The very first entry in Telltale Games' episodic Sam & Max series debuted on the PC, almost exactly two years ago. The premiere episode, Culture Shock, garnered largely positive reviews, walking home with a handful of awards and rekindling gamers' love for the cherished dog & rabbit duo. The series has been on a roll since then, knocking out 11 episodes, and putting Telltale on the map -- leading the company to bring episodic adventure gaming to a couple of other franchises we happen to enjoy.
I've made no secret of my love for Sam & Max. As an owner of the original print of Surfin' the Highway, not to mention having beaten the LucasArts classic more times than I can count, I am heavily predisposed to like most everything they do. Needless to say, I've played the entire episodic series to date on the PC, and I was delighted when I first heard the news that the series would be given a traditional, physical release for the Nintendo Wii. More Sam & Max can only be a boon to society, right? Well, this month finally saw the release of the Freelance Police's Wii adaptation, which I eagerly popped into my console for review. So, please understand that I say this as a die-hard Sam & Max fan to the very end; as a man who cannot wait for the duo to see more episodes: I'm disappointed. I don't hate this new version of the game, per se -- but I sure don't love it, either.
If you've spent the last two years in a coma (and none of your bedside visitors have kept you up to date on gaming), Sam & Max are two characters created by Steve Purcell, first appearing in comic book form way back in 1987. The comic was indescribably hilarious, pitting the titular dog & rabbit (respectively) against a world populated by dangerous criminal lunatics. Sam & Max, in turn, would foil various schemes by proving themselves even bigger lunatics, winning the day via highly unlikely means. It wasn't until 1993's adventure title Sam & Max Hit the Road, though, that the pair became widely known to gamers, who received their hysterical antics with rave reviews. Ten years later, LucasArts announced a sequel to the cherished favorite, only to inexplicably cancel it shortly before its scheduled release. The development team, however, waited until LucasArts' hold on the Sam & Max license expired, and formed their own company -- Telltale Games -- to finally release the new Sam & Max adventure game that fans had been waiting for, albeit in episodic form.
The episodes themselves successfully recapture the madcap lunacy of the original Sam & Max adventure. Divided into six standalone stories with a common, overarching plot, and a handful of recurring characters and gags, Sam & Max Season One brings gamers everything that Sam & Max are known for: Unusally eloquent yet completely juvenile dialogue, unlikely and colorful locations (all of which are accessible by car, even the moon), deranged villains, and a wealth of gag-oriented puzzles. Each episode of the game usually follows a three-act structure, challenging the player with a variety of small tasks in the service of a few larger meta-puzzles which will progress the stories to their conclusions. In all, one can expect to spend 3-5 hours on each episode, and one can expect to spend most of those hours with a smile: The games are marred by the occasional esoteric puzzle or ineffectual joke, but the vast majority of the content is quite amusing -- when it's not downright hilarious.
Combine these clever quips and engaging puzzles with the most basic and accessible of point-and-click adventure-game interfaces, and it's easy to see why I would love this game... on the PC, that is. Perhaps it's my own fault; maybe I'm remembering the PC version of the game with rose-tinted glasses. However, this is primarily where my disappointment is based: Sam & Max Season One is not a very good port. It seems almost counter-intuitive to say it: An accessible, kid-friendly, creative game, controlled purely via pointing and clicking, sounds perfect for the Wii console. Telltale even took the time to tweak the interface, allowing players to open their inventories with a button press, or scroll through dialogue choices with the D-pad, and they threw in some keen Purcell concept art, to boot. It sounds like a match made in heaven -- until you actually play the new version of the game, and are confronted with downgraded controls, downsized graphics, and a rather excessive frequency of visual and audio glitches.
Content-wise, Sam & Max Season One is identical to its standalone PC predecessors. Upon starting the game, a player can select any of the six episodes, to be played in any order they choose. Newcomers to Sam & Max will want to stay in numerical order, so as to keep up with the series' growing library of recurring gags and self-referential humor. Having played them all before, though, I decided to act on my feelings for the current political climate, and fired up Episode 4: Abe Lincoln Must Die! Two years after having played the original, the humor was still very much intact. I still guffawed when I heard "I think the Stockholm syndrome is supposed to take a couple of days to kick in, Max." "Who has that kind of time?!" I still grinned wryly every time I tripped up the giant reanimated Lincoln with a gimmicked cue card. And, I still laughed all the way through the episode's infamous musical number. Sam & Max is still a strong, solid adventure series -- just not for this system.
The problem is subtle at first; Sam will initiate a conversation with an NPC, but the first word of his dialogue won't play. A few lines later, the conversation will end by truncating the last word. Soon, you realize these audio hiccups are occuring every 5-10 lines, leading to a pattern of "-- is it, Sam?" "--t's not a good idea." "Well, see you l--" At the same time, you start noticing the animation is getting especially jerky, as well. Sam will drop a few frames when walking. Nearly every time you click an interactive object, Sam will freeze in place, and resume movement a few moments into his next animation. The mere act of running down the length of Sam & Max's street -- the single most recurring location in the game -- leads to at least 3 animation hiccups, every time, without fail. What starts out as a minor problem becomes, slowly but surely, a constant annoyance, especially when the audio glitches distract from the game's dialogue, which is arguably one of its best features.
