Great humor, voice work, and gameplay .
Sam & Max Episode 1: Culture Shock is the first episode of 6 that takes PC gaming back to it's roots. This is a simple point and click adventure game that plays just like they used too back in the early 90's and even before that. There's no health bar or boss fights like most games of today. You solve puzzles by talking to people and getting clues or using items to get the job done. It's a great and rewarding gameplay experience that, while short, does what it sets out to do and ends up being a memorable experience.
In Sam & Max you play as Sam. He's a humanoid dog creature that just happens to be a freelance police officer who takes on cases for the money. With his on his adventures is his humanoid rabbit sidekick who offers up some really strange dialog. The game opens up with your phone ringing and it turns out the office rat has stolen it and he demands some swiss cheese for the phone. You don't have swiss cheese but you do have a closet full of regular cheese and gun. Well you get the picture. This is how the game plays. You get items and you use those items to get through the story.
There is also a lot of talking in this game. Everyone you see you can talk to and you pick from a list of things to say to them. You'll have to do this to get more information out of people that give you clues as to what you need to do next. Thankfully the game sounds wonderful with a great soundtrack and some suburb voice talent.
Length wise the game is pretty short. The bulk of the game is talking to people and solving the puzzles. If you know what to do and skip all the dialog you can get through the game in about 30 minutes to an hour. But you won't know exactly what to do your first time through and you'll need to talk to people since that's were all the fun is. So your first time through will take you 4 to 5 hours. But thankfully this is episodic. So once your done with this game you can move on the next and continue the story.
It's a great adventure game that anyone should check out.
