Sam & Max Save the World

Sam & Max Save the World

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Ridley Dec 3, 2020 @ 10:28pm
How disappointing.
Sam & Max isn't one of those franchises you get to enjoy all that often. Limited-run plush toys or action figures, a single season of a cartoon, very sporadic video games, and not much in the way of new illustrations beyond Purcell's own (again, sporadic) Twitter sketches. What you do get is great, though... with the exception of this.

I'm disappointed that fans were promised a direct recreation of the original games with improved graphics, but what we received is objectively inferior to what we were given back in 2006. From playing the first episode alone, I noticed:

• A lot of the actors and actresses reprise their characters. Some are indistinguishable from the initial games (Sam, Max and the Soda Poppers do a good job), but a few are noticeably less emotive. (Sybil comes to mind.) Speaking of...

• Bosco's new voice actor sounds terrible. It's like they forgot to remove placeholder dialogue, he sounds like a random guy they asked off the street. The former voice actor did a significantly better job delivering his lines, and the lines that do remain were neutered.

• Certain subtle background gags also deemed 'offensive' were altered or removed in some way, too. There was simply no point to doing this. Nobody was upset that a background car had a license plate reading "DRG DLR", it's a parody of sleazy New York City.

• In Brady Culture in particular, the developers used a bunch of recognizable stock sound effects. This was easily forgiven at the time as it was their first game, but they're still here in the remake. Additionally, the "tail light guy" has two totally different voice actors in the exact same dialogue tree. There's a lot of jarring, sloppy or overlooked audio bugs in the game overall.

• They completely redesigned Sybil. I don't find the new design ugly (in fact I kind of like it), but they completely dumpstered the original design drawn by Steven Purcell. The man drew these characters and is a professional illustrator; changing any of his designs is blasphemy for a Sam & Max game. (See Here[i.imgur.com])

• The controls feel even worse than the original. I went back and played the old game to check; clicking around the map is a lot more difficult to pilot. They did implement the sprint button in every episode (which is useful), but going anywhere is somehow even less smooth.

Steve himself is notorious for ensuring the quality of anything concerning Sam & Max, so I'm not sure how these blemishes (and they all start to stack up after a while; I don't want to nitpick) made it past him. The developers really fumbled this remake and I'm getting a refund. You have no idea how sad I am to say a Sam & Max product wasn't very good after years and years of enjoying the characters.
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Showing 1-15 of 15 comments
darth_dewey Dec 3, 2020 @ 10:36pm 
A fan who obviously loves the franchise writes some well thought out criticisms and complaints.

Now watch as endless amounts of angry fanboys attack him for stating legitimate concerns.
fokehS Dec 3, 2020 @ 10:41pm 
Re: Sybil; the developers said the character models were updated with guidance from Steve.

I also don't understand what you mean by control issues. Could you be more specific?
darth_dewey Dec 3, 2020 @ 10:44pm 
I really doubt that Steve Purcell would be satisfied knowing that Skunkape lied to the fans of his work. It will be interesting to see how this plays out when he finds out.
Ridley Dec 3, 2020 @ 10:47pm 
Originally posted by Jobbo:
Re: Sybil; the developers said the character models were updated with guidance from Steve.

I also don't understand what you mean by control issues. Could you be more specific?

When I click on the ground in the old games Sam didn't have any issues walking there. It was simple point-and-click stuff very reminiscent of Hit the Road.

In the new game, clicking on the terrain sometimes doesn't do a thing. Sometimes I have to click twice to get a response, or the pathing does some other clumsy maneuver that doesn't put the talking dog where I'd like him to be. The "click and drag" moving feature (which I think is new) feels like trying to pilot an overstuffed shopping cart and I gave up on it quickly. The cursor also feels slower despite the game running at 60FPS on my machine.

I don't know why the controls would be noticeably different. Maybe things were programmed differently when they added the sprint option to every episode, as that feature was added later.
fokehS Dec 3, 2020 @ 10:50pm 
Click and Drag was a Season 2+3 feature they included alongside Sprint (basically, locomotion is a core part of the Telltale Tool; when they updated the Tool version, all the core features automatically got upgraded too).

I did have a problem where trying to double click on a point of interaction to sprint there was a bit weird, but I otherwise didn't experience any other issues. Very odd. Could be a result of anything.
PHILAPIO (Banned) Dec 4, 2020 @ 4:33am 
Agreed, OP. It really is a shame. These games were some of my favorite back in the day.
Varrok Dec 4, 2020 @ 4:45am 
It's a generally good summary of it, the only thing I disagree with are the controls. The original point and click controls weren't any better, and the ability to Click+Drag to move was a welcome addition (+ you can run in this mode with RMB)
PHILAPIO (Banned) Dec 4, 2020 @ 12:59pm 
+
edmek55555 Dec 4, 2020 @ 1:31pm 
Yeah, this is pretty much Sam and Max SJW edition. They made the remaster under the guise that they loved the series, but really they just had an agenda. Pretty disappointing. And this is coming from someone who owns just about every piece of official Sam and Max merch ever released. I own season one on 4 different consoles and getting this one on the switch is the only one of those I regret because now I can't refund this.
It's the refusal to admit straight up lying to the consumer and the mental gymnastics they're employing to prove they didn't lie that gets me.

I'm upset as a fan, but I'd be especially insulted if I was Purcell. You're defacing a work of art because you're offended by its decades old content. It's all so absurd...
76561199114089327 Dec 5, 2020 @ 10:00pm 
yup
Wiw Dec 6, 2020 @ 6:24am 
I could live with it, but the fact that so many people have called attention to it means I can no longer ignore it.
n8mahr Dec 6, 2020 @ 5:23pm 
I partially agree. I do like slightly younger looking new Sybil, but I think she kind of already looked like that in the later episodes?
The game does feel a slow sometimes and difficult to move around with the mouse.

The censored jokes I had to look up. I maybe would not have noticed, BUT the fact alone they did censor it makes me angry now. I read some of the lines they did take out and it´s offensive humour, but it´s Sam&Max and not Snow&Flake. Damn,I really hate it when PC-folk mess with "history" for their own agenda, even if its gaming history.
Azulfo Dec 8, 2020 @ 1:24am 
Yeah after hearing about the censorship on jokes I decided against buying this and supporting this kind of political correctness signaling.
kotamine Dec 8, 2020 @ 5:23am 
Originally posted by Lagomorph:
A fan who obviously loves the franchise writes some well thought out criticisms and complaints.

Now watch as endless amounts of angry fanboys attack him for stating legitimate concerns.
they'll always find a way to bootlick the devs
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