DAY 13 / GAME 13 Sam and Max Hit the Road

DAY 13 / GAME 13

Sam and Max Hit the Road


             Back when I had bought some LucasArts game for my PC, I forget what game exactly, possibly Rebel Assault.  One of the things that was included on the disk was something I'd never seen before, and never saw again;  Trailers.  Now, trailers for games may be commonplace now as video is a regular part of our PC atmosphere, but back then it was a different story.  The neat thing about these trailers, is that they rendered in realtime.  They were like a demo that was unplayable, just a collection of realtime cutscenes.  So, there was one for Day of the Tentacle and one for Sam and Max Hit the Road.  (I think there was one or two more, but for the life of me I can't remember what they were.)  All of them looked amazing.  I never really got a good taste of adventure games until I got a hold of one of these.  

          Sam and Max were characters created by the incredible Steve Purcell who is now, and has been at Pixar for over 10 years.  Back then, he did a comic strip about a "anthropomorphic dog" and "hyperkenetic rabbity thing" who dubbed themselves the Freelance Police.  This comic was featured regularly in the LucasArts magazine The Adventurer that came packaged with their games and was eventually released as a full comic collection on it's own.  Sam and Max Hit the Road was the best embodiment of his strip.  It really felt as if the comic was based of the game. 


         Sam and Max was also one of the first 'talkie' adventure games from LucasArts.  Meaning it was one of the first to include actual voices for the dialogue.  Which was fantastic because when quality voice acting, (hard to come by at the time) and quality writing are paired together in a game like this, it just makes it even more memorable.  Between the wacky writing and the absolutely obscure puzzles, this adventure game really was one of a kind.

           Sam and Max really brings back a time for me when gaming was different.  AAA titles by the best talent and biggest company didn't have to be a big overcomplex blockbuster of a game.  Hit the Road is timeless, but for a huge company to try to sell a game like this in the market nowadays would mean certain death.  It's nice to see the indie developers trying to do similar things every once in a while but with the exception of a select few, noone's quite made anything that compares yet.  With that in mind, tomorrow is the beta release of Broken Age.  Tim Schafer and Double Fine's attempt to show publishers adventure gaming is still a viable market.  I'm really looking forward to seeing things come full circle and very excited to see what a legend like Tim can do to an adventure game now that he's at the helm of Double Fine.


            Sam and max also lived on to become a great, short lived cartoon animated created at Nelvana.  As well as a TellTale Games point and click adventure that was produced quite recently.