Yeah, nothing to do with the recognizable name...

Funny, they don't cover ANY other adventure games... guess not a single adventure game has been good in the last 6 years cept the 2 that just HAPPEN to have a name people remember.

Makes a ton of sense! Thanks!

No Runaway 1-3, no Ceville, no RHEM, no Dark Fall 1-3, no Lost Crown, no Emerald City confidential, no Immortals of terra, no overclocked, no Sherlock holmes Nemesis, Lupine, or Awakened, no Barrow Hill, and I could go on and on...

Yep, no correlation to the name Sam and Max or Monkey Island that is having them cover it.. it is just the BEST! Nothing else is even worth reviewing!

Salmon Who?

Seriously though, while I'm not a huge fan of Sam and Max, I'm definitely a big fan of anything that gets more adventure titles on the market. I certainly won't mind if they have a graphics upgrade, though it won't make much difference if the results aren't as jaw dropping as some other 3D games on the market, so long as they don't lose the squishiness.

This has been a very helpful thread.

Finished s03e01 today. Very enjoyable. :)

I found this bit extremely awesome, funny and cool.
I'd wear this in real life any day :)

The Penal Zone this years best ag example so far,a real thrilling one.

Haha, brilliant. :D

Just finished the new episode. Wow, the game looks just like the pre-rendered teaser of the original Sam & Max game. This game looks, sounds, and plays really well. This could possibly surpass the original game. lol

Also the gamepad support is great! The game felt polished and fun even without a mouse or keyboard.

How is the game compared to the previous seasons? Repetition of scenery, type of humor, overall wackiness? I've played season 2 and by the end of it I was really tired of it all, and that's kinda what kept me from ordering the new season.

It's meant to draw in a new crowd, so there is a tutorial of sorts tied into the story at the beginning that you cannot skip or save during. Before I could figure out what was happening, my laptop crashed a few times because the new graphical awesomeness was overheating it, so I played through that segment like 3 times. Other than these annoyances, it's really very good. The street exterior and stinky's are the only reused locales, and even they have been altered extensively.

Hey, I couldn't play even Season 1 with high Graphics Quality on my MSI ER710x-052EU with integrated graphics :frown: (Sam & Max crawled like a pair of slugs :frusty:). Is your laptop newer (stronger)? Can you (or someone else) tell me whether my laptop will cut the mustard?

Maybe just lower the graphics quality? lol

It's fairly new and powerful. It runs Mass Effect on medium settings. But hey, most laptops aren't exactly meant for gaming.

Naw, as I had no such problems with ToMi. What I did was, I let it cool off, turned it on again, shut down all background processes like teh internets, attached an external mouse, and migrated to a larger cooler room. After that I was able to beat it in one sitting, no crashes.

Okay, thats good to hear. :) With the addition of real-time shadows and self-shadowing, I would say its a bigger graphical jump from ToMI.

Just finished the first chapter and I enjoyed it very much. You can tell they are trying to expand the audience because the puzzles are a little easier then previous installments but still fun none the less. It seems like they are trying to have a continuous story this time with a lot of things carrying over into following chapters like TOMI. Maybe they did this in the first season (didn't play it) but in the second season each chapter was completely stand alone save for a few items in their office.

They did say that they are changing the format of the Sam & Max game, compared to the previous seasons. That is why its not called "Sam & Max Season 3".

Totally agree, it's a lot more fun as well! I remember from season 2 I had no idea what to do several times and I really had to revert to a walkthrough (and I hate doing that). This is actually the first S&M episode I'd like to replay immediately!

So, three episodes later, and no one around here has anything to say abouy Season 3? :) (Aside from a few comments under appropriate reviews.)

I was rather underwhelmed by the first season, and thus skipped the second one, but impulse-bought The Devil's Playhouse (literally on the last day of the pre-order) based on the strength of the concept and the trailer. I found The Penal Zone pretty meh, to be honest - much improved humour and pacing, yes, but gameplay felt bland - especially the Future Vision, which could have been a great tool, seemed to be overused as an excuse to make puzzles rather unimaginative. And my geeky mind hated that it either showed an actual future or a changeable one depending on the puzzle.

