Sam and Max Season 1
Developer: Telltale Games
Publisher: The Adventure Company
Format Reviewed: Wii
Other Released Formats: PC
Number of Players: 1
Online Features: None (Each Episode was downloadable on the PC as they were released)
ESRB Rating: Teen (Mild Language, Cartoon Violence, Crude Humor)
Genre: Adventure, Point and Click, Casual
Release Date: 2008-10-14
MSRP: $29.99
If you’re an older gamer raising your gamerlings like I am, you may remember the original Sam and Max Hit the Road from Lucasarts way back when (1993, the year I graduated high school) on the PC. It was one of my favorite Lucasarts Point n click games. I remember progressing to Sam and Max:HtR from Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken, up to Day of the Tentacle and so on. Sam and Max season 1 brings that back in a good way.
If you’ve played the Sam and Max Season 1 episodes on a PC, stop here. The Wii version is just as good, nothing has been touched save for a couple little Wii embellishments: All 6 episodes are playable from the menu, Wii-motion control (basically turning the WiiMote into a mouse), and widescreen support.
It’s hard to present this game as a “must-play” game for hard-core gamers. It’s happily rooted in the “casual games” genre that the Wii is made for and which is exploding, attracting everyone from 5-year olds to 80-year olds. Sam and Max Episodes are not exceptionally difficult, and trying every object on every other object will eventually get you advancing on. It’s point and click perfected, and it works great.
You play as Sam and his “rabbit-thingy” sidekick, as the Freelance Police, basically detectives that like to take out their gun at any opportunity. You interact with the environment and when there’s conversation, it’s all yours to guide with multiple responses, some of which are all needed to advance the story. The writing is what makes Sam and Max great. The humor is presented with tongue in cheek, and planted firmly there. The characters you come across are just plain wacky. Graphics are also a fit to the Wii, being cartoonish and bright, not a strain on the Wii’s graphic processor. My only gripe about the Wii version is that the load times are much slower off a disc than off my PC’s hard drive.
I loved playing these on the PC, and I think that all of the episodes are fun to play through, and I would recommend playing in order, as there is a story-arc that spans all 6 episodes, though they are stand-alone otherwise. If you’ve already played all 6 episodes on the PC, it’s probably not worth widescreen support to buy it again, even at the bargain price of $29.99. If you haven’t played this and enjoy the point-and-click genre, this game is one to get. It’s got a sense of humor, is not overly difficult to play, and can be played in bite-size sessions.
Rating: 3.75 out of 5 – Worth buying if love adventure games and you haven’t already done so on the PC.
If you enjoy Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People, currently on Episode 3 for the Wii, you will be right at home with Sam and Max, and therefore this would be a must-have game. Sam and Max Season 2 just wrapped up its 5-episode run on the PC, so expect a Season 2 on the Wii in the near future, and probably a Disc version of Stong Bad after it ends its run.
