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Sam is a six foot dog with a rather large gun; Max is a rabbit
on the wrong side of lunatic. Together, in their 1960 Desoto
Adventurer, these private investigators tackle crimes most
foul in their own inimical way...
Sam
and Max started life as a comic book, created by Steve
Purcell, although never the huge commercial success that it
deserved, it remained popular with the fans. The pair then
started popping up in Lucas Arts games until they were given
their own graphical adventure, Sam and Max Hit the Road
(1993). The original game was good enough for Lucas Arts to
plan another, though this was sadly cancelled.
Telltale
bought the franchise and started to produce downloadable games.
These have now been gathered together as Sam and Max: Season
One. If however you just want to dip your toe in, Telltale
still sells the episodes individually on their web site. It
would be cheaper but then you would be missing out on all
the excellent bonus material.
For
those of you who have never played a Sam and Max game
(I really can't bring myself to abbreviate it to S&M)
they are essentially irreverent point and click adventures.
The graphics on Hit the Road were good for the time;
I still have my original copy somewhere. However, Telltale
has dramatically updated the graphics so that they look more
like an upmarket animation. Movement is very smooth even on
my laptop. If, however, the game appears to be running slow
you have the option to downgrade various elements.
As
the games were originally published on the net, this disc
contains six medium sized games and, whilst they have similar
themes, they can't quite be considered as one long game. Still
that's no bad thing as it means that you can play the adventures
in any order. As the title would suggest, the publishers would
like you to think of this as six episodes of the first season,
akin to a DVD box set.
The
extras disc is jam packed with everything a discerning Sam
and Max fan could want. Eighteen pieces of the original
music are available to either play or rip - I feel a Sam
and Max ring tone coming on - as well as seven wallpapers
in four to six different sizes. You get a rather nifty link
to a web comic and twenty-two pieces of concept art. For those
of you new to the world of Sam and Max there is a PDF
with the main characters bios and if you're feeling particularly
talented a link is provided for the comic generator. Like
any self respecting TV show Sam and Max has trailers
for each of the episode which you can view to give you an
idea of which adventure to start with. If that were not enough
there is a Making of featurette (9 min 7 sec).
Irreverent,
laugh out loud funny and surreal are just some of the attributes
of the best game to come out in a long time. The only oddity
is that there is no Wii version, only PC, when Sam and
Max would go down a storm on a machine that already has
the likes of Raving Rabbits.
The
voice acting is superb throughout and, for those that either
like or require it, the game comes with optional subtitles,
which turned out to be very useful as I could play the game
in my living room without disturbing anyone else. As a bonus
the game can also be played in a window for those having a
sneaky play at work.
From
the quality of the animation, the scripts and the dialogue
Telltale have produced something which is just shy of an essential
purchase, now if they could only come up with a version for
the Wii.
Charles
Packer
Buy
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£25.99
(Amazon.co.uk)
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£24.99
(Play.com) |
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£24.99
(Game.co.uk) |
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£29.99
(WHSmith.co.uk) |
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£27.97
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All prices correct at time of going to press.
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