Sam & Max Episode 101: Culture Shock

"You crack me up, little buddy."

Sam and Max... The nostalgia it brings is like nothing else. The very first CD-rom that'd be mine. Just a kid, bad at English and still madly in love with both Sam and Max. Years have passed and now I'm still a kid in the ways I behave, my English became slightly better and I'm still in love with Sam and Max. This story might be the story of quite a few gamers. Not all the way, but I'm sure many of us gamers played the original Sam 'n Max and fell in love with the duo. So now there's a new game... it'll have to be pretty good to please the lovers.

The most important part of the Sam 'n Max game was the humor. Turning kittens inside out, the most complicated sentences by Sam and weird conversations in general. Does this new game feature this? Excited for the answer yet? Good. Anyway, yes it does. I had a lot of laughs and it seems Sam and Max never left us. They are back with just the same dose of humor.

What made the old point and click adventures so good was the puzzles, thinking that was involved and the level of difficulty. None of that. The game only knows one action per object (so you don't need to select if you want to talk, look, pick up or use an object), which makes the game a lot easier. Combine that with the number of areas you can walk around (7) and come to the conclusion the game isn't really hard. It's quite easy.

So what's the matter this time? After all, Sam and Max are freelance police and work on cases. Apparently something weird is going on involving famous teen celebrities, video-tapes and hypnotizing people. Did that sound weird to you? Turn away, this game isn't for you.

A big bag of negative comments around this game was based on the switch from 2D to 3D. Obviously this is not all that strange. Who would release a 2D game on the PC in 2006, regardless of any fans still alive that'd buy the game no matter what? Although the switch wasn't perfect it all came out pretty well. Sam looks good, Max looks good, the office they work in looks good... 3D Sam and Max works just as great. Graphical-wise it isn't too impressive, but that isn't necessary since it has to be cartoon-style anyway.

The Sam and Max theme was used in this game too, but next to that all music is new. Nothing outstanding though. The voice acting however, deserves to get a special point of attention. The original voice actors didn't do the voices for this game, but it still sounds very authentic. I had to check afterwards who did what in order to find out it were different people who did the voices of Sam and Max. Good job there.

A big fat 'I am very sad and angry' smiley goes to the duration of the game. While it's still good for around 3 to 5 hours, it's quite short. However, considering the price that may be not all too bad. It depends on your personal preferences, really. There is absolutely no replay value though. All conversations end the same, you can do any funny thing over and over as many time as you want and there are no secrets. Then again, it is an adventure game and they don't tend to have much (if any).

So the verdict - is this game worthy of becoming the next Sam 'n Max game? Yes it certainly is. The humor is back, Sam and Max are back and it's just a fun - yet easy - adventure game. If you are not too picky about your money it's definitely worth your money (and bandwidth, since this game doesn't ship in boxes).

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/06/06