Sam and Max: The Adventure Games
By LucasArts, then TellTale Games
Genre: Graphical adventure
Steve Purcell is a comic artist best known for releasing Sam and Max: Freelance Police in the late 80s. This comic series (and what I’ll be talking about, the games) follows the adventures of a detective dog who works for a nebulously defined police agency (they are Freelance, after all!) and a psychopathic, deranged white rabbit who always has a skewed yet very funny perspective on events around him.
Together Sam and Max work out of a spottily-defined New York City, delving into issues of the mundane (though very rarely), the supernatural, the interstellar, and sometimes the just-plain-weird, Sam always with his more straight-laced approach and Max as his insane foil. However, my experience with the franchise has only been with the games, one by the adventure game masters of the 90s, LucasArts, and three episodic seasons by the resurrection of LucasArts (also responsible for Tales of Monkey Island and Back to the Future), TellTale.
You control Sam, as he and Max wander about their environments (as well as those totally new to them), and as with most adventure games take everything that’s not nailed down and pursue the completion of your cases with a total disregard for the law and public decency. But thanks to the games’ T-rating, it’s never TOO bad, but it is deranged enough just to be funny.
Season 1 (encapsulated in Sam and Max Save the World) is the most “normal” of the seasons, beginning with a plot by a group of former child stars to distribute a videotape series which hypnotizes the viewer, and going from there into more surreal encounters, ending up on the Moon to confront the masterminds of the hypnotism plot.
Season 2 (Sam and Max Beyond Time and Space) begins with Sam and Max on the run from the robot servant of a massive war god, for some reason, and ends with a journey to Hell to bargain for the soul of a close friend and informant.
Season 3 (The Devil’s Playhouse) sees a malevolent interstellar ape land on Earth looking for odd psychic-powered toys (which Max can use to gain additional powers like seeing the future, teleportation, transformation, and others!) and wraps up with Max somehow being transformed into a huge beast and terrorizing New York; Sam must stop him and return him to normal before it’s too late!
As mentioned, the third season gives quite a change-up to the gameplay, as you can take control of Max and make use of any of the Psychic Toys (a telephone to teleport to any real phone Max knows the number for, a ViewMaster to see the future, Silly Putty to transform, etc) he’s found along the way. These skills become quite useful to avoid backtracking as well as to receive hints and pointers to your next objectives, whenever you need them.
If you want a twisted tale with memorable characters and outrageous situations, check out Sam and Max. You won’t regret it! For the games in the series I’ve played, five stars each!