Sam and Max: The City that Dares not Sleep

The final part of the third Sam and Max season was suitably large-scaled and dramatic (notice how I sidestepped using "epic" there?), and also more effectively emotional than I really expected. It was hard to be too broken up by the proceedings because the show must always go on with these two, but it still worked. Plus the ending, while perhaps a bit convenient, is perfectly fitting for the convoluted logic these characters operate on and also amusingly wraps up about three seasons' worth of loose ends. In the end, The Devil's Playhouse (that title was finally explained this time around) was to me the strongest release yet by Telltale, with more creative energy in each episode than some of their earlier stuff had in the whole season, and some of the time shenanigans make me wonder what could possibly be in store with their upcoming Back to the Future game. But I guess I should talk about the episode itself at this point.

Because of Max's transformation, it necessitates a slight shift in the formula from the other episodes. You don't get to mess around much with the toys of power (although they aren't completely gone), but there's still a gameplay dichotomy where you have to shift between two different characters to get things done. The puzzles were pretty good for the most part, although there were a couple situations where you were forced to do something convoluted when a simpler solution would be pretty obvious, or misleading situations where you're prevented from getting something, leading you to look for a way around it, but that thing itself is actually unimportant. The story pulls out all the stops, bringing back characters from all three seasons in interesting ways, and also telling a pretty good straight up monster movie plot. The scale is impressive, leading to it being the best looking entry in the series. They did a great job with the final part, and Telltale should really be commended for being the masters of serialized gaming.

Sam and Max: Beyond the Alley of the Dolls

The introduction to Beyond the Alley of the Dolls is great, featuring an homage to zombie movies everywhere as Sam deals with the slight conundrum of his friends taking a strange amount of delight in dispatching cloned, half naked versions of himself. The rest of the episode doesn't quite live up to this beginning, mostly because the puzzles were the least interesting and unique of the season. You were mostly using psychic toys you'd already played with before, and there wasn't much new to the gameplay, not even on the gimmicky side. It was still well made, it's just all of the fun came from the story rather than the game itself.

Luckily that story is pretty great, with ghost summoning, gigantic underground cloning facilities, Lovecraftian horrors, forbidden interspecies love, and epic climaxes at famous historical landmarks. A surprising amount of the important parts for the entire season-long arc are explained, although of course things get turned on their heads at the end in the last cliffhanger before the final episode. It all remains manageable despite the scope, thanks to solid writing and good voice acting, and it's also probably the series' most visually ambitious episode yet. If only those puzzles were a bit better! Oh well. It's still yet another good entry in the series, and a nice warm-up for the finale.

Sam and Max: They Stole Max's Brain!

As I hinted previously, the third chapter of this season of Sam and Max's adventures doesn't quite crackle with the same energy of the first two, although it still has some good ideas of its own and some inspired moments. It continues like part two did, picking up exactly where the last part left things, with Max's brain stolen and Sam pretty angry about it. Like the clue scanning and reel jumping, this chapter introduces its own unique kind of gameplay, in this case, interrogation. The first act plays like a film noir story, Sam looking for suspects around town and leaning on them pretty hard. There's a variety of ways you can interrupt peoples' stories to try and get information, and it's a neat idea. The problem is that it's not really fully explored before the segment ends, although it does pop at least once more in the future chapters.

After that, it becomes more of a standard episode in the series, though not a bad one. There's pointing and clicking, messing with some more familiar psychic toys, and of course an alternate reality that only Max is aware of that you have to prevent from happening. Actually, that part was pretty cool. As is pretty much standard at this point, the game looks pleasant, has some nice music, enjoyable voice acting and humor. I didn't like the puzzles quite as much, again because of situations where the "logical" solution might not occur to someone as quickly as it should. It ends well though, and once again teases an intriguing scenario for the fourth chapter. They could still blow it I guess, but so far this is the best series Telltale has done.

