Sam and Max Save the World XBLA Review

Solving crime, one click at a time!

Another review coming at you guys, courtesy of baby Jesus giving us all 4 days off over the last weekend. I've had the two Sam & Max seasons sitting on the back burner for quite a while now, years probably. I'm hot and cold on Adventure Games, with one of my earliest gaming memories being puzzling my way through Mixed-Up Mother Goose on whatever toaster passed as a computer 20 odd years ago.

Mother Goose wants you!

Since then there have been some really interesting ones I've spent hours on trying to figure out what completely ridiculous combination of items will solve a puzzle (the Monkey Island games). Then there have been those that didn't catch my attention and left me bored and annoyed, eventually leading me to using a walk through or just never finishing them. Even the good ones have resulted in me looking up an solution here and there, but I bet we're all guilty of doing so in one game or another.

The comic looks pretty cool!

Overview
Sam & Max Save the World is the first season of the Telltale episodic adventure game staring Sam and Max most know from the classic Lucas Arts adventure game Sam & Max Hit the Road. Sadly I never experienced this game but many people had fond memories of it as evidenced by the relative excitement the news of their return created. Sam & Max aren't Lucas Arts creations, however, they were based of a comic by Steve Purcell. There has been at least a couple more attempts at creating a Sam & Max game which were sadly cancelled and even a TV show.

Sam is a mostly human dog who dresses solely in a suit, while Max is a crazed rabbit who runs around nude. They run a freelance police agency who take on different missions throughout this season when the chief of police phones them up. Max's solution to most things is to either annoy or beat the answer out of whatever is in your way, while Sam is the cooler headed of the group reigning him in and trying to solve things more peacefully (only barely most of the time). Both companions get their way throughout the series.

Rational
I enjoyed the Sam & Max for the most part, however it did start to drag towards the end of this season. Every episode starts the same way, and you end up clicking on all the stuff you clicked on in the previous episodes just in case one of those things is needed this time. It's a waste of the first 30 minutes of gameplay and while they do change the comments Sam & Max make about some items, most of them remain the same.

Freelance Police Head Office

The thing I most liked about Sam & Max is that most everything you need to use to solve a puzzle is fairly obvious. There are no obscure item combinations or obtuse uses of an item that don't really make sense for the most part. In this way it removes what I found to be one of the most frustrating parts of adventure games. You encounter a puzzle and by thinking back to a conversation had previously or a remark Sam or Max made about an item you can usually figure out what to do next. There are a few points where this wasn't the case and I ended up looking at a walkthrough but even then I tried to figure out most things for myself.

Whizzer keeping it real

Only when I came to the fifth episode had I grown tired of the series and used a walkthrough to power through, but then again this is mostly my fault for playing all episodes back to back to try and complete the game quickly. If I was playing purely for fun I would have stopped and maybe came back to it sometime down the line. Knowing me however I usually never return to a game if I leave it which is why I try to only have one game going at a time. All the episodes are laid out the same way, and while they have a common thread of story through them all, I found it a bit too samey.

Summary
While playing the game was enjoyable for a while at the end of it it became a bit of a drag. Not having all the episodes start pretty much the exact same way for the first 30 mins would have alleviated this a bit and I might have enjoyed the back quarter of my time with the game a bit more. As it stands however this is a solid adventure gaming series by Telltale and even if this genre of game had more competition this would still warrant a play through. If you don't like adventure games then you'll probably find nothing here to change your mind unless you are a big Sam & Max fan.