...but, Tomb of Sammun-Mak was just a hoot! The film-reel changing thing added much-needed feeling of depth and variety (and yes, it also didn't make sense, but it didn't pretend to). Every location just leaked with atmosphere (in particular Jared Emmerson-Johnson already deserves next Aggie for his work on this episode alone). And there were more delightfully absurd touches and connections than in the entire Season 1 put together. (I mean, Little Arctic Circle? Genius! :D) If not for the not-well-thought-through last puzzle (also a problem with TPZ) and resolution of previous ep's cliffhanger, Tomb would probably topple Lair of the Leviathan as my favourite single Telltale episode.

They Stole Max's Brain! was very good, too, introducing fabulous new characters and intriguing dialogue puzzle mechanic. (Unlike most players/reviewers, I was glad it was only used for a prologue. I am afraid it could have gotten old fast.) My main criticism is that it felt quite disjointed by the sudden change of premise and tone in the middle. I wonder if it was at any stage planned as two separate episodes - it would work better that way.

I still haven't installed 304 and, although Stuart Young (with whom I agree more often than not) in the AG review labelled it the weakest of the season so far, I must say I can't wait to.

I liked the dialog puzzles most i think they never gets old unless get easy.

I really enjoyed 304, and I think it's my favorite so far. I laughed more than in any episode, and was nearly biting my nails at the end.
It did have some awkward puzzles, and I agree with the review's opinion that the locations were dark and relatively small.
Still, it was a good mix of story, puzzles and comedy.

I like how, similar to Tales of Monkey Island, the focus is not just on the comedy, but also on the characters and the plot.

Isn't it OBvious that some of the writers are playing world of warcraft? (yog-sagoth reminds of yog-saron and paladin references and mmorpg references in the 'internet' episode while back)

it's quite sad really, w.o.w. is :Z:pan:

The Shoggoths and Yog-Sothoth are entities that were created by H.P.Lovecraft, a writer that was writing in the 1920's.

If you are referring to Reality 2.0, the Paladin and the various RPG elements, are terms known since the 1970's when Dungeons and Dragons first came out.

As Shal just said, it's most definitely a homage to Lovecraft. In fact, many works which people believe are original are derivative or in homage to Lovecraft.

I agree, the balance between those various elements is near-perfect, and it really makes the game feel like so much more than a sum of its parts. There are still puzzles and jokes that just fail to amuse me, yet everything clicks so well together that I tend not to notice. And while it's a bit preemptive to say that before the finale, from the twists and turns so far I get the feeling the season was planned ahead much more carefully than in Tales of Monkey Island, which is funny, because Sam & Max would've been able to get away with much more random and "out there" plot.

My only serious disappointment about 304 is that, kinda like with hard-boiled-cop-film in the previous episode, the potentially fun zombie-invasion premise is abandoned way too early. (I want someone to develop a Shaun of the Dead adventure game, like, now!) And the ever-more noticeable technical glitches, especially in the Future Visions carrying over present elements they shouldn't - I think Telltale might be too ambitious with with their schedule maybe? On the plus side, I don't know how they've done it, but 303 and 304 were noticeably faster and more stable on my aging laptop than the first two episodes of the season.

How freaky was that? On the 'pharaoh ending puzzle' I did on the first two replies accidentally.

Though granted, not the hardest adventure games ever these ones.

--

edit: BTW, these games set the bar for next games technologically.

Yog-Soggoth = a reference to Yog Sototh from H P Lovecraft. Probably what Blizzard is referencing too.

As I implied in another thread, I finished The City... the other day and liked it a lot indeed, even though I can't shake off the feeling that ending an episode earlier (either after a four-episode season, or dividing They Stole Max's Brain into two separate outings) would make a lot more sense.

However, while the series never perhaps reached the highs of Tales of Monkey Island at its best, it was much more consistent. And the finale was worthy, even though controlling beastly Max (while super fun in and on itself) was yet another underused mechanic. But I'd forgive much more for the scenes such as the narrator reveal (I have predicted it since the couple of episodes, but how it was done is what matters!), Satan trying to fix his tarnished image or the post-credits sequence. Hoping a fourth season, if comissioned, picks up the premise of that ending for added hilarity and complexity in both plot and puzzles! (Although it probably won't, for where would that leave the upcoming Back to the Future?)