Sam and Max: The Tomb of Sammun-Mak

The second chapter of Sam and Max's third season is possibly the most inspired in the series. It all stems from the premise, which is rather brilliant. At the end of the first episode, Sam and Max discover what appears to be their own skeletons locked in a struggle, but they soon learn it's a couple of their ancestors, Sameth and Maximus, and find a series of films detailing their exploits along with a projector. Thus the game introduces its central conceit: you must play as Sameth and Maximus within these different film reels to discover the secret behind their deaths. But you can't just do it chronologically - you'll need information from one reel to get past an obstacle in another. What results is the largest causality loop I've ever seen. The characters will be unable to remember what they did earlier in the story until you experience it yourself, and get past tricky situations using knowledge they won't learn until later on. It makes no sense and it's a ton of fun.

Without the goofy central mechanic, it would still be a pretty good episode of Sam and Max. It's a classic adventure story, as you solve a riddle, ride a couple trains filled with people out to get you, and explore an ancient Egyptian tomb. There's a lot of messing with mole people and curses and accusations and fun stuff like that. It looks as nice as the first chapter, and the voice acting is still solid, helping the comedy along. The puzzles actually aren't that different from a normal episode if you just think of the different time periods as different locations, but they're still good for the series. Maximus has a totally different set of psychic toys to work with than Max did in the first episode, providing a different set of challenges. I've already played the next two chapters and didn't like them quite as much as the first two, but it's still been a stellar season for the crime fighting anthropomorphic duo.

Sam and Max: The Penal Zone

After two years off, Sam and Max finally return with their greatest caper yet. Telltale has done three other adventure series last we saw our anthropomorphic heroes, and they've clearly learned a lot in that time. They're finally nailing down the interface, bringing back arrow key movement, improving the inventory, and adding a notepad full of useful information. Add those changes with the improved graphics, and it's a pretty slick looking game. The characters are still cartoony, but there are fewer glitches, things are more detailed, and there's a grainy filter over the whole thing that somehow gels with the colorful palette to make a very interesting look. It works together with the renewed focus on the duo's actual supposed profession of freelance policemen to make the game seem more like an actual mystery they're solving rather than just something wacky they have to get out of. That was one of my favorite elements, and it's something I hope carries through the whole season.

The first two seasons both had subtitles applied to them after the fact, but The Devil's Playhouse is the first one to have it from the beginning and really try to establish a continuing storyline through the whole season, which will last for five games. The name plays into the big new gameplay feature that The Penal Zone introduces, Max's new ability to use various toys along with his psychic power to various useful ends. He can see the future, useful for getting hints at the solutions to puzzles, or teleport to wherever a phone is if he knows its number, and a few other things. You only really get to take advantage of a couple in this game, but the potential for the future is pretty tantalizing. You use these powers along with a pretty out of date crime analysis laboratory in the back of your car to track down the truth behind an alien visitor, and hopefully eventually send him back to the dimension where he belongs. The ending wraps up the individual story while teasing a greater plot behind it, and overall it was a very strong first chapter. Cool things were teased, the jokes were funny, and the puzzles were clever without being obtuse. I'm really looking forward to playing through the rest of the season.

Sam and Max: Freelance Police

Sam and Max had their own kid's show on FOX for a season, and while a lot of their edge is taken off to make it more family friendly, it was surprisingly decent. All of the mild swears and realistic firearms are gone, but the characters are essentially the same. Plenty of side characters appear, although some are watered down, like the Rubber Pants Commandos whose normal weapons are replaced by milk bottle guns. More characters are added too, like a young female inventor called The Geek, who's supposed to appeal to children I guess. Despite the changed tone, it sticks the closer to the comics than the games do as far as bringing back familiar elements, even recreating certain stories, although they suffer a bit in the translation.

