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Sam & Max Season 1

Wii Review

By - 11th December 2008 19:55

"...so you better make sure your accuracy and precision are good, along with a lot of energy so you can swing that arm of yours faster than a speeding bullet..."

The point and click genre seems to be enjoying something of a minor revival on the Wii: we’ve had Zack and Wiki, we’re getting episodic instalments of Strong Bad and now we have the excellent Sam and Max: Season One. What on Earth is going on?

Actually, that’s a question you’ll be asking yourself a lot throughout the fiendishly difficult puzzles and situations that make up this game. This game is quite possibly one of the most difficult and demanding pieces of software to ever grace a console. If you find Professor Layton fun, you will love Sam and Max.

And it is the large anthropomorphic dog and psychokinetic rabbity-thing that really make this game – without their witty asides and hilarious come backs, this really would just be one long session of confusion and frustration. Using the Wii Remote as a pointer you can direct Sam to interact with various objects and people in the background. Sometimes these objects only work when used with others, some are total red herrings put their to distract you. Others seem to offer a path through the obstacle but they lead you in totally the wrong direction.

These puzzles range from the obvious got-to-find-a-way-to-shoot-someone to the not so easy such as “how do you get the chicken to be funny?”. There is only ever one way to resolve a situation, and this is what lets the game down. Whereas games such as The Legend of Zelda make it clear you can’t access a certain area without a specific item, this game gives you almost no help whatsoever. Click on Max as he wanders around the landscape and he will tell you what you need to do, but there are no hints as to how to do it, or even an inkling of what you may need.

Without careful examination of the surrounding environment, there is no way that you will make any progress in this game. For those among you who like to switch off their brain every time they turn on their Wii, this game is unquestionably not for you. Without a heavy dose of lateral thinking and the requisite patience, you could easily become stuck about 5 minutes into the first episode with no way of getting round the problem. A lot of people will drop the game there and then to play something easier.

And that’s a big shame, because at heart this game is fantastic. The key here is to get your mind to stop thinking logically and begin to think entirely within the confines of the game world. Once this is accomplished, you can begin to really enjoy the hilarious dialogue and ridiculously funny characters.

Sam and Max themselves are a pair of Freelance Police officers in a world full of conspiracy theories, talking insects and insane former child stars. Their consistently funny narrative of the things and people they see raise guffaws and chuckles in equal measure. Those familiar with TV series like 3rd Rock From The Sun and Family Guy will find themselves right at home with the off-the wall funnies. The writing is superb, even if the story itself is a little basic. But be prepared for plot twists later on that may surprise you.

The graphics on the game are pretty cruddy at times, visually this is probably not even a PS2 game. With bad lip-syncing moments, blurry textures and plain surfaces, the game really tells of its PC roots. It certainly looks more than two years old, but everything works okay, and the addition of some rather amusing gumshoe-style muzak helps you slip quite comfortably into this world of shady criminals and even shadier Freelance Police.

Pleasingly though, the voice–overs have to be hear to be believed. It has never been our pleasure to hear better voice acting in a game, nor has the delivery ever been so perfect outside of Hollywood. It’s these voices that help the world come to life, and without the deadpan delivery of most of Sam’s lines, the game would not have the same charm.

As far as lifespan is concerned, the game is as long as you are stupid. Each episode would take less than an hour if you knew in precise order every single task and the appropriate action. However, without a handy guide beside the Wii, episodes can be anything between two and four hours long. You will kick yourself after you finally realise what you have to do for some of the more obtuse situations. Be prepared for a lot of trial and error, but fun trial and error.

Overall, this game is excellent. But it’s not really equal to the sum of its parts. The graphics are an insult at times, and a few of the puzzles are completely unforgiving – they only get harder as you progress through the episodes. Also there’s a little inconsistency with the graphics and game world, in the initial episode there’s not a lot to see and do, but by the time you progress to episode 4 and 5, things have been expanded as the developers got more comfortable with their tools.

If you want several hours of consistent funnies and a good game to have two of you play together, then you cannot really go wrong with Sam and Max. It’s probably the pinnacle of point and click adventures, but that’s also its downfall.

The point and click genre is extremely frustrating at times, and without the hilarity of the main characters, the whole thing would probably just fall apart. As it is, this game is really enjoyable for those with the patience and the curiosity to see what the dynamic duo are going say and do next.

Our score breakdown lies below...

Comments

Darkflame Says:
December 11th, 2008 at 18:39 \|\| Total Comments: 961

Having played one or two of the eppisodes on pc, I have to agree with the " highlights the pros and cons of the point and click genre." line.

To me thats what makes Zack and Wiki so brillent...as it reinvented the genre in terms of gameplay. Puzzles based not on random-item mixing in an increasingly bezire inventory, but by applying limited items in many different ways.

However, zack and wiki (while very funny at times), naturally had much weaker storytelling.

I only wish Zack & Wiki made more impact, because I'd love to see a Sam and Max game in that style.

That would be the best of both worlds for me.

Reynard Says:
December 12th, 2008 at 14:41 \|\| Total Comments: 307

The game 'shows its PC roots'? What a completely stupid and baseless statement. This series looks, sounds and plays great, the Wii port is lazy in that it has a bad, stuttery framerate and lower res textures, but still oozes with style and excellent animation. Embarrassing visuals? If you say that even after playing the PC version, you have no taste.

You also deserve a clip across the head for calling the superb soundtrack 'Muzak'. :p

Darkflame Says:
December 12th, 2008 at 19:40 \|\| Total Comments: 961

umm.. actually, imho...the PC version also had a rather poor engine.
Style was great, but technically the graphics were a bit glitcy and rough around the edges. (textures wernt that high to start with either).

I got the impression, in fact, that the engine they were using wasnt very well optimised. If they ported that same engine to the Wii, its just multiplying that.

Music was great though.

(and note: NONE of the above is actualy critising tale-tall games....making a good,efficiant game engine takes a lot of manhours, they simply dont have the resources to spend that much time on it....else we wouldnt have the great games themselfs!)

Reynard Says:
December 13th, 2008 at 03:58 \|\| Total Comments: 307

Given the filesizes of the PC episodes, it's a pretty admirable job. I never saw any glitches outside an occaisional loading pause between scenes, and it always looked smooth and crisp. The lip synching may falter, but i've seen many higher budget blockbuster games with much less forgivable sync. I just think calling this game 'graphically embarrassing' is an insult to the work telltale put in.

It /is/ obvious that telltale doesn't know how to optimize for Wii, strong bad's game has a very erratic framerate too.

Iun Says:
December 14th, 2008 at 19:23 \|\| Total Comments: 152

The graphics are terrible, and the music is muzak. The PC roots means that it was optimised for a bunch of low-end PC's so as Telltale could sell the game to as many people as possible. It is embarrassing when you think the PS2 can do better than this, and here we have a pretty-much straight port of the game.

Hard work Telltale put in? Stop, please. It's a cheap port and it shows. The game is still funny and worth buying, but the faults need highlighting.