Where in Hell is Carmen Sandiego?

 

At the dawn of the Computer Age, roughly the 1980s, people started writing programs of spectacular complexity for the purpose of amusement — games.  There was a Star Trek game where the player captained a starship at war with shadowy Klingon opponents.  There was a Moon Lander game where the object was to play your descent rockets so as to end on the Moon's surface without running out of fuel.  There was a 'Dungeons and Dragons' spin-off in which the player navigates through cunningly described caverns and chambers acquiring practical or magical assets.

Whole families of games were written for equipment like the Atari game console and the Commodore 64.  Among these was one called "Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?".  Here, the player is a detective tracking the infamous eponymous thief hither and yon based on clues picked up along the way.  'Carmen' spawned an unauthorized version written, it was rumored, by one or more classically-trained intellectuals.  In "Where In Hell Is Carmen Sandiego?", the villainous thief has escaped into The Underworld, and it is said that if one doesn't know Dante's 'Inferno' like they were born there, they have little chance of bringing Carmen to justice.

The game has now been ported to the current PC world, and retains all the annoying characteristics of the original, hokey music and all.  For anyone who wants to try their hand, I've located a current link.  Abandon hope, all who enter here.