My only problem with the show is really the voices. I'm not sure if the different actors they had for the games were genuinely better for the characters or I'm just used to them from hearing them first, but I just like them much more than the voices used in the show, especially for Sam. They speak the dialogue fine, they just don't sound like Sam and Max. And in general, the voice actors aren't of the quality you'd hope from from a wacky cartoon. Too many of them just say the lines without the appropriate attitude you'd expect. The show's not bad though, definitely worth watching if you like the characters. And I have to respect a show that's final episode is a clip show - with all the clips being fake. I wonder what could have been if more people watched it.

Sam and Max: Surfin' the Highway

When I bought season two of the Sam and Max episodes, I splurged for the media pack that also contained the newly rereleased collection of all the original comics and the DVD of the animated series. It seems to have been worth it. The comic is a bit different from the games, the characters and sense of humor are the same, but it's just a little darker and more adult, making a slightly more enjoyable experience. There's not that much content, only five full issues produced over a period of several years, but most of it is humorous enough to make it thoroughly worth checking out.

Sam and Max's adventures are as varied here as they ever are in the games, as they go everywhere from an inaccurate representation of the Philippines to the moon to all around the country in a great road trip issue. There's a lot of imagination and fun in just a few short pages, and it's really just pleasant to read. The pair have some violent tendencies, but they're really just great friends that like seeing the world and eating junk food together. There are both black and white and color segments in the book, including original paintings from the covers of books and games without the labeling covering everything up. Steve Purcell's art is simple and cartoony, but it's always effective at expressing the personality of the characters and mood of the situation. Besides Sam and Max, Purcell's done lots of work for Lucasarts, which led to the creation of their first adventure game. He later moved to Pixar, and still does work on their films. He doesn't have a lot of original creations to his name, but he's created two of the more entertaining cult comic characters of our time.

RAAtEtHoTDVG 1: Sam and Max Hit the Road

Ridiculously Ambitious Attempt to Experience the Heart of Two-Dimensional Video Gaming, Part 1

So here's something I've been working on. I've been playing games for a long time, but I only really started playing significant ones during the PS1/N64 era. Before that, it was just what my relatives got me or just what I could get my hands on. I wanted to fill in the large gap in my knowledge and memories from back when games were made with sprites instead of polygons. I asked some people on the Internet to help, and they gave me a lot of great suggestions. These are almost all for the NES, SNES, Genesis, or original Game Boy, with some graphic adventures on the PC thrown in as well, mostly Lucasarts' SCUMM games. That's mostly what got recommended, and anything pre-Nintendo is too archaic to be worth anything besides historical significance at this point anyway. I will play as many of these games as possible, and while I can't guarantee I'll finish them all, I'll play long enough to give a valid opinion. So here's the first game, which segues nicely from what I've recently been playing.

Sam and Max Hit the Road (PC)


This is the comic book duo's first foray into video games until the much more recent episodic work by Telltale. I'm kind of working backwards through their history, as the Trade Paperback with all of their comics should be coming in the mail soon. The game obviously looks quite different, Sam and Max are the only characters that appear in the later games, and their voices are different. Still, they're the same people in the same world and it felt familiar. Their sense of humor might be a little more blunt in this, but it's just as funny. Their office and street are a bit different, but more or less comparable, and the game starts the same way, with the mysterious commissioner calling in about a new case that begins the adventure.

Being a full game and not just an episode, there's a bigger scope to the story, many more locations to visit, and more puzzles to solve, although it didn't really feel too much longer. When you know what to do, these old adventure games usually don't take too long, and since I don't have much patience for some of the logical leaps these games make you take, I wasn't afraid to look up and use hints. I don't feel bad about it, because the fun comes from the characters and dialogue, not being confounded by something and trying every item on every object. Most of what you have to do makes sense, but sometimes the solutions are highly specific without giving you much help about what's supposed to be happening. Also, I'm glad interfaces have been streamlined so much in modern adventures, because there's no reason that clicking on an elevator with the walk function selected should result in being told I have to "use" it, when it should be able to figure out what I'm trying to do. Hit the Road is actually one of the better SCUMM games about this it appears, and I slightly dread earlier ones that have a dozen different actions to sort through. It's better than having to type out what you want, but not by a lot. Besides this though, Hit the Road is a very funny and clever little game, and probably as good an example as any of this dying genre's good points.

