Let me make this quick. If you like the quirky humor and nonsensical shenanigans of Strong Bad and Homestar Runner enough to pay $8.95 for a point-and-click episode of the web series, this game is right up your alley. Everyone else, save that money and go buy a yo-yo or a lottery ticket. It’ll keep you entertained far longer.

Bottom Line: 2

Hit the jump to see Strong Bad get a taste of his own verbal pummeling.

Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People isn’t a bad game, for one simple reason. It’s not a game. What it is, amongst other things, is an exercise in futility, a journey into the heart of boredom, and a nearly pointless waste of time. I say nearly pointless, because the ‘game’ is a point-and-click escapade, in which players direct Strong Bad around the Homestar Runner neighborhood in a quest to “pummel” the titular armless white guy. Along the way, Strong Bad encounters other characters from the web series, and can choose to converse about heady topics such as the war in Iraq, this year’s election and the state of the economy.

Of course I made that up. No, the topics of conversation are as about as insipid as they come, and the only redeeming quality of said conversations is Strong Bad’s ability to either say something nice, or “say something he would say,” essentially a third-grade level insult. Unlike any other adventure where contextual conversation impacts the way things go, clicking on all choices available yields no reward or consequence other than the lines of dialogue that follow, which might actually be considered a punishment. The ACLU was too busy with Guantanamo Bay inmates to field my calls on the matter, so in my completely unprofessional and in no way qualified opinion, I’d say… yes.

Through the course of the game, Strong Bad acquires items which come in especially useless, such as hedge trimmers which cannot be used on anything except hedges (why can’t I use them on the other characters? It might have made the game interesting) and a phone for prank calls. I never figured out the point of saving hedge clippings, though I assume because they are in my inventory they serve a purpose. One of life’s great mysteries, I guess.

Another one of life’s mysteries is what the hell the objective of the game is. I guess I’m supposed to “pummel” Homestar, but I never did get that far. I ran around doing menial tasks and clicking through repetitive dialogue trees with no sense of purpose or direction. I finally gave up after a couple of hours, and chose to organize my sock drawer instead. It seemed a logical step up for my day.

But I am giving this game a 2. Why, you ask, would I give it a 2 after it so clearly earned the highest possible score on a scale of zero to negative zero?

Because it made me laugh. I was once a fan of the website, for about a month. I played “Trogdor” repeatedly on Guitar Hero, and I was actually moderately enticed by this game. There are a few points when I chuckled despite the mental stagnation the game brought on. I never “lol’d” as they say, or even guffawed, but I did snicker and I think at one point I may have even chortled.

Still, the few points of humor are not enough to detract from the overall aura of vagueness radiated by this game. It feels like an interactive episode of the web series, and if it were offered for free might be a decent little time-waster of a flash game, but to put a price tag on this, even nine bucks, seems a farce. This should clearly be free content, as no sane person would – or should – pay for the experience.

What does this score mean? Check out our review scoring breakdown.

Straight out of San Diego comes the latest comic-book animation and videogame news: Telltale Games, who have made two seasons of Sam and Max episodic games and are working on the Homestar Runner Wiiware game, have announced they’ll be creating a series of games based on Wallace and Gromit.

Wallace and Gromit are a British man-and-best-friend team that have held a number of odd jobs across their short films, including window washers, sheep shearers, and astronauts. Telltale CEO Dan Connors told the Associated Press that they’ll stay true to the short films and 2005 movie, but no word yet on whether these will be action-based or adventure-based games.

W&G is a beloved series by many, so hopefully Telltale Games will be careful to keep fans on board by carefully matching the series’ humor, wit, and art style. As soon as we have the first concrete info on this intriguing new game, we’ll be sure to let you know.

Thank goodness, I was worried there for a bit. After the lackluster Moai Better Blues, which was a bit on the short side, the latest Sam and Max episode brings the comedic adventure series back to where it belongs. In Night of the Raving Dead, you’ve got some of the best music in the series so far, a great new villain, and plenty of interesting puzzles.

