"A Dog and a rabbit, sharing the same swan in the tunnel of love! Whatever next?"

You must have heard of them, Sam and Max, two of the greatest characters in gaming history? No? Lets jog your memory! A Dog as a detective and a rabbit who looks like Bonjo, the rabbit from 'A Day in hell', created by the creator of the Simpsons? No? The dog and rabbit which makes lots of cameo appearances in the Monkey Island series? Well if you have not heard of them, both of them are the stars of this game, and no, they was not created by the maker of The Simpsons, but rather the makers of Monkey Island and the company involved with Star Wars.

Lucasarts is famous for making games as well as films, such as the many Star Wars films, the outstanding Grim Fandango and the Monkey Island series. Sam and Max, one of the older Graphic Adventures for the computer is made by Lucasarts, and like the other masterpieces such as Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion, this is one of the best games ever!

''You won't believe how many times I heard that!''

Well, You won't, but this game has so much in it, so much freedom and so many fun things to do, this game will never get boring! The humor, the games, the puzzles, the characters, the graphics, the locations, the voices and the tunnel of love all make this game brilliant.

Meet Sam the dog, a detective and his sidekick, Max the 'Butt-Naked' rabbit! Both of them are on a quest to bring back an escaped Bigfoot back to the circus fun-fair, and rescue Trixie the Giraffe-neck girl from the clutches of the Sasquatch! The story seems basic, but it has several twists to it. The whole adventure takes Sam and Max to many locations, such as a fishing lake, The worlds largest ball of wool and even Ice cream restaurants!

Like the Monkey Island series, this game is jam-packed with brain teasing puzzles. They start off pretty easy, but get tricky very fast. One of the earlier puzzles is to make a torch. You can get a bulb early in the game and a bulb-less torch a little later, so what do you do? Combine them of course. Then the puzzles get hard, starting from the tunnel of love puzzle...

Sam and Max's most unique feature is the easy to use gameplay system. Instead of having about six commands at the bottom of the screen, like the Indiana Jones and the first two Monkey Island games, or a separate button like The Curse of Monkey Island, Sam and Max is a bit like Broken Sword. In Broken Sword, if you placed your point on something, it will turn in to an action sign or pick up sign, but in this game, you choose the sign. Using the right-click, you can get Walk, Talk, Pick-Up, Control and Look! . If you place one of these five on to an object, they give a small animation, so you can do something with them. If you use the control icon on Max, Sam's sidekick you control Sam (as usual) but you can use Max on several items, making him do some things!

Sam and Max also contains many mini-games. The first is a Whack-A-Mole style game, where you hit rats with a hammer (You can hit Max as well), You can also play a painting game, Battleships, Racing-type game and even a dress up game, the games never stop!

Sam and Max is one of the funniest, best-looking and greatest games ever, every owner of a computer should play this masterpiece!

Good

- Hilarious
- Great Gameplay, graphics and voice acting
- Mini-Games

Bad

- The tunnel of love is... frightening!

Summary

Graphics - 9/10
Sound - 10/10
Music - 10/10
Gameplay - 10/10
Story - 9/10
Challenge - 7/10
Enjoyment - 10/10
Lifespan - 10/10
Overall - 9/10

Alternatives: Try any Monkey Island game, Full Throttle, The Dig, Maniac Mansion, Grim Fandango, Broken Sword series, Discworld series and Day of the Tentacle!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/25/02, Updated 03/25/02