Sam and Max: Hit the Road holds a special place in every adventurer’s heart. How could it not? Created by Steve Purcell, the dynamic duo’s insane adventure across the US of A was filled with black humour, out of this world puzzle solutions and some of the best conversations this side of an asylum’s walls. Considering the success the game had it took a surprisingly long time before a sequel was announced, let alone released. After a few years of uncertainty and publisher juggling the detective dog and manic rabbit pair finally saw the light of day in the form of Episode 1 of the 6 part Season 1 story arc. The series was originally exclusive to the online service GameTap and was recently added to Steam and will soon be available in stores as well. Because of that we decided to see what Season 1 can offer as a full-priced game.


A suspicious ocular fitness program
For those of you that don’t know what Sam&Max are all about, a quick history lesson. The two private detectives (or Freelance police, as they call themselves) were born in the late 80s for a comic strip. They made several comic book reappearances until they finally switch media and started in LucasArts adventure game in 1993. Fast forward to late 2006 and the first episode of Season 1 was finally released. Based on the original idea, the crime solving duo finally gets a new case after a long period of inactivity – child celebrities propagating a suspicious ocular fitness program. After that it doesn’t take long for the duo to fall back into their regular routine of waving guns at innocents and making hilarious comments about stuff they see.

The first and biggest concern we should address is the length of season 1. With the advent of episodic gaming, developers started pushing the boundaries, often delivering less than an hour of playtime. And unlike in FPS games where you can replay the game once or twice, adventure games pretty much only warrant a single play-trough. Well, judging by the time it took me to get through the six episodes there should be no cause for alarm – without resorting to any kind of guide or walktrough my timer dinged at around 8 hours. I didn’t click on every item and try every conversation option just for the sake of it, so I’d say I missed about 20% or so of the content available. Enough to make me play the episodes again? Sure, can never have enough laughter in my life.


The pros and cons of being broken up
With S&M: Season 1 (oh dear, with Max in the picture S&M gets a whole new meaning) we are presented with a unique opportunity to play six separate episodes that follow an overarching storyline, but outside of that don’t share much in terms of story. Each of the episodes focuses on a single case and there are hardly any references to the other episodes to be found. This isn’t the only negative consequence of the episodic approach though. Because the authors decided all of the episodes must be playable on their own, without any knowledge of the surrounding story, you’ll often experience déjà vu moments when starting a new episode. For example, every episode starts in the office S&M have. While some of the comments the two make about the items located in the room change over the episodes, you can’t help but feel a bit ripped off.

There are positives as well though. The most obvious are the recurring characters, Bosco and Sybil specifically. The first is the proud owner of Bosco’s Inconvenience store and could probably be institutionalized because of his paranoia and all the conspiracy theories he believes in (he reminds me of some guys on our forum but i'll not name names!). He appears in all the episodes and is dressed up in all but the first, pretending to be all sorts of people (I won’t spoil the surprise by listing them). Sybil on the other hand has a tendency to change jobs almost as often as she changes underwear, which is to say almost daily. At the start of the series her place is a shrink office, though it is painfully obvious that it was a pierce parlor not that long ago.


Hints are usually well shrouded in a fog of madness and uncalled for aggression
Adventure games tend to alienate most players, as they often involve unthinkable combinations of items and pixel hunting where you must literally check every pixel on the screen to see if it can be interacted with. This was the case with all the LucasArts adventure games including Hit the Road, so seeing a similar approach here wouldn’t be surprising. Thankfully TaleTell decided to go with a more relaxed approach and there is practically no item combining present in the game. Most of the solutions are pretty obvious and at worst require just a tad of imagination. The fact that talking to Max (as before you control only Sam) reveals hints as to what you should do next also helps, though his hints are usually well shrouded in a fog of madness and uncalled for aggression.


What makes the whole series so good are the conversations and observations though. I personally didn’t find them as funny as the ones in Hit the Road, but they made me chuckle constantly, and I laughed out loud on several occasions. Even more hilarious are the observations the two protagonists make when you inspect something in their surroundings. I find it amazing how well the pair work together and it probably took a good while to write all the dialogue for all the 6 episodes. And you know how in adventure games you sometimes try to use the wrong item or missclick accidentally? You will want to do this in these games, as most of the time Sam’s reaction won’t be generic, but will actually reflect the item being used and the object the player tried to use the item on.

Technically speaking the game is no jewel, but it does run well on almost any PC that was made after 2000. Despite being fully 3d the camera angles are fixed, so don’t expect a platformer style of playing. The game feels and plays just like the old LucasArts games, so no keyboard only controls like in Grim Fandango or Monkey Island 4. The star of the game is the voice acting though. To my knowledge the people who voiced Sam and Max aren’t the same as they were back in 1993, but the job they did is amazing. You rarely see so much passion put into the whole thing. The music is good as well and thankfully doesn’t become repetitive because of the episodic nature of the game with new locales being visited constantly.


Conclusion
Point and click adventure games are more or less dead today, so getting the chance to play a classic representative of the genre is something that shouldn’t be taken lightly. And when the game (or in this case games) delivers everything that made the genre so popular back in the 90s you can’t help but wonder why more games like it don’t get released. If you never liked adventure games you probably won’t change your mind because of Sam and Max: Season 1, but if you were on the edge before you might just fall in love with the whole concept.

Gameplay	89/100	A classic adventure game redefined for the new millennium. Sam and Max were never as witty as they are now!
Graphics	73/100	Low resolution textures don’t make this a pretty game, but the art direction is just freaky. Not as good as the old 2D days, but not far behind.
Sound	85/100	The music fits the mood and the conversations are just hilarious. Clicking on an item several times just to hear the comments will become second nature.
Value	68/100	It’s an adventure game, so there isn’t much replayability value here. 10-12 hours is probably the most you will get out of it.
Multiplayer	N/A	It’s Sam and Max… what do you expect?!
Overall (not an average)	82/100	One of the best adventure games got a “sequel” that manages to live up to the heritage. A must buy for all the adventurers out there.