Let’s talk about the music first. The mash-up of styles in Night of the Raving Dead is utterly entrancing. From the jazzed-up gothic horror theme when you first arrive in rainy Stuttgart, to the tear-jerking solo violin when you encounter a heartless Frankenstein monster, the sound designers have truly outdone themselves in this episode. It’s leaps beyond the goofy “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” refrain from Moai Better Blues.

It also helps that the new characters have a lot more personality than episode 202’s stone heads and sea monkeys. Night of the Raving Dead introduces Jurgen, a pensive vampire pretty-boy who own a haunted disco called The Zombie Factory. Jurgen is a riot, with his uppity attitude and twin nipple rings (which he painfully hangs his thumbs from—yikes!). He’s also a big fan of the strange TV show Midtown Cowboys, so you can be sure you’ll revisit that set from Sam and Max Season 1.

Jurgen has unleashed zombie hordes on Sam and Max’s neighborhood, but they’re not that harmful, even if one of them does steal Jessie James’ disembodied hand from the office. The zombie subplot means that Sam and Max will really get to see how the other half “lives”, which leads to one of the finest moments of the season so far. You’ll know it when you see it.

Sam says not all vampires are fruity, just the European ones

The puzzles are much improved from Moai Better Blues as well. Some of the multi-part missions involve sapping Jurgen of his cool and hooking up Frankenstein with the soulmate-seeking Sybil (who has dumped Lincoln for his Easter Island indiscretions). These puzzles are clever and creative, but they seem to be a bit simpler than they were previous episodes. Of course, if you get stuck, the adjustable hint system is still just as subtle and helpful as always.

Although a few characters (like Bosco) are MIA this time around, and my personal favorite Stinky only makes the briefest of cameos, Night of the Living Dead might be the best episode to start with if you’re new to this season or series. The season premier, Ice Station Santa, does a better job of reintroducing the characters, but Night of the Raving Dead has a brilliantly original story and some really fun new locations to explore. For a really solid adventure game episode, crack a glowstick and download Night of the Raving Dead.

What does this score mean? Check out our review scoring breakdown.

Other Sam and Max Season 2 reviews:
- Ice Station Santa
- Moai Better Blues

Sam and Max Season 2 Episode 3 Images

8 Photos

 

When we last left Sam and Max, they had just saved a demon-possessed Santa at the North Pole and then righted the wrongs of Christmas past, present, and future. Now, they’ve jumped through the Bermuda Triangle, where they will rock out with the giant stone heads of the Easter Island Moai and sip from the Fountain of Youth with the ever-young Amelia Earhart and Jimmy Hoffa. It’s good to be back.

To say there’s little logical connection between Episodes 1 and 2 this season would be an understatement, but then again, the series has always been as random and strange as an extended therapy session with the hyperkinetic rabbitty thing Max. The episodic Sam and Max games are still heavily tied to adventure game conventions, but if you’re comfortable enough with these characters to settle into a groove, then you’ll likely come away smiling.

Character advancement is the most satisfying aspect of the new episode. Sybil and Abraham Lincoln’s head go on a picnic in Easter Island (right next to the mast of Noah’s Ark and the life preserver from the SS Minnow), waitress and diner owner Stinky is still as tough and evasive with her customers, and Bosco is just as jumpy and paranoid.

Episode 2 introduces new characters as well, like the giant stone headed Moais, which control the elements of wind and lightening, and partake in the occasional basalt sandwich. Beneath an active volcano, which it’s Sam and Max’s job to defuse in this episode, lives a race of feet-worshipping sea monkeys. These new characters are interesting and funny, but will we ever see them again after this encounter?

The main problem with Episode 2 of this season is that it isn’t quite as accessible to newcomers. If you’re going to start playing a Sam and Max game, try Ice Station Santa, the second season premier that debuted in November. Moai Better Blues feels like a more compacted, less sprawling experience, and doesn’t have Ice Station Santa’s breathless energy. Most of the game is confined to Easter Island, with very few reasons to come back to Sam and Max’s neighborhood, and the minigames like riding a mechanical surfboard aren’t too satisfying by themselves.

The humor once again saves the day here, but Moai Better Blues is not quite as accomplished as the stellar season premier. If this season continues along at this pace, it’ll be a generally successful return to adventure game form, but I’m really hoping that Sam and Max pull out a few more surprises during the rest of their run.

