Sam & Max, a duo of freelance police, had a habit of having small cameos on old Lucasfilm games before they had their first game. This was because Steve Purcell, the creator of the original comic books, worked there as an artist. And so, when Telltale Games was founded by the former some of the people who had worked there as well, it's not that surprising that they ended up making Sam & Max games as well, the first of them being Sam & Max Save the World.
In the Telltale fashion, Sam & Max is an episodic adventure, originally released piece by piece over several months. The episodes themselves are not quite self-contained stories, as they do have overlapping story elements, and there's a main story thread about someone using hypnosis on the main villains of each story.
The first episode begins with a severe crisis. Former child stars, the Soda Poppers, from the 1970s, are being an annoyance to the neighbourhood. Not only are they doing petty vandalism like graffiti on the walls, but they are causing havoc by delivering free self-help tapes to the local Bosco's Inconvenience store. All the leads point towards Brady Culture, a failed 1970s star, who is using hypnosis to control the poor Soda Poppers.
Then, another disaster strikes. Beloved local TV host Myra Stump is holding her audience hostage in an endless taping of her newest episode. This leads the duo to become sitcom stars so they can get on Myra's show to put an end to her madness. Yet again, it seems hypnosis is behind her behaviour.
As Myra was kept under hypnosis by a teddy bear, the duo's next case takes them to meet a mole working inside the Toy Mafia's definitely mafia-free casino. To their surprise, the mole is nowhere to be seen, so duo decides to swindle their way to the backroom by becoming members of the mafia. After they manage to halt the operation, pushing out teddy bears with hypnotical powers, the question still lingers: who was behind the mafia operation?
Then, the situation gets more dire when the president of the USA goes insane! Through a series of events leading to Sam & Max finding out the president is actually a dummy, Max has to compete against a robotic Abe Lincoln in a presidential election. But is America worse off with a psychotic bunny in the helm? And who was behind this dastardly plan anyway?
The penultimate episode of the first season sees the internet go crazy. A new Reality 2.0 hits the market, locking people in endless gameplay loops, keeping them hostage through VR goggles. Even Sybil, a local entrepreneur and friend of Sam & Max, is hit by this as she is beta-testing the new virtual reality goggles. So, once again to the fray, Sam and Max have to save the day.
Finally, Sam has it all figured out. It's Hugh Bliss, the founder of the Prismatology cult, who is behind all this, and they need to get to his Moon base to put an end to his hypnosis-based scheming. So, to the moon they go, to make sure hypnosis will not be used to ensalve humanity ever again.
While Telltale became better known for its interactive stories laced with QTEs, Sam & Max was a series that was always more like traditional point and click adventures. Save the World doesn't do anything amazing with its puzzles, but they still are fun and mostly pretty fair, especially if you just pay attention.
Just like in the old Lucasfilm game Hit the Road, you control Sam. Max just mostly hangs around, commenting on what Sam does, but also has a function of a walking hint system. While he doesn't flat-out tell solutions to the puzzles, he does nudge you in the right direction if you require some assistance.
Each of the episodes is about 2 hours, a bit more or less, depending on how good you are with puzzles. They have the home base of Sam & Max's office, from which you get to any other location you need to go. On their home street, there are three important characters: Sybil Pandemic, Bosco and Jimmy Two Teeth.
Sybil is a vocatianally challenged friend of the duo, who in each episode has a new job, which happens to tie to the current case in one way or another. Bosco runs the local (in)convenience store as he has a useful item which our crime-fighting duo needs to get their hands on, and Jimmy is a local rat, at times useful in solving a puzzle. The other regulars in the episodes are the Soda Poppers and Hugh Bliss.
The music and the voice acting are overall great. The graphics are nicely cartoonish as well, and formally, 2D characters have been brought to a new dimension. The remastered version, the one released under Skunkape's label, improves the graphics and gives bigger resolutions, but otherwise, the game is more or less like it was on its original release. I believe the actor for Bosco was replaced because of some unpleasant business I'm too lazy to Google, but I can't say I noticed or minded.
Sam & Max Save the World is not quite a slam dunk. It's anything really ground-breaking or overly amazing, but it still is, nonetheless, an adequate adventure game. Personally, I like it more because of its humour and characters rather than game play or puzzles. But it does what it does well enough, and if you are looking for more of a comedic adventure, this is a solid enough pick.
You can get Sam & Max Save the World for consoles as well as for PC from GOG and Steam. It's around 17 euros without any discounts. I reckon that's fair enough, but you can get a discount as well, if you are willing to wait for it.
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