Review: Sam and Max Save the World

There is a genre of gaming that has seen little light over the past few years as far as in a mainstream sense, with most big hits today filled with flying bullets, high body counts and forgettable plot lines. After getting a chance to sit down with one of these alternative titles for a while I believe I know the reason-its simply not very fun to play. I speak of the point and click adventure game, a dying breed held over from the original days of PC gaming culture. More specifically, I speak of Sam and Max Save the World, the Xbox Live Arcade port of the furry duo’s episodic PC exploits.

Now, for those of you who have been living under a rock or completely missed out on the awesome but short lived cartoon series from the early 90’s, Sam and Max are a pair of vigilante private detectives or as they call themselves “Freelance Police.” Sam is a six foot tall dog in a blue-grey suit armed with not only a detailed knowledge of the English vernacular shown in his drawn out segments of dialogue, but also with a magnum that would make Dirty Harry proud and is the generally peaceful inquisitive problem-solver of the pair. I say generally because on some rare occasions, he loses his temper and becomes outright savage, ending when his friend and partner Sam manages to calm him down. Sam is a three foot tall “hyperkinetic rabbity thing” with white fur and demented grin whose role is that of comedic sidekick with a love of violence, carnage and a memory span of a goldfish.

With such imaginative characters and outlandish missions, there’s plenty of potential entertainment available. What it comes down to though is an occasionally frustrating point and click nightmare that kept me playing just to figure out what sort of twist the story would take next. As stated above, Sam and Max Save the World is a collection of the PC Sam and Max episodes, and the controls don’t migrate all too well to the Xbox 360 console. You watch the delightful cut scenes, get your objective, then drag the mouse reticule all over the screen with your analogue stick to see what it is you can interact with.

The entire game is based around you clicking on the background to move your characters around, then finding/equipping an item for current or later use. Interactions with other characters are performed through an effective though archaic dialogue tree in which you simple scroll down and choose the option you want to go with. Each one will open a new choice, but there’s usually just one that’ll actually move you farther in the game.

The graphics in the game are awesome for an arcade game. But this is simply because it is a straight port from the PC titles where there was an actual budget to use. Animations are fluid, the character designs are spot on and the dialogue is stupendous. If you were ever a fan of their comic or TV exploits, then you’re sure to find the same enjoyment here.

More than just a stand-alone title, this is a collection of playable episodes, six total in this excursion, each with a different story and villain for the duo to try and topple. Each is a port that has been available for some time on the PC, so for those who have already experienced the games there, there’s really nothing new to see in this collection, and though you get quite a bit of play out of each of these, once you figure out what to do there’s really no reason to play them again, aside for enjoyment of the characters.

If you’ve been waiting to finally get your Sam and Max on, rejoice 360 owners! The games are funny and the writing is stupendous, but it would be a lot better if the game play was a different style. Its just not that fun to play a game meant to be played with a mouse with a controller.

This review of Sam and Max Save the World was written by Adam, a guest writer! Thanks for contributing!