Sam & Max Season 2 Comments by Dan Whitehead

I'm experiencing major deja vu here. Isn't this virtually identical to the recap of Season One in places?

It's an interesting viewpoint you've presented, but I can't shake the feeling you've forgotten to actually write a review, in terms of recommending whether or not your readers should spend their money or not. In my opinion, the Sam & Max series so far is the absolute best value gaming money can buy, possibly excepting the Orange Box. Having got the first episode free for completing a survey at Telltale's website, I got the whole of Season 2 for £15, which is roughly £1 per hour of the finest comic writing I've experienced in *any* medium over the past year. Season 2's finale had me absolutely giddy with glee, and for that sort of creativity I'd endure any amount of repeated environments and reused characters - which somehow never felt too stale this season, on account of the apparently endlessly creative and compelling reasons to revisit the same locations (especially in "Chariots of the Dogs").

I should point out that I hadn't been interested in Season 2, because despite having enjoyed Season 1, by the end it had become too much of a laboured slog through the same locations with too much old-school point & click trial & error gameplay. Playing just one episode of Season 2 completely dissolved my fears that it would be 'more of same' - it's a massive improvement in terms of variety.

I'm inclined to think of your piece as a "critique" rather than a "review", and it's worth reiterating (though you did point it out) that the issues you've raised are problems with the whole point & click genre in general. I think if you'd played Season 2 with all hints turned off, you'd probably have found it just as obscure and impossible as I found some of Season 1. Without Max's subtle (and sometimes rather unsubtle) hints, I would never in a million years have solved the last set of puzzles in "Beelzebub", especially the 'music contest', the 'bleeps' and the 'candle' puzzles - don't tell me you thought those had straightforward, easily-predicted solutions. Personally I think, hint system in place, that Sam & Max Season 2 strikes the perfect balance by making the puzzles weird enough to require genuine head-scratching while keeping the player well clear of the dreaded 'try-everything-on-everything' approach, which is always just a horrible waste of time.

In a way I think we're in danger of simply asking too much, here. We've had two full seasons of some of the best writing in gaming so far, and we've had it delivered at a quick, regular pace, for the price of a couple of CDs. That deserves massive praise in my book, and the fact that the Telltale team haven't completely revolutionised the point&click genre in the process (which is what you appear to be asking for) is not cause for concern.

@PameBoy

Word!

i bought season one on dvd but it wont work. It seems to be my new DVD drive (samsung sata, 203n i think). It works in other peoples drives just not mine. Very odd as absolutely every other game works happily.

The disk just spins without ever loading.

Hmm.

Actually, my problem with Season 2 is not with the point and click mechanics - admittedly these aren't the best puzzles I've ever seen, but they work and the hints are most helpful when it's just Max saying that he wants to go to another location - saves a lot of randomly exploring the wrong room looking for something you missed.

My main problem was that there wasn't enough of a reset between season 1 and season 2 - they had a tutorial at the beginning of S2E1, but anyone who was actually new to the story would have absolutely no IDEA why (season 1 spoilers ahead) Max was president, Sybil was going out with a giant abe lincoln head, who the hell the COPS were, and so on and so forth. The absolute worst example of this was the inclusion of the Soda Poppers at the beginning, even though they serve absolutely no purpose and were one of the least liked things about season 1.

Thankfully, the episodes themselves do mix it up, and much less time is spent in the main street. At the same time, the recurring elements are more varied, with fewer repeated puzzle structures (get money for something from Bosco, use Sybil's new job in some way) so that there's a lot more variety from episode to episode. Episode 4's puzzle structure, in particular, is quite different to anything else we've had so far. I dragged myself back to Season 2 after a frustrated hiatus, and for that reason I found myself very rewarded despite my reservations.

But I really, really hope that for season 3, they approach it from scratch, tone down the references to everything that has happened before and make it stand as a season on its own, rather than something that relies on the events of season 1 and 2. Because if they carry on this way it's going to be like watching something in a foreign language by the time we get to season 5.

Eurogamer's reviews of these always appear to me to be actively looking for faults.

These are solid 8/10s all round for me. The antiquity of the genre is offset somewhat by the inexpensiveness.

/is suprised that those are real words

Yeah, Pame's dead right - I agree with him for the most part. Although I will say that the puzzles didn't really bother me (with on the music contest resulting in some aimless wandering - I ended up solving it by sheer fluke).

Telltale have judged the puzzles reasonably well in my view. Even with the hints off there is some nice subtle prodding to send you on your way (Sam's comment of "Perhaps I should shoot someone who wants to die" was the catalyst for me solving a chain of puzzles that gave me that nice warm glow of having figured something out) though I do agree that some puzzles are just that little bit too obvious and don't quite give you that same glow of satisfaction. Again though it's just one of the limitations of the genre and is preferable to ridiculously obscure puzzles.

Over the whole I'd say the season was probably worth an 8. Episode 1 was good, 2 and 3 dropped in quality a bit, 4 was sheer brilliance (and managed to do something completely different) and 5 rounded things off nicely.

Good gags, brilliant art, decent puzzles and above all cheap; Telltale have definitely got the hang of the episodic thing and I'm looking forward to seeing more from Sam and Max in the future. Not perfect; but if you want a revolution in adventure gameplay it's going to have to come from elsewhere, personally I'm just glad that there's been a reconnaissance. All I need is a return of some quality space dogfighting games and I'll be a happy chappy!

Edit - a bit harsh maybe. I'll leave it at that the series has a few problems..

My favourite remains 'situation comedy' from season one.
I bought season two but haven't really gotten the same vibe as I got with season one. It's good fun and a laugh, but it's not addictive anymore.
7/10 sounds right

I've said it before (and to Telltale themselves no less) and I'll say it again: the way to imbue more variety into the puzzles for these games is to make each episode an expansion pack rather than a standalone game. That way players could revisit locations and characters from previous episodes and use them for puzzles in the current episode, encouraging more creative solutions, more exploration, and greater variety. I realise this goes against the "episodic" marketting model because it makes the episodes less self-contained (both in terms of plotline and as shelf products), but, realistically, I doubt many people would start playing a season from the middle so I don't think it would cost them too many sales. One of the great things about the old Lucasart classics is coming across a puzzle that seems completely incoprehensible at first, until you remember about an object or NPC you came across hours ago, and suddenly it all makes sense - that satisfying feeling when you see that pirate's pet rat, and you KNOW it'll have something to do with the story, but for all of your wracking your brains you can't see how until you get the string and the stick and the cheese and then everything clicks together in your mind! These games are too short to give you that kind of feeling, and reusing assets from previous episodes would allow the devs to put an element of that in there.