Sam & Max

2007/04/30

The bizarre, funny story begins, as usual, with a phone call from the police inspector. He assigns the detective duo on a precarious mission. Throughout the western world, the Internet has been taken down. The entire economy is threatening to collapse, which not even president Max (you’ll know him from the end of the previous episode) can prevent. Now it’s up to you to solve the mystery the good old “point and click” way. There is no lack of the usual portion of comedy, of course. In every dialogue, good old Max throws in his occasionally outlandish comments into the conversation. Before you begin playing Sam & Max, warm up your laughing muscles. Laughing fits are guaranteed.

In the second to last part of the fantastic episode of Sam & Max, the two don’t even have to deal with particularly long journeys to solve the mystery. The game’s scenes are limited to the two detectives’ neighbourhood. Sybil’s Beta Test Centre (Running Gag: In every episode released so far, Sybil is selling something different in her shop. She doesn’t seem to have found the economic branch cut for her measure), the well-known Lefty’s and Bosco’s convenience store.

In Bosco’s we also find our old pal, Jimmy two Teeth, the rat. And the name can be taken literally. This little poison dwarf has expanded his career into the illegal weapons trade and is trying to justify it with the motto “demand determines supply”. But when we want to buy a cannon, he refuses his services. “I don't sell weapons to the police” Luckily, cannon barrels have a relatively wide diameter….

However, the game world was expanded by a parallel word, the Virtual Reality 2.0. Here, you move in the same surroundings, but digitally. Nice gag: As Reality 2.0 is still in its Beta phase, there are road signs marked “404 Document not found – Error” amongst others. If you click on this sign, the friendly AI-controlled commentator of Reality 2.0 advises you that Reality 2.0 is still under construction.

What is this Reality 2.0? Luckily, the program answers this question in the first few minutes of the game. Reality 2.0 is a digital world developed by power-hungry computers (in the game), in which everybody is meant to feel happy and content. However, to realise this, the developer computers have seized the Internet to abuse it for their own operations. Nice dig: a lot of dialogue reference MMORPG's à la World of Warcraft and Co. Generally, the level design and the dialogue hint at the “real” internet.

As expected from Sam & Max, the mysteries that Telltale Games offer us on the way to the rescue of the western world are not always completely logical. However, episode five has two or three passages which really are a little far fetched. You even get the feeling that the designers just couldn’t come up with anything better.

Despite these small illogical (using the word “illogical” in the wrong context with Sam & Max is blasphemy) inserts, most of the time you quickly find the solution to the problem. Not least because the scene, as mentioned earlier, only involves our own office and surroundings. As a result, the game time of Sam & Max: Reality 2.0 is limited. After less than 4 hours, even adventure beginners have reached the end.

Graphically, Sam & Max is definitely not cutting edge technology. But it doesn’t really need it. Like all previous episodes, Sam & Max Reality 2.0 is based on a comic-type 3D engine, giving the entire game the right touch.

The sound design is of an expected high standard. Needless to say, this includes top-notch synchronisation. You can perfectly pick out Sam’s self-confidence and Max’s morbid attempts to solve all the problems in his path with violence. To understand the puns in this series, a good knowledge of English is required.