The Dog and Rabbity Ride Again
In the heyday of the adventure game, Lucasarts reined supreme. With hits like Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle and Grim Fandango, they captured the hearts and minds of gamers around the world. Sam and Max Hit the Road was one such game. From the mind of Steve Purcell, Sam and Max got their start in the underground comic scene before making the leap to video game stardom. Their patented zany humor and crazy antics were a perfect fit for the story heavy adventure genre and the game quickly became a cult hit. From there, the duo stared in a short lived television series, but it seemed they weren’t meant for mainstream successes.
In 2003, much to the joy of adventure game fans, Lucasarts announced that they were resurrecting our favorite dog and rabbity thing duo for a long awaited sequel. That joy, however, was short lived as Lucasarts decided to cancel the game citing a declining adventure game market. Cue Telltale games. The newly formed team of Lucasarts alumni quickly snatched up the license and decided to take on the task of bringing Sam and Max back to the masses themselves.
The fruit of that labor is the newly released Sam and Max: Culture Shock, the first in a series of episodic content. At the beginning of the game we find our favorite team doing what they do best: fighting crime with their own unique brand of injustice and mayhem. Their newest assignment tasks them with helping Bosco, the convenience store owner, get rid of troublesome former child star. Simple right? Well, it turns out it’s just the start of a huge conspiracy involving hypnotizing video tapes, brain washed midgets and a small mental disorder. The story it’s self takes about three hours to complete.
The game play is a traditional point and click affair. All of your actions are context sensitive, so if you click on a TV, Sam will automatically attempt to turn it on. You can also use items in your inventory with objects in the world to solve puzzles or just to get some humorous response from our protagonist. Conversations with other characters are also handled in the traditional point and click style. When you start up a conversation you will be given a series of topics to choose from. Some might give you clues on how to proceed while others will give you a good laugh.
Graphics wise, Sam and Max have aged quite nicely. The style Telltale games went with fits the series nicely, retaining all the charm fans have come to love. The world is largely over exaggerated and brightly colored. The characters themselves are well animated and do an excellent job of conveying emotions. The lip synching isn’t quite on the money but it isn’t enough to distract you from what the characters are saying.
Music has always played a large part in any adventure game and Sam and Max is no slouch. Setting the perfect mood is an excellent jazz score, reminiscent of classic film noir movies, that plays throughout the game. The voices of Sam and Max, while not the original actors, perfectly fit the characters.
My main gripe with the game is mainly the myriad of technical hiccups that occurred during my play through. Many times the game would stall during transitions from one location to another, sometimes for as long as a minute, making me wonder if the game has just plain frozen up. There were also a few times where the speech would over lap and I’d miss a few lines of dialogue. These problems, however, weren’t enough to detract from my enjoyment of the game.
Overall, Sam and Max: Culture Shock is a fitting homage to the classic Lucasarts style adventure game and any fan of such games will find a lot to love about it. Luckily, this is merely the first in a series of “episodes” to be released by Telltale games. I, for one, can’t wait to continue the adventure.