Next: A young boy fights to save the kingdom from evil.

Sam and Max: What's New, Beelzebub?

Beelzebub wraps up season two in a thoroughly satisfying way, connecting all the dots in the story and going so far as to bring back many familiar faces, loved or hated, especially in the credits sequence. It has some of the better self-referential humor in the series, and definitely feels like how a finale should, at least better than the first one did. The puzzles weren't as clever as last time, but they made good enough sense to be enjoyable anyway. I thought the reveal of the real villain was lame, because I'm getting sick of that group, but the conclusion was satisfying enough. I know their budget is limited which is why they reuse characters and locations so much, but I think they've proven their ability to really explore the universe and hope the third season branches out even more. Maybe even make a new hub where each episode begins.

Sam and Max: Chariots of the Dogs

Chariots of the Dogs may be the best episode of Sam and Max yet. The adventure elements were clever and more intuitive, and the story was solidly good. Introducing time travel always runs the risk of making a plot fall apart or just become too confusing, but they handled it pretty darn well. One moment raises huge causality questions that weren't resolved for me in a satisfying way, but it doesn't have an effect on the story they're currently telling and is more of a joke than anything else. I like it in a story when characters go to the past and create situations that they've already dealt with, accidentally or otherwise, and to actually be in control of it makes it more fun. The game also changes the structure more than any other game in the series, and for the first time ends on a true cliff hanger. All of the disparate and sometimes random-seeming plot elements for the season start to come together, and I'm kinda glad I didn't get it until they were already released so I don't have to wait to see the conclusion.

Sam and Max: Night of the Raving Dead

Night of the Raving Dead tells another successful, funny part of the season two story, although the puzzles took a step backwards for me. It's unclear to me whether that's just my continued failure to grasp certain things, or if they were just more poorly designed. While I did need more help than I would have liked to get through it, it was still solidly fun. I wasn't a big fan of the villain, whose personality comes from being obnoxious instead interesting, but there's plenty going on around him that's entertaining. Flint Paper is another detective that didn't appear in the first season, but he's been around in the second year and this is the first episode where he really gets to do something. These games are what introduced me to the franchise, so it's cool to see them bring back what apparently has been missing. I'm just knocking down these episodes like they're dominoes.

Sam and Max: Moai Better Blues

The second episode of the season continues to tweak the formula slightly, and you really start seeing the seeds of Telltale building a story that connects it all together. Season one was built around a mind control plot, but the episodes generally stood on their own without much reference to the others. Season two shows more continuity and teases what's coming next after the credits. The second episodes features some Bermuda Triangle teleporters, an island to explore, and baby versions of various missing famous people. The humor wasn't as spot on as it's been, but it was still mostly enjoyable. The puzzles still don't always click right away, and it's frustrating when a solution is difficult due to just missing a small item somewhere, but I appreciate them even when I need help to figure it out. More soon!

Sam and Max: Ice Station Santa

Telltale went forward with the second season of their successful take on the Sam and Max characters earlier this year, although I didn't buy it until recently. The first episode picks up quickly on the same foot as last time, now featuring an introductory puzzle before the stylish opening credits. The new location is the North Pole, where Santa seems to have been possessed and done some destructive things, like sending a giant robot equipped with high school level philosophy and 80's pop music quotes to the titular heroes. As a way of getting back into the swing of things, Ice Station Santa does a solid job with consistently clever humor and some enjoyable puzzles. I still haven't mastered the logic of adventure games, as I will occasionally read a clue the wrong way or ignore what seems like an innocuous detail, but I'm getting a better hang of it. I liked how they mixed up the street where all of the games start too, adding a new location and character to help prevent staleness. Good for anyone who likes to laugh and think in a new way.

