izigame.me

I'll be honest here and say that I bought the deluxe edition of this game more because I really liked the show than for the game itself. Even so, I can't recommend this at the price it is set for what is offered here.
It boils down to finding small clues in a guessing game of "Who is it, and where next?" Whether you get information or not for an action is based on some common sense guessing, such as trying to cut someone off by running on top of a bullet train being a bad idea because it's too fast. This is can be kind of fun in itself, and the main campaign missions have some very small exploration stages that take up about one room, typically boiling down to a couple of people to talk to, maybe two facts about the area you are in, and the big obvious "DO THIS TO CONTINUE" objective. Apart from those, there are mini games with Carmen in between sections such as quick time grappling hooks and sneaking up behind someone to pick pocket them. It is enjoyable when you get those moments but apart from that it can feel a bit bare bones like a more cinematic game of 'Guess Who' with some trivia and side objectives thrown in. To be fair this has always been the M.O. of the Carmen Sandiego games, but it there just feels like there is a lot of opportunity missed to evolve that forward better with the most recent incarnation.
One of the things that bother me the most is that when you complete a caper in the main story, you can't progress immediately to the next one because it is level gated. This is where it becomes very repetitive and one note, forcing you to take reduced scope versions of the main missions to grind your level to progress. These side missions do nothing new, and honestly are just copies of the main campaign missions but with less flavor in them as without being told you are seeing it in Carmen's perspective, you could throw any faceless agent into the same role. The amount of experience that you get is also feels pretty slow, meaning you will probably need to grind these side missions a few times to move the main campaign forward and it doesn't feel especially rewarding.
The last game mode is the same thing again, except it takes it ALL the way back to the original games where you are an agent of ACME doing the exact same thing all over again, but now Carmen is one of the potential suspects and some guy shows up and asks you some history trivia now and then. If you get it right you get a clue. There might be other differences but, honestly I had a hard time sitting through it to figure out. It's like drinking three cans of soda in a row with the first being Coca-Cola, the second being diet Coke, and the third one being Vanilla Coke. It has different kinds of flavor, but in the end you are still left with a can of Coke in your hand and calcium slowly building up in your kidneys.
I wanted to like this game for a few reasons. Most apparent is my enjoyment of the show, as I thought it was a very entertaining re-imagining of the old franchise without losing the soul of it's origin too much. I also really enjoy spy/thief and detective styled games and would have loved to have an in-depth Carmen Sandiego game of that nature. However, in the end I can't bring myself to fully enjoy the game do to the shortcomings I've mentioned. Especially for the price that is being asked.
I won't be refunding, more for the Netflix series than for the game, but I absolutely can't recommend someone buy this on the merits of the game alone. To be frank, I hesitate to tell a fan of the show to look at this game either, as it frankly isn't worth the $30 tag. It sucks that this is the case, and I do think that a Carmen Sandiego game based in the modern series could be really good. I think that's what's disappointing me most, because this is just a case of wasted potential.
Spend your money on a different game, because this one probably won't scratch the itch.