About a year ago I was in the midst of playing the Phoenix Wright series on my DS and completely enjoying the point-and-click mystery genre that was somewhat new to me. I was vaguely aware of the old Sam and Max games at this time (although I was a big fan of the Saturday morning cartoon), and when I found out that the series had not only recently been rebooted, but was being ported to the Wii for cheap, I saw no reason why I shouldn't give Sam and Max: Season One a shot. Billed as "Gaming's first sitcom", the game features six different mysteries to be solved by our freelance crime fighting duo: Sam, a level-headed dog, and Max, a deranged rabbit-thing. The gameplay is fairly simple: click on different objects strewn about a few locales to hear a constant barrage of one-liners, or interview a recurring cast of memorable characters, or solve a few puzzles to save the world. For instance, one episode involves Sam accidentally beheading a robot president, forcing Max to run for office against the reanimated statue of Abe Lincoln, who after losing cuts a swath of destruction across the D.C. area, leaving it an uninhabitable wasteland. "Some things never change" quips Max. While that may sounds like Robot Chicken-esque randomness instead of humor, I can assure you that the zingers here are rapid-fire and work most of the time: it's a genuinely funny game. Unfortunately, the one thing that hurts comedy is a lack of delivery, and oftentimes that was the case here tech-wise. It really feels like a game that could have come out in the early PS2 days. The graphics are pretty simple and cartoonish, but that's forgivable. Rough frame-rate issues, long loading times, poor animation and clumsy controls however, are not. These really brought the game down, which is a shame. Perhaps with a little more effort, this could be a true comedy gem. I guess I'll see if these issues were fixed in the sequel, as Sam and Max Season Two is coming out in early 2010, and for completion's sake you better believe I'll be getting it.
December 14, 2009
Sam and Max: Season One
About a year ago I was in the midst of playing the Phoenix Wright series on my DS and completely enjoying the point-and-click mystery genre that was somewhat new to me. I was vaguely aware of the old Sam and Max games at this time (although I was a big fan of the Saturday morning cartoon), and when I found out that the series had not only recently been rebooted, but was being ported to the Wii for cheap, I saw no reason why I shouldn't give Sam and Max: Season One a shot. Billed as "Gaming's first sitcom", the game features six different mysteries to be solved by our freelance crime fighting duo: Sam, a level-headed dog, and Max, a deranged rabbit-thing. The gameplay is fairly simple: click on different objects strewn about a few locales to hear a constant barrage of one-liners, or interview a recurring cast of memorable characters, or solve a few puzzles to save the world. For instance, one episode involves Sam accidentally beheading a robot president, forcing Max to run for office against the reanimated statue of Abe Lincoln, who after losing cuts a swath of destruction across the D.C. area, leaving it an uninhabitable wasteland. "Some things never change" quips Max. While that may sounds like Robot Chicken-esque randomness instead of humor, I can assure you that the zingers here are rapid-fire and work most of the time: it's a genuinely funny game. Unfortunately, the one thing that hurts comedy is a lack of delivery, and oftentimes that was the case here tech-wise. It really feels like a game that could have come out in the early PS2 days. The graphics are pretty simple and cartoonish, but that's forgivable. Rough frame-rate issues, long loading times, poor animation and clumsy controls however, are not. These really brought the game down, which is a shame. Perhaps with a little more effort, this could be a true comedy gem. I guess I'll see if these issues were fixed in the sequel, as Sam and Max Season Two is coming out in early 2010, and for completion's sake you better believe I'll be getting it.
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