More Sam and Max

Telltale Games recently finished up the first season of Sam and Max with the sixth chapter.

Bright Side of the Moon (PC)


Telltale wraps up the first season of Sam and Max in fine order. It keeps the trend going with funny writing and simple, clever puzzles. The new locations are the most interesting we've seen, and while it lacks in new characters, it does a good job of bringing back a lot of the better ones. The story is more interesting than previous chapters, which all seemed self-contained and unrelated. Bright Side of the Moon ties everything together and gives it a suitable climax. The humor is still there, and has the best self-referential stuff in the series. It's over quickly, as always, but it's fun to play through, figuring out how to use your new powers to keep moving forward.

Game Update 2: Sam and Max

Telltale games have been delivering new chapters of Sam and Max on schedule (and one episode was even early) all year, and they continue to be enjoyable, funny bits of adventure.

The Mole, the Mob, and the Meatball (PC)


The part of this episode is the humor. The new location is a Chuck E. Cheese's-esque restaurant owned by mobsters who go out of their way to convince you they aren't. With the guns and gambling it's a tough sell. It's also the first of three straight episodes with a musical number, which is interesting, I guess. The puzzles are pretty decent, although a little less intuitive than I'd like sometimes. The final one took a bit of the old annoying technique of trying to use your items on everything you see, but they always end up making sense in retrospect, don't they?

Abe Lincoln Must Die! (PC)


Probably the most amusing episode yet, starting with a caaricature of a certain dimwitted president who ends up being a puppet and moving on to a giant, marble reincarnation of Lincoln, who's still a good guy but is being controlled by nefarious characters. The humor is good, and the final couple sequences are clever and a lot of fun to unravel. It ends with Max being the new president of the United States, which has vast humor potential that is explored in this and continues to be tapped in the next episode.

Reality 2.0 (PC)


This chapter is seriously lacking in new locations, but it still feels fresh because of interesting visual changes and new jokes for things you've seen before instead of the same repeats. The whole game has a dualism, as you jump between the normal world and Reality 2.0, a new computer simulation that's better than real life, to solve puzzles. The look is very interesting, and the RPG and internet jokes are funny for nerds like me. The puzzle sequences are the best yet in my opinion, and the surprise ending is awesome and bizarre. Hopefully the duo's trip to the moon in May will finish off the season as well as this continued it.

Game Archive 2

Here's the rest of the game stuff I've written in the last half year.

Role Playing Games


I used to think I didn't like role playing games. Then I realized it was a stupid thing to think. I loved Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I love The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I'm currently DMing a group of Dungeons & Dragons players. I like games that incorporate RPG-style character improvement like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and the Ratchet and Clank sequels. I don't dislike role playing games, I dislike Japanese role playing games, or at least the traditional idea of them.


What I like about RPG's is the freedom to create your own story they grant you. Obviously tabletop games take this to the extreme, you can basically do anything the DM can make a ruling on. But video games can get away with a bit less because of the production values and the interesting story they (hopefully) bring. You can customize your character to be good at what you want to be good at and have some choice about what to do next. Sometimes the main story is pretty linear, but that's okay because you at least have some choice about how you go about it.

Japanese RPG's aren't like this. Some have customizable characters, but others only give you superficial ability choices while limiting the cast to whatever basic job they're supposed to have. And of course, you can't expect a non-linear experience, there's probably some side quests, but the main game is a straight line. I don't define role playing games by stat building, I define them by what the name means - you inhabit a role in the game's setting, and it's hard to do that when you're just being strung along whatever story they've cooked up.

