Sam & Max Episode 1: Culture Shock Review (PC)

Silly, Hilarious, Fun. You guys have been away far to long!

I am an avid reader of Retro Gamer. In the latest issue I discovered to my joy that a new Sam & Max had been released.
So I immediately got hold of a copy and boy was I glad I did!
Some of you may not remember the original Sam & Max. It was a pint and click adventure from Lucas Arts that was just silly. It was filled with daft puzzles, great gags and a psychotic rabbit!!

Well nothing has changed! The graphics are better, the sound is good, but essentially it is the same mad game it always was.

This time the game is episodic, with 6 episodes slated for release. Culture shock follows the dynamic duo, of sensible dog detective Sam and manically violent rabbit Max, on the trail of eye fitness guru with plans of world domination!

The best way to explain the game is to give you the first puzzle. After a very nice animated intro the phone rings. Trouble is the phone has been taken hostage by a rat living in Sam & Max?s office. The rats want Swiss cheese in return for the phone!
This gives you a chance to get used to the very simple controls. You hover your mouse over things, if the cursor changes you can do something with that object. For instance open a door.
So after a bit of searching, clicking and some great dialogue you find a stash of cheese in a wardrobe (!?) But it is not Swiss. So Sam (the dog) shoots the cheese full of holes, hey presto Swiss cheese.
That kind of sets you up for the rest of the game. You then need to interrogate the rat. This is menu driven, but is interesting in that it gives you choices of who says what. This gives you a kind of good cop bad cop feeling to the dialog.

Its not all point and click, you get to shoot at stuff and drive the duos car pulling over suspects so there is a bit of action in there.
But that is not what this game is about. It is about incredibly well scripted comedy! The game is funny, laugh out loud funny.
The soundtrack reminds you of old detective movie you used to watch when you were off school ill. The script is not only well written but very well voice acted, although not by the original cast, both characters still sound just the way you would expect them.
The graphics are nice. They are nothing ground breaking, but they fit the game perfectly, with smooth animation and great cartoony visualisation of the characters and environments.

It is not a long adventure and is a little easy, but that doesn?t matter. It is not very expensive (about £5 from www.telltalegames.com/samandmax) and there are more episodes to come!!

Give it a go. A bit of retro fun never hurts, especially when it is this damn good!!

The Good: Laugh out loud funny. Easy to get into. A real blast for the past.
The Bad: It is point and click, some may find this to dated now!

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Gold Y Award

4.5 / 5