuel. Your rocket carries a limited tank, so every hop between planets is a real decision instead of a free move. Run dry before you've secured the warrant and the crook gets away. It's the clearest rules change in the classic run, turning travel itself into the puzzle.

The end of the line

As the last of the classic Where in… games of the early '90s, Space shows how far the 1985 formula could stretch — the same warrant-and-witness loop that once taught world capitals now teaching the Solar System. In some regions it was co-published with Electronic Arts, and its talky, multimedia personality reads as a farewell to the floppy-disk era of the series.