Sam & Max -- Season 1 Episode #4: Abe Lincoln Must Die! Review - PC

My uncle once told me that episodic content was the wave of the future – along with flying cars, solar-powered flashlights, and make-up you tattoo on the skin. This may explain why he lives in a cardboard box over at main and third. Despite what the psychological community keeps insisting, he might not be too far off from his first idea – episodic content. While other games have crashed and burned often before getting out the first hint of story, one series has defied the odds not only to create an entertaining and affordable game, but also doing it consistently over several months. Sam and Max balance upon the razor’s edge of story and interactivity. While their performance may miss a step at times, the final three acts of the episodic adventures of Sam and Max end the first season on a well-deserved high note.

Don’t Touch that Dial

To actually sit down and describe each episode of Sam and Max is a lot like trying to unravel and interdimensional sweater. Following one string is rather easy but you’re more than likely to end up somewhere completely different from where you started like a prosthetic leg shop or Paris Hilton’s back hair. While the imaginative characters reel you in at the beginning, it’s the looping twists and turns of this story that you drive down in a beat up De Soto that brings gamers back again and again. If you want a quick summary of each episode, just take a glimpse at the TV listings.

Episode 4 “Abe Lincoln Must Die” – When the President of the United States goes crazy, Sam and Max must step in to find his senses. Come for the giant Lincoln robot, stay for the musical number. 

Episode 5 “Reality 2.0” – It’s like our reality without the shading. Sam and Max wrestling with old gaming jokes as machines of the past take over the present.

Episode 6 “The Bright Side of the Moon” – This is it. Everything has been building up to one last mission to save the world. Who’s been behind it all? If you don’t know by now, you probably haven’t been playing the game.

Comforting like an Old Sweater Trying to Kill You

If you’ve clicked through the first three episodes, then you know the procedure. Sam, a pooch with a knack for the vernacular, and Max, an abomination of bunny-hood with his jaw firmly set in an sadistic grin, start each case with a problem which inevitably leads them to Bosco, the paranoid inconvenient store manager, and Sybil, a woman with multiple job disorder. You pick up clues that lead to new areas with even more items to click. Nothing is without a purpose in this little crime noir.  While the flow may have that “been there, microwaved that unicorn” feel to it, the story behind the game overshadows the game’s repetitive shortcomings.

Sam and Max don’t really cut corners, but gnaw on the corners they have to make things slightly different. To put out a new wacky adventure every month, sometimes you have to apply your less-than-wacky copying skills to the test. Like any TV sitcom, it makes sense to keep returning to familiar environments. Just because they have the same office for every episode doesn’t mean you don’t have a reason to go back there. Most of the episodes take you off the block to different locals to explore like the White House or the Moon. Reality 2.0 feels like the only cheated episode by staging the virtual world in the same square block with different items. Developers mange to hinder the monotony of the series by giving every click a new trick.

The Bottom Line of Comedy

Going back to that razors edge, Sam and Max walk down a fine line between story and game. When the game works, puzzles move the story along with a dancing cavalcade of characters. No dance is without a misstep here and there. Dialogues drag on and often loop in a never ending demise. Trickier puzzles leave voids of soundless game play as you click through random objects. Even when you know exactly what you want, the multiple shifting of loading screens slows the tedious pace that beseeches the point-and-click genre. Despite the problems, the final three episodes of Sam and Max deliver what few other games dare to go – a fun and affordable experience that actually hits the shelves on time.  

Article by: Rob Manuel
Video produced by: Mark Fahey