really? Or are you joking?! Because I see parallels with Zak McKracken here... ;)

If that was the real plot I wouldn't have given it away!

Whoa! I'd play that game. :P

The second half of that paragraph is all stuff that's already happened in the comics (aliens in egypt, tentacle beast in the store) or Telltale's games (driving off jumps shooting wildly) :)

Working on it as we speak!

I am just being a LucasFilm games fanboy. Remember the aliens and the Egyptian Pyramids in Zak? And, of course, tentacles... ;)

Just an FYI for those that dont want to fully upgrade their computers...

...buy more memory at the very least. People underestimate how much ram is used for the OS and the various things they may have resident. XP does a pretty good job of making sure there is memory for everything the user wants to do within reason, involving lots of virtual mem swapping and such, but less than a gig these days just isn't sufficient. Considering that ram is unbelievably inexpensive, two gigs should be a reasonable thing to upgrade to and you'll see significant performance increase.

Tiny story; bought a new laptop (so I could animate in front of the tv :D ) about a year and a half ago, and only late last year did its sluggishness become apparent. I was baffled as I KNEW I has 2 gigs of ram. Now I should know better, as I've been building computers now for 12 years, but I just shrugged and assumed it was just the way it was and couldn't be bothered to check or even tweak my machine. One day it becomes unbearable, so I get FreeRamXP to check on my memory status and have it manage it in favor of my apps. Lo and behold, it was registering 1 gig of available RAM! So after calling Dell, New Delhi branch :frusty: , it turns out I never ordered 2 gigs, and later recalled that I did that intentionally so I could get aftermarket sticks far cheaper that Dell would ever offer them. So to fast forward, got the extra gig and now it screams. Point is your system can easily be underperforming simply by the ram bottleneck, so check that first, get ram thats compatible with your mobo and I can guarantee you'll see a significant boost.

Cheers

Ah, heh. In the comic "Fair Wind to Java," Sam and Max are sent by the Commissioner to Ancient Egypt, where Max pantses an alien in front of all the Egyptian slaves, causing their oppressive rule to end. In "Beast from the Cereal Aisle," another comic, Sam and Max go to the local supermarket to psychically duel with a sort of Lovecraftian tentacle beast thing that's been hiding in some sort of mysterious space between the shelves, abducting shoppers. They also steal a fire engine.

Why would 1g be any issue for these games? Should be plenty.

Please read his post again. ;)

As I said, 1 gig is not what you're giving the game when you factor in the entirety of you system needs. Whereas a gig SHOULD be enough for the most part in ideal situations, IF it isn't, and you want a cheap upgrade path that doesn't involve a new motherboard, cpu and videocard, more memory is the way to go.

My point was simply that a cheap memory boost can see surprising gains as Windows then has more room, so to speak, to work with. Virtual memory access for example can slow Windows dramatically, and thats what Windows does when it needs more memory than it physically has and hence why you have a virtual memory setting period.

Now, you can't assume everyones computers are 'ideally' optimized and tweaked where technically meeting the min requirements is enough. Remember how your computer felt when you first installed Windows fresh. It was crisp and fast and without hitch. Months of usage slows down the inner workings. My suggestion is just a cheap, easy fix versus the only other alternatives which involve reinstalls of the OS or a real system upgrade.

So, assuming you have the minimum requirments (which you must realise represents the bare minimum the developers feel will run a game, regardless of fluidity, load times or whatnot, so it doesn't guarantee a flawless experience), the very least you can do without touching the machines innards is to make sure that you have no extraneous Windows resources running when playing the game. Shut down any instant messengers and any quick access residents like QuickTime, desktop managers(videocard), file backup apps, weather checkers or perhaps those support apps for your machine(Dell, Gateway). If you're not going to be on the internet, turn off your antivirus program. You'd be surprised how much mem you can free up. Secondly, make sure you have enough harddrive space left(at least 15%), as again, virtual mem depends on it and Windows likes to have it around in emergencies. Double check your vidcard and sound drivers.

Proper computer maintainance can be just as important as getting oil and air filter changes for your car. To be honest, I've never run into a majority of these problems I read from all sorts of users about all sorts of games on all sorts of forums, and my machines are never bleeding edge simply because having the lastest and greatest tech isn't worth the cost of performance. I'm still running a 6800GT for example, and I've played though most newer games without a problem, albeit perhaps with lower settings such as in the case of NWN2. Dark Messiah was the worst offender being a stuttering nightmare, and bumping my mem up from 1 to 2 gigs made an unbelievable and startling difference; it was like a whole different game.

Cheers

:D

Hehe, thanks Numble, I just realised you posted this before I wrote my second lengthy response. So long as it doesn't appear I'm making arbitrary suggestions, maybe I can cut down on my verbosity, sheesh. My girlfriend calls me longwinded at times, complaining that I explain same thing many different ways where I could've just said it once. :P


Cheers!

I just started on ep. 2 and had to put it down. Episode one was a lot of fun, but kinda short = (

And now ep.2 starts out in the same office and i'm noticing that the responses that Sam has to the same objects are pretty similar if not identical. Kinda boring.... and I was a little disappointed that this has turned into a true point and click. I was kind of hoping for the sam & max that first got me into adventure games, but oh well what can you expect hehe.

Hmm. Just curious. What's a "true point and click"? You mean including the possibility to combine objects and the ability to try to use/taste/pickup/move every object you want to try those functions on(and get all the wicked responses as well)? just like it was in sam & max - hit the road, and many other "original" point'n'click games(before adventure games only got low budgets ;) ).

well yeah... i mean after playing ep.1 I felt like a 5 year old could beat it after just making guesses and randomly clicking the screen. Eventually he'd hit all the hotspots.

If the game was not episodic, and those first two cases (and the next 4 for that matter) all happened in the one game, then having those item description responses repeating when you revisited the office would be completely normal and expected.

Actually, there's a high chance...
 

...that it will be anti-Bush. It's written by the writer of Curse Of Monkey Island (the best Monkey Island, in my opnion), and he keeps a weblog. He's politically apathetic and not very knowledgeable, but he's virulently anti-Bush.

Have some faith. The episode isn't going to be some "political message game" or something - it's Sam and Max going to Washington DC.

Of course, if you want the game to be Anti-Bush, it probably will be, because you can read whatever you want into it. But, the president is just that - "the president." There are of course references to the last 20-30 years of American (and world) politics, but that's because the game is about Sam and Max getting tangled with the President of the United States.

The game, like all Sam and Max stories, pokes fun at and deflates the absurdities of Americana, while reveling in them at the same time. This episode is no different. :)

I read it correctly the first time, thanks.

Numble just likes to try to go after me.

Well I couldn't know for certain since you still asked "why". *shrugs*

Numble just made it clearer (to me) that I was effectively repeating myself with my second post.


Cheers