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Sam & Max: Season One (PC)

• Developer: Tell Tale Games
• Publisher: Tell Tale Games
• Genre: Adventure
• Official Website: http://www.telltalegames.com
• Score: 5 of 5: Purchase

Longtime graphic adventurers have no doubt heard of Sam and Max, two lovable and memorable mid-90s creations of Steve Purcell who starred first in LucasArts' Sam and Max: Hit The Road. Sam and Max have had a full, yet rocky career, which has included a print comic, a cartoon on Fox (which is also now available via Gametap), the aforementioned LucasArts game, and most recently a six-episode season of new game titles. These episodes packed quite a punch on their own, but they've now been bundled into one set, and delightfully so. Sam and Max: Season One towers above the competition.

For those not in the know, Sam and Max are, respectively, an erect, anthropomorphic dog and bunny who comprise a "freelance police" team and who always seem to become involved in really odd cases. What makes this duo unique is the even temperament of Sam, the dog, and the very uneven, violent, caustic, and yet oddly lovable and comforting character of Max, the rabbit. Each character, too, possesses a never-ending supply of wit which manifests through each character's often severe, but always interesting, idiosyncratic personality.

Early in the game - the first half, say - the gameplay is kind of lackluster and the puzzles relatively easy with often-transparent solutions. Point-n-click graphic adventure enthusiasts will be able to blow through the puzzles in the first half or so - the first two or three episodes - quickly, which leave the impression that the developers really wanted gamers to push through the puzzles to get at the meat of the story. Gone are the traditional SCUMM-based icons denoting action in the old LucasArts titles. Instead, the interface is simple. Players left-click to move and interact with something and right-click to look at something. The cardboard box inventory icon is the only interface to speak of and is a remnant of the old LucasArts title, Sam and Max Hit the Road.

Most puzzles, then, involve players picking up or using inventory items and conversation, with a bit more emphasis on the latter. Dialogue is a major part of Season One and is always fresh, funny, and current. It ranges from poignant to absurd and pokes fun at everything, from current politics, sociological trends, scientology, games, gamers, the characters themselves, and even the developers of Season One and the video game industry itself. That isn't to say the game is easy throughout: the difficult increases in something of a crescendo as players go from one episode to the next. In a manner reminiscent of, say, a Phoenix Wright title, each successive episode has more items, characters, and places to interact with than the previous one, and sometimes items even carry over from one episode to the next. By the end, items from episode one might even make a cameo toward the end of the game.

This was one of the largest gripes about the game being released in episodic form: too many characters reprised their role, almost superfluously at times, in the following episode. Viewed from a television series perspective, this makes sense, but it did not translate all too well in the game. Some of the recurring characters, outside of Sam and Max, became stale the fourth time around. But, in playing the entire game in one fell swoop, that complaint no longer seems very pressing. That is, the cameos and repetitions all make sense within the framework of a single product that is fully at one's fingertips.

That said, the episodic format does work, however the full Season One product tends to work better and the very few problems that seemed apparent as each successive episode was released no longer seem to be an issue. Divvied up and taken as separate entities, some of the episodes seemed a bit repetitive. While the repetition itself isn't fixed here, the subtly-altered presentation gives a different impression, and the difficulty - overall - builds as one progresses through the full game.

After seeing the full product, I'm not positive Sam and Max: Season One can really make a case on its own in favor of episodic gaming over the standard method of making a game series, primarily because of what Sam and Max is, what it evolved from, and the fact that it is excellent in either format. The episodic format works here primarily because the games themselves loosely follow the structure of a television show, and most of the humor and story comes through via the top-notch dialogue and character interaction which, again, is an emulation of TV programming. That said, Sam and Max: Season One is some of the funniest, best-written, and most attractive graphic adventuring available, and one would be remiss to not pick the series up and give it a go.

Sep 24, 2007 | 0 comments
Roger Helgeson