I don't want to come off like I hate all Japanese RPG's, I've admittedly had little experience with them, mostly restrained to the 3D Final Fantasy games. I'd like to expand my horizons and give some more games a fair shake, but I'm really just not interested enough to devote all the time it would take with my busy College schedule.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)


It's another Zelda game, and what that has come to mean is some extremely well-designed dungeons, fun bosses, and a grand old time rife with adventure. I do have a few problems though. It definitely beats The Wind Waker in world design, as it's easy to make a countryside with mountains and deserts and all sorts of terrain more interesting than an ocean, but I honestly prefer WW's visual approach. Unlike TP's "realistic" graphics, WW will still look good in ten years, and I think the cartoony look better matches the series' constant goofy breaks from the otherwise serious tone.

The pacing of the story seemed a little off to me, you learn too much too quickly and not a lot happens later on in the game. Also, it's really way to easy. Every single boss was a piece of cake. Combat was designed so enemies defend themselves better, but the only thing in the game that does more than one heart of damage to you is falling into lava. I guess I'm complaining a lot, but it's just because I love Zelda and I think this could have been better.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (PS2)


I wasn't sure about this one for a lot of the time I was playing it. Most of the new gameplay features add depth but detract from the fun, in my opinion. Limited inventory space, having to use camouflage, feed yourself, and mend your wounds and breaks sounds cool and realistic, but it just adds a ton of menu navigation to the normal gameplay experience. I don't think it really enhanced my experience needing to change my uniform when I move from the jungle to the inside of a building or click on a few different items to stop me from bleeding away any more health in a tight spot.

I was also concerned about the story, I was one of many who was fed up by the direction MGS2's story went by the end, but since then I've come to appreciate it more, and MGS3's tale didn't seem as twisty and interesting, perhaps in response to that backlash. MGS3 has more of a focus on character and emotion than political quadruple-crosses, and ends up being the most satisfying and best story in the series, in my opinion. And let's be honest here, thanks to the series' deep but increasingly dated and clumsy gameplay engine, the story is why we play Metal Gear. I don't have to tell you the visuals are amazing, and the sound is quite good too, well acted as always, and with some good music and maybe the best use of a classic theme I've ever seen near the end.

Subsistence also has some great special features, especially the inclusion of the first two games from the MSX (this being the first time MG2 is available legally in the US) and the hilarious Secret Theater.

No One Lives Forever (PC)


I got the first No One Lives Forever game when it came out in late 2000, but thanks to a frustrating series of events, I didn't complete it until six years later. The game ran poorly on my Windows 98 POS computer, and stuttered its way through outdoor environments even at the lowest settings. I didn't advance far before the computer crapped out and I lost my save, and lost my interest for a while. Later we got a new machine, and the game ran perfectly. I got much farther in the game before the hard drive pooped out and I lost my save again. In the Fall of 2005, I got my own computer, which kicked the old one's ass, and checked the game out, but was preoccupied and didn't get around to actually playing through it a year later. Despite this long, painful road to completion, I still saw how good a game it was.

It doesn't have the amazing gameplay and physics engine of Half-Life 2, and some of the cinemas seem awkward, but it's quite a good stealth-based shooter. I say stealth-based, but rarely do you actually have to be stealthy, most of the time you can just cap fools as you please. The game's brilliance mostly comes from the writing, which is both hilarious and intelligent for most video games. It creates a fun and self-referential world that's fun to be a female James Bond in. If you never played it, you should look past the now-dated engine and graphics and give it a go.

No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy In H.A.R.M.'s Way (PC)


It didn't take me long after beating the first to get right on the second, which continues in the spirit of the first pretty well. The graphics are remarkably better considering the game was released only two years later, although it's mostly cosmetic enhancements to a now-seriously dated engine, especially looking at the gravity and other physics.

The game itself is mostly solid, with fun, stealthy shooting, but there are a few gripes I have. They added respawning enemies that make it annoying when you're scouring the area for every intelligence item and extra objective you can find and they start looking for you upon finding dead bodies. The flashlight is now an inventory item instead of something you can just turn on while still shooting. I'm just not as big a fan of this game's pacing, it starts off very strong but the formula becomes more transparent as you go on and it seems a bit anticlimactic with the boring final level, and the game's apparent refusal to kill off any characters. The first game saw you infiltrating and causing havoc in various heavily defended fortresses, NOLF 2 spends too much time making you run around India and in abandoned stations in the snow. It's still a good game, just a slight disappointment after the first.

