Super Solvers: Outnumbered was one of the greatest games I played while growing up. It always had an underlying tone of learning simple math to improve basic skills while cleverly disguising its true motives under the guise of saving a radio station.
The educational value of this game was uncanny. It included a variety of basic skills that young students could benefit from. A variety of mini games utilized to power up your remote control, and gain clues to where Morty Maxwell was hiding, taught young learners math under several different guises.
In one mini game, you had to add and subtract the cost between items in the game show room. In another room, you would have to be able to tell the difference in temperatures between two cities on a map. And of course, there was the ever present Tele who roamed the halls, chasing after you. If he caught you, you would need to quickly answer his questions in a style not to different from flash cards.
But of course, time was of an issue as well. At midnight, Morty Maxwell would gain control over the station. Everything the player did cost them time, thus teaching them another important skill, telling time. The player could see that if the time says 11:45 then I have 15 minutes
left to find out where Morty Maxwell is hiding!
Through the players continued success, they would get promoted to new levels, giving p[layers something to look forward to. However, with each promotion also came an increase in difficulty level. Initially, a player would only have to be able to add. After one or two levels, subtraction would begin to appear in the puzzles, and later on multiplication and division, respectively.
Compared to most games of the early 90’s the graphics in this game were almost unparalleled. In the advent of today’s high end three dimensional graphical engines, it can still hold it’s own, despite being a two dimensional side scrolled. But then again, there was also some depth to the game, in that you could enter and exit rooms along the hallways, enter elevators, and interact with objects in the background, thus breaking it from being completely side scrolled in nature. The cartoon like animation I remember was extremely smooth compared to other games of the era. Colors were bright and vibrant, and edges were smooth, making the game far more appealing to the eye than many of the other games available at the time.
Summery: A great game back then and still a great game now; Super Solvers: Outnumbered is and always will be a great way to help young students practice their basic math skills.
