Sam & Max Hit the Road

[classicgamer74]

Have you ever heard of Sam & Max?  They got a few of their own video games.  This is the first of them.  A PC point and click game from the 90's.  What are some of your favorite PC games from that genre?

[Frozone212]

my childhood! I have Monkey island 3 and love it. That game was funny but the show was hilarious

[doctorclu]

Ok, where do I start on Sam & Max, except that they are zanny fun and I love them!

 

I first saw them in Sierra Online catalogs... no?   I feel like they started somewhere in some video game magazine/catalog with like several panel stories.

 

Then I really got into the Sam & Max Franchise with their animated series, which is one of those series I love to rewatch every now and then.

 

Then I lost track of them for years.   Then Telltale made a ongoing Sam & Max series.   And it was then I found out about the comics (not as many as you'd think, but great), the early PC games, and the games that came out later for the Wii and Playstation consoles and what not.

 

At the very end of Sam & Max hit the road have a shooting gallery where you can shoot various things, two of which look like R2D2 and a very hyped character and my favorite, Bubsy Bobcat. 

 

 

A lot of the Bubsy fans got a kick out of that, and I think it is cool that Bubsy is oddly in their bizarre universe.

 

You have tipped your toe in the fountain of greatness. 

[+Schmitzi]

 

Oh yes, and I can see the the purple Tentacle ?

Was a great game too, and really Lucas´ style

I remember all those nights...

 

[zzip]

12 hours ago, classicgamer74 said:

Have you ever heard of Sam & Max?  They got a few of their own video games.  This is the first of them.  A PC point and click game from the 90's.  What are some of your favorite PC games from that genre?

Sam and Max Hit the Road was probably my favorite of the LucasArts adventures!    They had a sequel in the works in the early 00's and it supposedly was nearly complete when it got cancelled by LucasArts who seemed to only want to focus on Star Wars titles by that time.

 

Some of the team left LucasArts to form TellTale, who produced 3 "seasons" of Sam and Max games,  before they started chasing big name franchises instead.

 

Both LucasArts and TellTell died a few years after abandoning Sam and Max.   Coincidence? :)

 

I wasn't that crazy about the episodic format that Telltale did.   Each episode only gave you a small world to explore, and a lot of locations were repeated throughout the season,  and the quality of the episodes varied greatly from amazing to meh. 

[doctorclu]

8 minutes ago, zzip said:

I wasn't that crazy about the episodic format that Telltale did.   Each episode only gave you a small world to explore, and a lot of locations were repeated throughout the season,  and the quality of the episodes varied greatly from amazing to meh. 

 

My take away from this was that you found some of the Telltale stories amazing.  Nice! 

[Reaperman]

Within the last couple months, I actually beat that game for the very first time. I was not seeing that ending coming.  I will confess to needing help probably half a dozen times.

 

I know those old Lucasarts games were aiming to be funny, but for whatever reason the humor never worked very well on me, even BITD. But the gameplay itself is usually good enough to get me through. Except monkey island--I can't do those, too silly.

Edited April 13, 2021 by Reaperman

[Tanooki]

Heard of it sure, also own the Talkie CD release of it entirely complete with all the books (coloring, hint, etc.)  Also own the comic book the game is based on Sam &  Max Surfin the Highway plus a couple other bits it lacks, loved the cartoon in the day but don't have access to it now.  I tried hard to like the telltale stuff, personality was there, but the obtuse to no aggravating end setup on the items/usage put me off them entirely.

 

It's a second favorite though from the SCUMM engine, #1 goes to Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, which I also own entirely complete with its books/hint guide too.  That is on a whole other level of any others they've done, it's straight up movie quality as an equal, and while challenging the puzzles aren't some moon logic puzzle BS that Sam&Max (on Telltales watch) suffers from sadly.  Until Crystal Skull came along decades later, to me, it was the lost 4th Indy movie.

[IntelliMission]

Sam & Max is not one of my favorite graphic adventures due to its illogical puzzles and what I perceive as failed comedy. Here's a few games I think you should try instead of Sam & Max:

 

- Lucasarts games you should try before Sam & Max:

    1) Definitely start with The Secret of Monkey Island and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Puzzles make sense in those games, and the graphics are pretty cool too. Play the EGA versions, as they're the original.

    2) After those, you could try the 2nd tier games like Monkey Island 2 and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Not as good as the first ones due to some strange puzzles here and there, but still pretty good.

    3) Finally, you can also try Loom and Full Throttle. Loom is a bit too simple and Full Throttle a bit short, but they're still cool.

 

- Sierra games you should try before Sam & Max (I don't count Quest for Glory games as they have RPG elements) :

    1) Space Quest I, IV and V are great fun and don't contain nearly as many weird puzzles as Sam & Max, so you can start with those. And the comedy attempts work (except for SQV, but that one is so beautiful and solid that we can ignore that)!

    2) After that, maybe you can try Eco Quest (very underrated and solid), Larry 1 VGA and Conquests of the Longbow. Careful with some silly dead ends in Larry 1 VGA, though.

    3) Finally, Larry 5 and Larry 6 have some issues (5 is too easy), but at least they're not full of illogical puzzles like S&M.

 

- Other hidden gems that I consider superior to Sam & Max:

   - The trio of French graphic adventures Fascination, Ween and Lost in Time. They control like Myst, but the puzzles make sense (and when they don't, you can have "fun" using everything with everything because the sceneries are small and the movement is very fast, unlike games like Day of the Tentacle). They're not perfect by any means (you can die in Fascination, Ween has some unnecessary puzzles with magic objects and Lost in Time turns into a McGyver simulation often), but they're relaxing experiences compared to S&M. Careful with the "Zodiac Clock" puzzle in Fascination, though, as people have problems completing it even with the solution.

 

With all that said, I believe it's about time I give Sam & Max: Hit the Road another go, as I've completely forgotten about all the solutions to the puzzles after more than 20 years. At least I won't need to control several characters separately (I hate that!). I will prepare for a "try everything with everything" journey, though.

Edited April 22, 2021 by IntelliMission

[Tanooki]

Wow...Fate of Atlantis second tier?  I believe you're the first person who has ever said that one was worse than the Indy III/Last Crusade game as it's just more clunky.

[7800Knight]

I loved Sam & Max Hit the Road.  I was laughing so hard at the jokes and I started saying them wherever I went like referring to a dartboard as "vertical silverware storage".

[zzip]

On 4/24/2021 at 9:41 PM, 7800Knight said:

I loved Sam & Max Hit the Road.  I was laughing so hard at the jokes and I started saying them wherever I went like referring to a dartboard as "vertical silverware storage".

I've probably used the line "facilities be damned, I need a bathroom!" once or twice in my life :)