Sam & Max (working title) (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 3.5 stars Very good
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 7.7 (3.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Jeff Gerstmann
• Reviewed on: 10/17/2006
• Updated on: 06/25/2007
• Released on: 10/18/2006
• Originally published on GameSpot: Sam & Max (working title) (PC) Review

One of the many gems of the big LucasArts PC adventure game boom was 1993's Sam & Max Hit the Road, a hilarious adventure about a couple of private-eye types who travel the country to solve a mystery, hitting up carnival freak shows and other roadside curiosities on their quest for truth. Sam (a dog) and Max (a hyperkinetic rabbity thing) got their start in comic book form, and that dark humor carried over nicely into video game form. The adventure game was quite well received, and the characters went on to star in a cartoon years later. But the sequel to the game never materialized. LucasArts announced a planned return back in 2002, but in 2004, that game was canceled. But now, Telltale Games has picked up the Sam & Max torch, and the company plans to release individual episodes of a new Sam & Max adventure game over the next several months. The first of these episodes, Culture Shock, is now available, and if you've been looking for a good, funny game, you should definitely check this out.

As an adventure game, Sam & Max is all about solving puzzles, and the game begins with the most diabolical puzzle of all: Sam and Max's telephone has disappeared, and you're going to have to find it if you're going to take a case. The control in the game is really streamlined and makes interacting with objects easy. Things you can interact with--anything from a person to speak with to a TV to watch--light up with their name as soon as you run the mouse over them. Clicking on the object or person lets you interact with that object in the most natural way. So you'll speak to a person, watch a TV, turn on a light, and so on. At the bottom of the screen is a cardboard box that represents your inventory. If you want to make two objects interact, first you click on the object in your inventory, and then you click on the item to use with that object. One of the items you get right off the bat is a big revolver, which lets you attempt to shoot anything you want. None of the puzzles are particularly difficult, and even if you stop to hear everything all the characters have to say, you should probably be finished in a couple of hours.

So the interaction is nice and smooth, but really, an adventure game is only as good as its storyline. In Culture Shock, two freelance police are out looking at a trio of '70s child stars called the Soda Poppers. For some reason, they've all become mindless drones who can't stop spreading the word about Brady Culture, a failed '70s child star who is now marketing eye exercise tapes called Eye-Bo. Surely there can't be some sort of devious link between viewing the tape and hypnotizing the Soda Poppers, can there? The good news is that even though this Sam & Max series comes out in episodic chunks, each episode (well, the first episode at least) wraps up quite nicely at the end, giving you an episode in the purest sense--as if it were an episode of Scooby-Doo with a more intelligible dog and much smarter dialogue. Without giving too much away, let's just say that the story is compelling and fun to follow.

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