Where's Waldo: The Fantastic Journey for Nintendo DS Reviews by Gamers

This game is very similiar to the books, so if you're familiar with them then you should pretty much know what to expect. The levels all keep the feel of the books and range from a town with giants, undersea, a witch's area, a battle in a forest and so on.

There are three basic modes in story mode, the traditional Where's Waldo where you start by finding Waldo, Wenda, and the Wizard by searching the entire image. Then you'll need to find other items or images which are displayed on the top screen like 5 cats or different characters in the image. What you need to find is displayed on the top screen. However when finding these things the game sections off a portion of the image so it's not ridiculously hard finding the guy shooting an arrow a certain way or something. If you play on easy the sectioned off portion is even smaller (too small in my opinion).

The second mode is a "What's different between the two pictures" game. You need to find 10 differences between the image on the top screen and image on bottom screen. This is the only mode that presents any challenge as I got stuck finding the last difference a few times for a few minutes.

And the third mode is helping Wenda find the square area where she took a photo in the image. This is the easiest mode.

The controls are spot on, nothing wrong with them. You can slide the screen with the stylus or with the D Pad. Touch the screen when you've found an item. If you just randomly touch the screen the game does a good job of recognizing that and it really isn't affective and also dizzy birds will appear on screen and you need to touch them all to start again.

There isn't much to the story really though, and the game is short, but if you enjoyed the books you're likely to enjoy this for the short amount of time it takes to beat it. Also after the credits there are two extra levels.

This is a perfect game for adults trying to teach observational skills to younger gamers (aged 6 - 12). It is a good example of a find-it game, and it a great game to start on.

Older children and adults may find the game's difficulty too easy - my wife, a wiz at games like this, finished the game in less than 24 hours, making it far to easy for more advanced players.