Sam and Max: Culture Shock

If there's a Child Star rampage, In your neighbourhood, Well who you gonna call? Sam and Max!

The graphic adventure was a uniquely PC genre. Right up to the mid-’90s, we pointed, clicked, swore, laughed, and puzzled our way through Full Throttle, The Secret of Monkey Island, King’s Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and Maniac Mansion. But then this cinematic, story-based genre found no place on the PC during its multimedia gaming renaissance. These great characters, zany stories, and mind-bending puzzles made way for first-person shooters, real time strategy, and a wave of puzzlers like Myst.

Recent stabs at the genre, like Quantic Dream’s Fahrenheit or Funcom’s Dreamfall, have sacrificed the humour and colour, in favour of basing their design on phrases like ‘dramatic experience’ and ‘emotional connection’. For those after the classic LucasArts or Sierra On-Line gameplay, the only recourse has been an army of amateurs equipped with Adventure Game Studio (see Staying Alive).

Now, Telltale Games is restoring the balance by bringing back one of the hallmarks of the genre. In 1992, Sam and Max Hit the Road embodied the fun, light-hearted style of adventure games, and was truly funny. The humour is in part due its comic book pedigree, with the cartoon-styled Freelance Police, consisting of Sam (think Philip Marlowe, as a talking dog, wearing a suit) and Max (a slightly unhinged and physically dangerous rabbit), trying to solve offbeat cases using whatever violent methods necessary. It took nine years, a couple of comic books, and an animated TV show, before LucasArts thought it was the time to put out another Sam and Max game. And then it was canned.

But all is not lost. Telltale Games, which already produces a 3D, episodic adventure series, Bone, picked up the rights to Sam and Max. Now, along with a bunch of former LucasArts employees and Sam and Max creator, Steve Purcell, Telltale Games will produce a six-episode season.

Eight hundred and ninety-five cents of fun
There’s not much that can be said about Sam and Max: Culture Shock without giving away the plot. We can, however, say that it’s classic Sam and Max adventuring, with the duo bringing down a terrorist group of former child actors. It’s a ridiculous story, told through wonderful graphics, and the best voice acting you’ll get in a game. Puzzles can make or break an adventure game, but there are enough clues and hints to make each solution strangely logical, albeit violent. The unique puzzles are neatly woven into the story – even the dodgy car chase sequence is really just a puzzle wrapped up in an arcade game. Furthermore, although the relatively few rooms are recycled throughout the course of the story, they’re reused in creative ways. The office is revisited numerous times, making it the prologue puzzle, a psychotherapeutic dream sequence, and a metaphysical representation of Sam’s mind.

From a design perspective, it’s a departure from both traditional and recent adventure games. Firstly, while it’s 3D, it’s still an old-school 2D point-and-click adventure. The 3D engine delivers more interesting cut scenes and animations than a straight up 2D would, and the seamless scrolling and close-up dialogue transitions give you the feeling you’re playing a Saturday morning cartoon.

Also enhancing the cartoon feel is the episodic release cycle. Each episode, purchased through Telltale Games’ site (after an exclusive 15-day release on the US-only GameTap service – boo!) will cost US$8.95, and depending on how quickly you belt through the puzzles, will give roughly two to four hours of gaming. Also, rather than being a small part of a larger story-arc, each episode is self-contained, again similar to a cartoon series. We haven’t given much kudos to the episodic gaming movement, with Half-Life 2 and Sin: Episodes both falling well shy of giving us an appropriate bang for our US$20. But Culture Shock is so clever, and so smartly priced, that it’s well worth the download.

If bite-sized Sam and Max isn’t your thing, you can wait until all six episodes are complete and then put down US$34.95 for the whole season – that’s even more worthwhile, as each episode comes to about six bucks. Ultimately, there’s so much to like about Culture Shock and the only downside is that you’ll have to wait a month until the next one. But, like the cost, that’s a small price to pay.