Review: Where's Wally?

You have... a touch screen. You have... a game called “Where's Wally?” You have... a rather interesting game that seems to have a simple concept and short shelf life. But as you'll find when playing it, Capcom Europe's Where's Wally is engaging, if a touch limited in scope

I was half hoping for a huge Where’s Wally illustration, just like in the books, and to be challenged to find the red and white striped protagonist, but this never happened. Instead, imagine if you had a box of playing cards illustrated with the Where’s Wallly characters (Wally, Wenda, Odlaw, Woof and Wizard Whitebeard) and you used these to play games of observation and recognition against the clock.

That’s what you have here, with the addition of a few typical “Where’s Wally” scenes to use in some of the later levels.

Speaking of levels you have a lot of choice of potential games to play with this imaginary deck of cards…

• Odd One Out
  Six pictures that are almost identical, which one has a tiny difference?
• Matching Pairs
  Two matched pictures in a field of six, highlight them both to win this round.
• Memory Match
  Six cards are shown, then turned over. You're asked to match up a seventh card with the matching hidden card from the face down table.
• Observe
  Six cards (which may be related, or have slight changes) are shown. Once they’re taken away, you’ll get asked questions like “which of these objects was in one of the cards? Was it an umbrella, spade, or backpack?”
• Can you find It?
  A new card is shown after the initial six. Which is the new card?
• What's new?
  The same six cards are shown twice, but the second time around, one detail has changed. This is a much bigger version of spot the difference, and one of the hardest challenges in my opinion.
• Watch Closely
  A chosen card is shuffled face down – can you remember where it is?
• Mix ‘n’ Match
  The cards are split horizontally, you have to swap over the top half of the cards to restore them all into their correct state.
• Take a closer look
  You’re given a list of objects to find in a picture - very much like the Where’s Wally book pages.
• Spot the difference
  You can scroll through a number of pictures and have to work out the one that’s different. Essentially a bigger version of Odd One Out.
• Search and Find
  Can you place the highlight over a specified object in the picture?
• Spot the Wally Watchers
  You’re presented with a picture of fans of the eponymous character. Examine the picture and count the number of fans you can see.

All of these are available in practice mode, but once you move in to the Challenge mode, you’ll have to successfully beat these levels in order (and against the clock) to unlock the later levels and build up your Wally profile.

This is all good stuff, although I think is aimed at an audience a little bit younger than this reviewer. It does what it sets out to do, and while it’s not like the books, it is faithful to the licence and the principles that drive it. For that, a big thumbs up for a successful “conversion.”

There are some issues, and it’s down to S60 5th Edition just being too darn big. The screenshots show the problem – there is a lot of white space, and the intricacy of the pictures can be lost because of the very small pixel size on the X6 and other compatible smartphones. I get the feeling that this has been developed for a range of QVGA devices, and while the code is smart enough to stretch and cover a bigger screen with no issues, it does make the game feel very cramped in the centre of the screen or at the two extremities.

In a perfect world this would have been fixed, but I suspect Capcom want to see more sales on the larger devices before they’ll invest the porting time.

The final question, is it fun? Because that's the main question you have to ask of any game. Yes, it is fun, although there is scope for improved presentation on the smartphone platform. Definitely one to have hiding on the phone for the kids on a long summer holiday trips.

-- Ewan Spence, July 2010.

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