Man, I need to play more of the LucasArts games, if Hit the Road is anything to go by.
I played the later TellTale games before this, so it was neat seeing what Sam & Max's first (video game) outing was like. Turns out it's not too unfamiliar - while I'm sure "Sam & Max Save the World" is based on the cancelled "Freelance Police" game first and foremost, you can see the direct lineage throughout, in stuff like the cardboard box inventory and the player specifically controlling Sam with Max mostly doing his own thing or being there for hints.
But the upshot of the presentation style is that this game feels way less restrained than its sequel. Not sure if it's because the game is in 2D or because it's got the backing of LucasArts, but even at Sam & Max's most ambitious under TellTale (i.e. "The Devil's Playhouse"), we'd never quite see Sam & Max running around doing something so outrageous. TellTale's games highlight the zaniness of Steve Purchell's character writing, but here we really see his scenario writing and love for excessive environmental detail at work. Hard not to love stuff like people bungee-jumping out of Mount Rushmore, or the secret moleman lair in the Tunnel of Love, or famed naturalist John Muir.
(The thing to love about Sam & Max is if you talk about it out of context, you sound completely unhinged)
Sam & Max is at its best when it's able to present an exaggerated take on something, usually elements of American pop culture. In this case, it's skewering much of roadside Americana, and that gives it a wide sweeping field to play with. If you haven't driven around the US much, I don't know how well this will play for you (I guess most folks will get the Mystery Vortex's whole thing thanks to Gravity Falls).
Me, I love love love roadtrips, so I was very much at home with the shout-outs that you get a great cross-section of the experience here. The only thing that's really missing is a Wall Drug stand-in. But you don't really get the full effect without hundreds of miles of roadsigns, so I can accept that that one's outside the scope of this game. Otherwise, you have a lot of the very specific peculiarities that give roadside America its charm, properly sent-up and ridiculed for all its inherent absurdity.
I'll say also that playing it summer of 2020 really helped the whole experience. I couldn't do a summer vacation that year, so I decided it'd be fun to tackle this on-stream as a "road trip/summer vacation" title for everyone (viewable here). Really elevated the thing for me.
I played the later TellTale games before this, so it was neat seeing what Sam & Max's first (video game) outing was like. Turns out it's not too unfamiliar - while I'm sure "Sam & Max Save the World" is based on the cancelled "Freelance Police" game first and foremost, you can see the direct lineage throughout, in stuff like the cardboard box inventory and the player specifically controlling Sam with Max mostly doing his own thing or being there for hints.
But the upshot of the presentation style is that this game feels way less restrained than its sequel. Not sure if it's because the game is in 2D or because it's got the backing of LucasArts, but even at Sam & Max's most ambitious under TellTale (i.e. "The Devil's Playhouse"), we'd never quite see Sam & Max running around doing something so outrageous. TellTale's games highlight the zaniness of Steve Purchell's character writing, but here we really see his scenario writing and love for excessive environmental detail at work. Hard not to love stuff like people bungee-jumping out of Mount Rushmore, or the secret moleman lair in the Tunnel of Love, or famed naturalist John Muir.
(The thing to love about Sam & Max is if you talk about it out of context, you sound completely unhinged)
Sam & Max is at its best when it's able to present an exaggerated take on something, usually elements of American pop culture. In this case, it's skewering much of roadside Americana, and that gives it a wide sweeping field to play with. If you haven't driven around the US much, I don't know how well this will play for you (I guess most folks will get the Mystery Vortex's whole thing thanks to Gravity Falls).
Me, I love love love roadtrips, so I was very much at home with the shout-outs that you get a great cross-section of the experience here. The only thing that's really missing is a Wall Drug stand-in. But you don't really get the full effect without hundreds of miles of roadsigns, so I can accept that that one's outside the scope of this game. Otherwise, you have a lot of the very specific peculiarities that give roadside America its charm, properly sent-up and ridiculed for all its inherent absurdity.
I'll say also that playing it summer of 2020 really helped the whole experience. I couldn't do a summer vacation that year, so I decided it'd be fun to tackle this on-stream as a "road trip/summer vacation" title for everyone (viewable here). Really elevated the thing for me.