Sam & Max are back after a 13 year hiatus, but is their new game worth the wait?
Excuse that short nugget of oddity, but Sam & Max are back! That should be a reason all by itself to go and pay the measly $8.95 that Telltale are asking for this absolute gem. This is classic point and click gaming mastery, way back from the days where LucasArts wasn't that company that made Star Wars games, but instead churned out lovingly created adventure games. Sam & Max was one of them. It never revolutionized the genre, but it ticked all the right boxes, along with featuring excellent voice acting.
In their latest venture into the adventure gaming realm (a realm that has been lacking anything slightly decent for the last decade or so) is on par with the original. Sam & Max make their transition into 3D, and where other games have failed and lost something in translation, Sam & Max loses almost nothing. The story's strong, the graphics, while not the best, can be experienced at a high resolution with a great framerate, the sound and voice acting is top notch, and the gameplay is simple without being overly simple.
In Sam & Max: Culture Shock, you assume the roles of Sam, a 6 foot anthropomorphic dog in the same vein as film-noir private detectives, and his "little buddy" Max, a violent rabbit thing. Something (most probably) sinister is going on in Sam & Max's strange, messed up neighbourhood, and it's your job (as one would expect) to solve the mystery of the "Washed up 70's child stars". I won't reveal the plot to you. Because I want you to buy it. But I will say that the entire game is hilarious. Click on everything.
The graphics are top notch. While it is a pretty much pre-rendered game, everything is nice and high res. In fact, even the most outdated of computers can run this game at the highest resolution at a solid framerate. The voice acting is, as you would expect, freakin' excellent. Some people (especially Sam & Max veterans) may find the new voice actors an unfortunate departure from the original (and the short lived TV series) but personally I found them excellent. However, some problems did crop up with one of the characters' voicetrack, which sounded a bit distorted when played a high volumes, but scooching the sound down a notch will solve this. All in all, buy this game. It's $8.95 for God's sake! Whilst only supplying 3 hours of gameplay (max!), it's a bargain and a half. The game is wonderful in everyway, and I assure you that you will never sleep again if you don't buy it. In fact, if you don't buy it, I'll make a visit to your house and stab you while you're sleeping. Buy this game!