Took about 3 hrs to beat.
Not much changed between the above 1986 and this version. As would be expected, it has better graphics (I want to say VGA in this one, as opposed to CGA) and better sound since it supports sound cards. It also supports joystick and mouse, although you'll probably end up using the keyboard for the vast majority of the game anyway. Instead of just pure text for when you investigate locations within each city, they added character images for employees at the locations (or a parrot at the Harbor -- which I found amusing). I believe they added a few more cities (it's not easy to tell since each city no longer has its own file). The cities also now have a couple different descriptions, with answers to clues contained within if you are paying attention. You can now view the Hall of Fame in-game (unless I just completely missed it in the 1986 version). The best thing they added is the Dossier where it actually gives a little character to the gang members. They didn't add anyone to, or change anyone in, Carmen's gang, though.
Minor changes I didn't like:
1) Going to an icon based convention for the 4 different things you can do at each location because the descriptions aren't very good. Not a big deal, since you'll figure it out very quickly.
2) When you show the list of possible destinations and then go to investigate, the list automatically closes. I found always having it open, as in the 1986 version, a little helpful when getting the clues.
3) Added copy protection at each promotion -- you have to answer a question about a factoid found in the Almanac that comes with the game, nothing you can't find out on something like wikipedia if you don't already know it.
While the game has doubled in size to about the 512kB standard of the time, the small size still detracts since all that seems to take up the extra ~256kB is graphics and sound. It still suffers from a lack of variety of clues, made worse by the fact that you now have to do more than twice as many cases to nab Carmen. So, you end up getting many repeated clues -- by about the halfway point it was rare to get a clue I hadn't gotten before.
Even though I said in my review of the 1986 version to play a newer version, I really can't recommend this one over it. This version would probably be better if you didn't play through it in one sitting, like I did, since you might have a chance to forget some of the oft-repeated clues.
