Sam & Max, the Freelance Police duo, are back in a fresh remaster of a game that was originally released in 2006 by the now defunct dev studio known as Telltale. Telltale made their business around strong stories, episodic games, and licensed franchises that included The Walking Dead, Minecraft Story Mode, Batman, The Wolf Among Us, and Back To the Future to name a few. One of their earliest efforts though was Sam & Max: Season One, a six part episodic series which was known as Sam & Max Save the World when it was made for sale on console (Wii and Xbox 360).
Fast forward nearly fifteen years, licensing issues in the rearview, and now we have developer Skunkape re-releasing this classic on PC (Steam and GOG) and the Nintendo Switch. Several original Telltale team members are on the Skunkape staff, which is pretty special and not typically common for games that get a remaster all these years later. This remaster features all six episodes, each having received some serious technical work. Plus, the release now feels more like a complete package rather than bite-sized episodes, although you can still pick which episode you want to play from the start menu. The best news, perhaps, is that the core gameplay — from all of the excellent writing, humor, artwork, puzzles, are all intact, but the presentation is vastly improved.
Resorting to Skunkape’s FAQ reveals a lot about what they did in this remaster. For starters, the game originally was in 4:3 ratio with a max res of 1024×768, which is very low even in 2006 standards. This has been re-worked for a 16:9 ratio with the highest max res your PC will support. For me, that res is 2560×1080, and obviously the game runs perfectly smooth, even on my aging gaming rig that I’m just about too embarrassed to mention the specs of. The addition of dynamic lighting and improved lip sync adds some quality of life to the game, too. Control inputs include the traditional mouse point and click (my preferred way), keyboard-only, or gamepad. All audio files, originally compressed to save space, have been remastered and re-encoded with modern codecs, providing the best combination of frugal development with high quality presentation.
The FAQ also mentions how character models were adjusted with input from series creator Steve Purcell. A few adjustments on some cutscenes and five new jazz tracks round out an impressive amount of passionate work that went in to restoring this forgotten gem from the point and click adventure genre. Speaking of the new jazz tracks, I have no idea which tracks they are, but the whole soundtrack does a great job of setting a fun tone. The soundtrack is also available to purchase on digital outlets starting this week, by the way. Anyway, the world of Sam & Max is not quite like anything I have ever played in before; it’s very creative, yet grounded, very zany, yet not too far out in left field. Everything from the storylines, the characters, the dialog, it’s kooky, but in a fun and charming way.
Though the package of Sam & Max is cohesive, the individual episodes have independent storylines. However, there are some NPCs that pop back in again but in creative and developed ways; in other words, they aren’t static, but they have evolved in some way in between episodes. I thought this added an appreciable sense of continuity to the game world that transcends the individual episodes. The storylines themselves are bizarre and might not even sound terribly appealing on paper, but actually playing them is a lot of fun. One reason I enjoyed Sam & Max is just in the idea of a detective canine that packs a six shooter (that you can shoot just about whenever) and a fedora and has a rabbit friend (Max) as a partner in crimefighting. Though you don’t control Max, he is always present and often has something to say, which fortunately is usually amusing or even funny, but in rare occasions he can become a tad bit annoying. Side note, anytime you instruct Sam to walk somewhere and Max is in the way, Sam swats Max up and out of the screen, and Max gently lands a second later. This method of dealing with collision issues between the two characters is funny and fits at the atmosphere of the game nicely, bound to at least derive a smirk out of most players.
Another reason this game is still so fun today is the writing. There is so much humorous and witty dialog, from Sam’s lengthy wild phrases to Max’s quick quips encouraging (humorously violent) action, it comes together very well, and unlike any other duo in media that I can recall. Dialog options are pretty extensive as you talk to the many NPCs, and exhausting all dialog options is always worth it because the writing is that good. If you start to repeat dialog, you can skip it, and similarly the ability for the duo to run on command helps when you’re trying to figure out where to go and what to try next — I appreciated this little way of making the most of my playtime. That said, I found the puzzle design to be great, to the point I didn’t have many times where I was at a lost on what to do. Sometimes Max has a good tip, but usually if you listen or read the dialog closely and observe your surroundings thoroughly, the answers aren’t too hard to find (granted, I would consider myself a veteran of the genre). Oh, I don’t recall if the original game had the means to highlight all objects on a screen, but this remaster does allow you to press a button to reveal all objects on screen, which means you won’t have to pixel-hunt (as we used to call it) to find everything that there is to interact with.
The storylines across the episodes are highly varied and plenty goofy, ranging from hypnotized actor kids from the 70s trying to push an eye exercise video to everyone in the city, to Max entering into an election against a mech that looks like the Abraham Lincoln statue, to duo having to enter into a virtual computer world to save an NPC in the real world. It’s hard to explain these stories without spoiling them, and they’re so bizarre that you just have to experience them for yourself. Were it not for the great art, writing, and puzzle design, the very creative storylines just wouldn’t hold much water, but that isn’t a problem here — Sam & Max Save the World fires on all cylinders very well, with little room left for disappointment.
It’s quite likely that we will see the remaster of seasons two and three of Sam & Max in the coming months, especially as Skunkape has placeholders on their website currently. Given their passionate effort and the result of this season one remaster, adventure gamers should be both excited at this release and have a lot to look forward to. At $20 (with owners of the original release able to save an additional 50%), this is an easy release to recommend to anyone that loves a great adventure game that has been revamped for modern play, but maintains all of the timeless quality and charm it had originally.
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