Okami (PS2)


If you have a PS2 and don't play Okami, you're a bad person. It's simply a fantastic game. The graphics are stunning - I don't care about the GE Force 8800 or the new current generation of high definition systems, Okami is the best looking game I've seen, thanks to the great art syle and amazing cel-shading technology that makes it look like a living watercolor painting. This is an opinion of course, if you'd rather look at super high-def ruins in Gears of War, that's just fine. The game also has great music, although I can't say all the audio is good. Okami's main flaw is the voice acting - it's text based, and instead of silence or some beeps, you get garbled snippets of voice (like Banjo-Kazooie) that's tolerable at first but gets very annoying after long bouts of extended exposition.

It's not just great because of its aesthetic qualities though, it IS a video game, and a good one. I can say without doubt it is the best Zelda-style action adventure that isn't actually a Zelda game I've played. It's easy, but still fun, thanks to the Celestial Brush, which you use to draw your special attacks and tools instead of having to sort through an inventory. The different brush powers are all easy to learn and remember, and they give Okami a unique flair to the traditional exploring and combat. The dungeons are more focused on using your powers to advance forward, the puzzles are less Zelda-style solving something to open a door and more using your techniques and platforming skills to reach that door. The combat is a little simple, but still cool thanks to slick attacks, a variety of weapons, the use of the brush techniques, and interesting enemy design.

The story should also be mentioned, I wasn't expecting a lot, but it's actually quite good. The character development is great and there are some cool twists and turns, and it's all enriched by the Japanese mythology that surrounds it. Overall, Okami is a cohesive, beautiful work of art and it's a damn shame no one is playing it.

Sam and Max: Culture Shock (PC)


Being the first of six parts of a "season" of new content, and costing only 9 dollars, Culture Shock is allowed to be short. And it is short. Even if you make sure to click on everything and see every last snippet of dialog, it will only take you a couple hours to see all there is to see. The jokes are a bit hit and miss, but they mostly hit. Some of the puzzles are a little annoying or take some cajoling to get working, but it's pretty satisfying when you figure out what you need to do. This isn't some major new release to get sucked into, it's a charming, enjoyable bit of nostalgic adventure gaming. Take a break from whatever hardcore game you're plowing through and have some relaxing fun.

Sam and Max: Situation: Comedy (PC)


Where Valve and Ritual have failed, Telltale Games has succeeded... not in making a good game, but in getting episodic gaming right. Like the first, this chapter of Sam & Max's new adventures is only a couple hours in length, but it hasn't been that long since I played the last one, so the memory is still fairly fresh in my mind, and the desired effect is achieved... a somewhat continuous gaming experience. It's still a little too easy, and some of the celebrity humor is lacking, but it's a mostly funny, enjoyable experience on the cheap.

Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)


I am conflicted. The main focus of Shadow of the Colossus is obviously the battle with the Colossi, and the game completely nails this. The fights are amazing. I found about 2 to be more annoying than fun, the rest were a blast to run around, scale, and smite. But what if this was a Zelda-style action-adventure game with puzzle-filled dungeons and towns scattered around the vast countryside with people to interact with (the towns are less necessary), and the Colossus battles were the focus and the main conflict, not the entire game? The Colossi ARE awesome, but that's all there is. The environment is beautiful but really not very interesting to explore. I would truly love this game if it just felt complete. Also, I wasn't a fan of the controls, and how when you take damage from a strong attack, you fall over, and it takes you about ten seconds to stand up, which usually gives the enemy enough time to prepare and hit you again, repeating the process. If you can't tell from my description, this is NOT FUCKING COOL. Although I really dug the connection to ICO.