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Reviews » Sam & Max S1E1: Culture Shock [PC]

Some twelve years ago, Lucasarts released what some consider one of the best, most humorous games of a generation - Sam and Max Hit the Road. Three years ago, Lucasarts announced the development of a new Sam and Max game, and then cancelled its development. Now, under the flag of TellTale Games, Sam and Max finally reemerge in not one, but a series of episodic games. The first of which, titled "Culture Shock" was released to the general gaming public on November 1st, following several weeks of distribution through the GameTap service.

For those of you that don't know who Sam and Max are, some background: Sam is a dog. Max is a rabbit. Sam is a laid back tranqed Bogart type. Max is a psychotic hyperactive with violent tendancies. Together they are the Freelance Police, guardians of the peace and crusaders for justice - when they feel like it. Otherwise they tend to wander around causing as much chaos as possible. That's really all you need to know about our heroes at the start of the game. They introduce themselves thoroughly enough through the course of the adventure.

If, somehow, you never played Sam and Max Hit the Road or indeed any other adventure game, here's the scoop: you click on the screen and your character either moves or interacts with whatever object you clicked, through several different means that the user specifies. You do this to complete puzzles (sometimes of the 'get A, go to B, use A on C to get to D' type, sometimes not.) These games tended to have tens of hours of play in them, despite their linearity, and also tended to be hilariously funny.

What you need to know about Culture Shock however is, it is not Hit the Road. It isn't an epic in and of itself, and it doesn't try to be. It is an entirely different animal. If you think of Hit the Road as a feature movie, Culture Shock is very much the half hour TV series episode. The interface is much simpler, its puzzles easier to follow, and yet still keeps the same kind of energy and attitude that Sam and Max have always had. My game experience lasted around 4 hours from start to finish, not rushing especially fast, stopping to listen to humorous bits that weren't especially relevant to the story, and playing with various toys.

Most of the puzzles presented posed relatively little obstacle compared to old school Lucasarts adventures, partially due to the limited interaction methods available to the player, but also partially because the game has a tendancy to spell things out for you - sometimes very explicitly - if you just look hard enough. Sometimes Max will actually tell you what you need to do if you ask him. The interface with the game world is limited to hot spots on the screen, and your inventory. Click on something, and Sam will go interact with it, whether it's picking it up, commenting on it, destroying it, whatever the game requires he do with it. The user gets no input as to just what gets done.

As you might expect, almost anything you do in the game will return a sight gag, one-liner, or pun. There are in-jokes and puns built into the game world too - the file box on top of the cabinet in the office has on it a piece of tape with a date. The date is the cancellation date of Lucasarts' "Sam and Max Freelance Police". Most of these are minor giggles, but every so often out of the blue, the game busts out something that makes you just stop and laugh out loud. Don't try to stop it, your head will explode. Many times the solutions to puzzles will also turn out to be a punchline to a joke you might not even have known was building up.

Turning to the technical side of things, I have to give kudos to TellTale for managing a graphics engine as good looking as this one that will run well on such a dinosaur as my trusty athlon 900. There were points from time to time where the framerate would drop out the bottom and it'd stutter a bit, but they were few and far between. On the other hand, moving from scene to scene often prompted waits of several minutes. Much of this seemed to depend on some kind of caching in the game engine - moving back through the door you just came in through was generally quite quick.

Visually the game is very good. Generally the models are simple, presumably fairly low poly, but entirely adequate. Their textures though, bring them to life in ways that just shuffling more triangles wouldn't have a chance at. More advanced techniques can do the same kinds of things, but at the cost of computing horsepower. In this application, doing the work in textures makes a lot of sense and doesn't degrade the visual experience in the least. The sounds are likewise excellent, with perfectly suited atmospheric music and an excellent cast of voices.

All in all, I can't help but wish it was longer. I know it's meant to be an episode in a larger series, but I'm just not used to that format yet, and I doubt many other people are either. The saying is, "Leave them wanting more," and that is exactly what TellTale have done. Besides, 4 hours of solid entertainment for 9 bucks is better value than you'll usually get at the movies these days (by a factor of two, unless you're watching Lord of the Rings), and with this you can re-play and maybe catch new stuff you might have missed on your first run through.

Sam & Max S1E1 - PC

Presentation

Graphical and audio excellence. The credit sequence at the beginning gets you right in the mood.

Gameplay

Kind of wish there were more of it really, but I guess there will be in a month or so. It's more about the jokes than the puzzles, but driving the DeSoto was awesome.

Replayability

If you take enough time to thoroughly check everything, marginal. It's interesting to go back and do things in weird orders, or see how fast you can burn through though.

Value

When was the last time you bought 4 (or more) hours of all newly produced near-theatrical quality content for $9? Seriously.

Overall

Hardcore puzzle fans might be a bit disappointed, but in general it is High Quality Entertainment.