The graphics, too, have suffered in the translation. The fact that Sam & Max has received a new widescreen presentation for its console debut is certainly admirable, but it comes at the cost of what looks like a lower resolution. Granted, the Wii is the system made famous by emphasizing gameplay over graphics, but in an adventure game, where progress-critical items might be missed in the background due to smaller size, it's kind of a problem. It's one thing when a player gets stuck because they didn't think to use an object, it's quite another when they didn't even know that option existed. This isn't a frequent problem, mind, but it can still crop up every now and again.
This, unfortunately, leads to the final problem -- the Wii controls. Locating a hotspot in an adventure game can be tough if the trigger area is on the small side, but this problem is compounded when you're waving a Wiimote around. I can hear Sean Hollister laughing at me as I say this, but the Wii adaptation simply cannot match the ease and precision of mouse control for a game like this. Again, it's by no means a game-breaking problem, but every so often, you're going to get frustrated by picking the wrong object out of your inventory, or run right past the object you meant to interact with, or otherwise. To sum up, I wouldn't play Sam & Max Season One if you're on your fifth coffee.
Sam & Max is still a really fantastic game series, two years after its latest incarnation. If you haven't played it yet, you're really missing out on some genuine old-school fun. Sadly, however, this new Wii collection is a less-than-ideal means of getting that experience. If you've already played the PC version, you're not missing anything -- this is hardly an enhancement. And if you haven't played Sam & Max yet, please, by all means, do so -- but do it on the PC.
If you don't have a Windows PC and haven't played Sam & Max, then you can make do with this version, of course. If you have to.
Sam & Max Season One is available now on PC and Wii.
Full disclosure: Pantheon Labs, parent company of GameCyte, is owned by Richard Kain, an investor in Telltale Games.
The very first entry in Telltale Games' episodic Sam & Max series debuted on the PC, almost exactly two years ago. The premiere episode, Culture Shock, garnered largely positive reviews, walking home with a handful of awards and rekindling gamers' love for the cherished dog & rabbit duo. The series has been on a roll since then, knocking out 11 episodes, and putting Telltale on the map -- leading the company to bring episodic adventure gaming to a couple of other franchises we happen to enjoy.
If you've spent the last two years in a coma (and none of your bedside visitors have kept you up to date on gaming), Sam & Max are two characters created by Steve Purcell, first appearing in comic book form way back in 1987. The comic was indescribably hilarious, pitting the titular dog & rabbit (respectively) against a world populated by dangerous criminal lunatics. Sam & Max, in turn, would foil various schemes by proving themselves even bigger lunatics, winning the day via highly unlikely means. It wasn't until 1993's adventure title Sam & Max Hit the Road, though, that the pair became widely known to gamers, who received their hysterical antics with rave reviews. Ten years later, LucasArts announced a sequel to the cherished favorite, only to inexplicably cancel it shortly before its scheduled release. The development team, however, waited until LucasArts' hold on the Sam & Max license expired, and formed their own company -- Telltale Games -- to finally release the new Sam & Max adventure game that fans had been waiting for, albeit in episodic form.
Combine these clever quips and engaging puzzles with the most basic and accessible of point-and-click adventure-game interfaces, and it's easy to see why I would love this game... on the PC, that is. Perhaps it's my own fault; maybe I'm remembering the PC version of the game with rose-tinted glasses. However, this is primarily where my disappointment is based: Sam & Max Season One is not a very good port. It seems almost counter-intuitive to say it: An accessible, kid-friendly, creative game, controlled purely via pointing and clicking, sounds perfect for the Wii console. Telltale even took the time to tweak the interface, allowing players to open their inventories with a button press, or scroll through dialogue choices with the D-pad, and they threw in some keen Purcell concept art, to boot. It sounds like a match made in heaven -- until you actually play the new version of the game, and are confronted with downgraded controls, downsized graphics, and a rather excessive frequency of visual and audio glitches.
The problem is subtle at first; Sam will initiate a conversation with an NPC, but the first word of his dialogue won't play. A few lines later, the conversation will end by truncating the last word. Soon, you realize these audio hiccups are occuring every 5-10 lines, leading to a pattern of "-- is it, Sam?" "--t's not a good idea." "Well, see you l--" At the same time, you start noticing the animation is getting especially jerky, as well. Sam will drop a few frames when walking. Nearly every time you click an interactive object, Sam will freeze in place, and resume movement a few moments into his next animation. The mere act of running down the length of Sam & Max's street -- the single most recurring location in the game -- leads to at least 3 animation hiccups, every time, without fail. What starts out as a minor problem becomes, slowly but surely, a constant annoyance, especially when the audio glitches distract from the game's dialogue, which is arguably one of its best features.
This, unfortunately, leads to the final problem -- the Wii controls. Locating a hotspot in an adventure game can be tough if the trigger area is on the small side, but this problem is compounded when you're waving a Wiimote around. I can hear Sean Hollister laughing at me as I say this, but the Wii adaptation simply cannot match the ease and precision of mouse control for a game like this. Again, it's by no means a game-breaking problem, but every so often, you're going to get frustrated by picking the wrong object out of your inventory, or run right past the object you meant to interact with, or otherwise. To sum up, I wouldn't play Sam & Max Season One if you're on your fifth coffee.
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November 1st, 2008 at 3:02 pm
[...] Full review here [...]
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