Sam & Max, an anthropomorphic dog and rabbit duo of freelance cops, is an idea that sounds like a kids' show. It isn't, although I think they did a more kid-friendly animated show of them, with Purcell's approval. Originally, Sam & Max were a comic book creation by Purcell, who then later on joined LucasArts as an animator and artist. And this lead into taking his anarchistic duo into their first game appearance.
The story begins with a kidnapped woman, her life threatened by a mad scientist scorned in love. The duo crash through the wall, and Max, the psychotic little bunny, pummels the scientist, and with that, they leave for the open credits, followed by a phone call at their office. It's the police chief, who tasks them to find Bruno, a bigfoot, and Trixie, a giraffe-necked girl who has gone missing from a circus.
And that's really all there is to the story. The game isn't really about the story; it's about Sam & Max taking a road trip all around the USA in the search for the missing freaks, as the game puts it. You get to see an array of American landmarks, from the presidential heads to the biggest ball of yarn in the world, as well as a couple of roadside cafes.
The main focus of Sam & Max: Hit the Road is on the comedy, not on the story. The story is merely an excuse to get the duo on the move to see what the USA has to offer for them until they get to the inevitable end.
Sam & Max is, as far as I know, the first Lucasfilm adventure game using their simplified user interface. Instead of a verb menu, the game is now fully icon-driven, and it utilises full-screen graphics instead of a screen divided between game graphics with the user inteface in the bottom. As you'd imagine, this gives far more room for the location graphics. The icons in use are: use, take, look and walk. In the inventory, use and take serve the same function, as both of them pick up the selected item, which you can then either use in the inventory or on the location you are in.
While this simplification doesn't necessarily make the game easier,
some of the puzzles do require you to think out of the box; the puzzles
are relatively fair. There are no enormous leaps of logic, or at least if
there are, Sam & Max is hardly the worst offender in the genre.
Graphically, Sam & Max is a great-looking game. It has colourful art, and the animations are well done. The game is fully voice-acted, and the quality is, again, very good here. The music is solid as well.
What is really disappointing is that Hit the Road doesn't have that many locations. That is tied to relatively easy puzzles make the game somewhat easy. Especially more seasoned adventure gamers can play the game through in around 5 hours. And this includes discussing with all the characters that have something to say.
Of course, you could say the game doesn't wear out its welcome, but there were times I could not help but think that a lot of things were left on the cutting room floor in the making of this adventure.
In the end, though, how much you like Sam & Max hangs solely on whether the humour of the game is to your liking. It's not going to dazzle you with its story, and the gameplay itself is mostly a loosely connected series of locations where you solve a puzzle or two. Even the main villain of the story, country singer Conroy Bumbus, is more of a sideliner than a serious threat.
Personally, I don't think it's the greatest of Lucasfilms advenure games. It's not terrible either, and I do get a couple of chuckles out of it, but as a game, I feel it's not quite what it could have been. It's not even quite what it could have been as a comedy. All the strings are there, but they are not quite attached to the same ball of yarn.
Sam & Max Hit the Road is still quite readily available and playable with the help of ScummVM. You can get it from GOG and Steam. It should also work on any other platform supported by ScummVM. It's usually around 5 bucks or so, so you won't go bankrupt even if you get it full-priced.
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