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By PaulEMoz & Bog
Oh, Lucasarts. You were loved, once. You were the champions of a dying breed: the point-and-click adventure game. Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, Sam & Max Hit The Road... the list of creative, humorous and intelligent adventure games read like a Who's Who of quality. Then the games dried up. But there was hope! A new Sam & Max game was announced, and those that loved their humour laced with violence and insanity could rejoice. And rejoice they did, until the day the game was cancelled.
Bastards.
Step forward, then, Telltale Games, who refused to let the dream die. And as a result, we have before us a brand new Sam & Max game. Sort of.
Speak for yourself, pal.
It's been so long! The violence. The surrealism. The humongous hand-cannon. The carrots. And the violence. It's enough to make any fan, or self-respecting adventure-type game fan weep with joy. It might be as shallow as a car-park puddle, but it's as funny as fuck, and that's the point. Sam and Max live in a universe where "Political Correctness" means "Mayor stays bribed", and we love that universe. It is warm and fuzzy and full of innuendo of horrible mischances. And blatant statements of horrible mischances.
But with it being episodic, there's not a great deal of game to review here. And a lot of the game is purely about exhausting all the lines of conversation until you know what needs to be done next. That's not a problem, though, because the dialogue is great. Sharp, often hilarious, and laced with the implications of plenty of off-screen violence. Just what you'd want from you're local Freelance police.
Erm... that would be us, then.
What Telltale have done is taken the original game and updated it in fine style. It looks just about as cartoony as you could want, and Sam & Max's world looks as fresh as you'd expect it to after a dusting down and a new lick of paint, thirteen years after you were last in it. The humour is more or less intact (although Sam's voice isn't, which is a touch unfortunate). You won't be worried at the lack of fast-paced action when you can be asking the shopkeeper if he has any weasels on a stick.
If there's one slight criticism to be levelled at the game, it's that it's perhaps not quite insane enough. You can hardly blame Telltale for that: after all, they're resurrecting something that's been dead for over a decade, so they won't want to take too many risks just yet. But I'm sure that with each episode, the madness will be ramped up to the full. At least, I'd like to think it will be, because then we'll be looking at a stone-cold classic.
Telltale are releasing the new Sam & Max in six episodes, and you can play through the first of these in between two and four hours. But that's not a problem. At around a fiver an episode (or about twenty quid if you pre-order all six!) you're getting a great return on your cash, certainly better than if you spent your money on Generic Hollywood Blockbuster DVD #37.
Fellas, it's great to see you again.
November 2006
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