Cheese it! It's the freelance fuzz!

Episodic content is very much in vogue at the moment. The quicker development times, lower risks and faster returns make it an attractive model for smaller developers working on projects that won't get any major label exposure. What that means for me and you is that we get to play new and interesting games more often, albeit in smaller chunks. Well, when it's done correctly of course. If not we have to deal with a wait of over a year between episodes so tantalising as to make the wait practically illegal under the Geneva Convention. Bless you Valve, we love you, but please, just release the damn thing and stop teasing us.

Anyway, Telltale Games have grabbed the episodic bull by its bite-sized horns and have become a paragon for how it should be done. Releasing entertaining, self contained episodes in a timely fashion and with a minimum of fuss. And it's in this form that the unphaseable mutt and wabbit more wascally than most return for shenanigans, hijinks and possibly tomfoolery, with all six of the new episodes available on one shiny disc.

For anyone not familiar with Sam, the canine flatfoot and his lunatic sidekick Max, shame on you. Originally starring in their own comic book 20 years ago, they made the leap to videogame heroes in 1993 in the now legendary Sam & Max Hit the Road, one of a stable of incredible pointy and clicky adventure games from the early 90s that anyone who has ever used a PC for anything more interesting than spreadsheets, emailing people they don't care about and homemade videos are always going on about.

If you've ever played a point and click adventure before, you know pretty much exactly what to expect here in terms of gameplay. You point at stuff and you click it, and if you've pointed at the right stuff, funny things happen. It may not sound exciting, but nothing does when you boil it down to such a basic level. The key here is the funny stuff that happens. It's really funny. Really, really funny. The characters and dialogue (the important bits of a game of this ilk) put a fair amount of the current sitcom dross on TV to shame, with wit very rarely seen in our fair medium, and more knowing nods and winks than a Masons meeting. And while the 3D engine is fairly rudimentary by the current blockbuster standards, the environments and backdrops are rich with a humour and style of their own, all big bold colours and pop culture references.

Worthy of the mantle

The six episodes that make up season one are all self contained stories, with a common theme and recurring characters running through them. Taken individually, each episode runs a little short, coming in at about 4 hours of gameplay (much less if you hurry through it, but if you do that you're missing the point somewhat, not to mention a good portion of the jokes) but when presented in one package as they are here, it becomes a lengthy adventure title worthy of the mantle long left vacant by its predecessors.

Oh, and Sam has a really big gun, but if you think that's a particularly important point you've probably already stopped reading. Never mind.

So it's smart, it's funny and it's got a second series. It proves better than anything else of recent times that adventure gaming is not dead, and while we're a long way from the blockbuster titles of yesteryear, this is the best thing to happen to the genre in a long time.

Role on season two!

GAME's Verdict

• Brilliant, genuinely hilarious dialogue.
• Actual fun.
• Recurring themes tie the episodes together nicely.

• The episodes are a little light, individually.
• Sound quality is not the best, particularly on the dialogue.

Review by: Iain Thomas
Review Published: 31.08.07