What does this score mean? Check out our review scoring breakdown.

The new season of S&M is finally upon us, and gamers are fortunate that episodic adventure games have finally advanced to this point. Ice Station Santa, a warped Christmas story that plays on elements of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and, inexplicably, The Exorcist, is riotously funny and very easy to get into.

Lack of accessibility is perhaps what killed the adventure genre years ago, but Sam and Max Season Two has found an excellent balance between goofy puzzles and gentle guidance. The in-game hint system is a lifesaver, in the form of comments from Max when the player gets stuck or is unsure what to do next. You can set the difficulty on a one to five scale, and I opted for regular hints because I tend to get extremely frustrated by dead-end adventures.

Ice Station Santa, however, starts strong and keeps the momentum moving until the final cheeky scenes. After a destructive Christmas present sends Sam and Max to investigate the North Pole, they find that Santa is in need of some spiritual reclamation. Just when you think you’ve got the situation under control, however, your task becomes much more complex, forcing Sam and Max to save Christmas several times over.

Among the usual collecting of items to be used elsewhere, some of S&M’s tasks include reflex-testing action minigames. Swerving into a number of “Torture Me Elmer” dolls on the road or coaching a Boxing Betty doll to knock out a roster of rat fighters are nice additions to the puzzle solving. It’s always great to see Sam and Max in fast, fun, arcade minigames that break up the episode’s pacing.

For the most part, the emphasis in Sam and Max is on the storytelling, the humor, and the characters. Recurring characters Sybil Pandemik and Lincoln’s Giant Stone Head are now an item, and Inconvenience Store owner Bosco has ditched his disguise and is using his trillions to buy high-tech surveillance equipment. Jimmy Two Teeth is still boxing his inner demons and balancing his work life and family, and a new character, the waitress of Stinky’s, is hilarious in her customer-demeaning ways.

Ice Station Santa lasts about 4-5 hours, depending on how much clever dialogue you want to hear or weird background items you want to click on, and the hint system is recommended for lowering the amount of downtime. The game seems to be just the right length, and with only two months to go until episode 2 of season 2, there won’t be long until we get to see what happens next. From what we know, the next episode is not about Easter, but Easter Island.

A special mention should be made of the music, which is spectacular in its range and tone. The jazzy Sam and Max theme song and a “crazy Christmas” jingle that plays at the North Pole are among the highlights, not to mention “The Happy Demon Song”.

While adventure gaming still has its pratfalls, like aimless wandering or illogical puzzles, Sam and Max does its best to minimize these problems while bringing to life some of the funniest and most likable characters in a game series. There are hundreds of in-jokes for established fans, but Ice Station Santa succeeds because it is completely accessible for newcomers as well. Don’t miss this gift from the thoughtful elves at Telltale.

The Sam and Max episodes have proven that regular episodic gaming can work, and that there’s still room for comedic adventure games in the market. Telltale Games sells their episodic games through their website, and their games are also available on Gametap. We spoke to Telltale’s CEO Dan Connors about the Sam and Max community and what makes Sam and Max work as episodic comedy.

Q: Episode One of Sam and Max Season Two comes out in November. How far along is the rest of the series?
A: Episode Two is very close,Three we’re about to drop voice in, and Four the design is done. Five we’re about halfway through the design.

Q: Are you involved in the fan community, the people who are anticipating the next season?
A: Yeah!

Q: What are their impressions of Ice Station Santa based on what’s been released?
A: People seem to be really excited about it. We’ve definitely got people living at our site now who are anticipating the next release, which was always a big goal for us. Last season was all about “how do you release a bunch of episodes, how does one episode link to another,” now we’re in this “how do seasons relate to each other?”

What we’ve always set out to do is create an experience where there’s a Sam and Max world online that you can come back to and be part of every month. Our dream is that that continues to blur between game releases and other Sam and Max web experiences and Telltale web experiences.

Q: When you say other Sam and Max experiences, do you mean the online community?
A: Yeah, like community, and ways to connect the community to the game, and take advantage of the fact that it is an online product. There’s no limits to what you can do. Well, obviously there’s limits, but there’s so many things to try. And it’s not like right now we’re under somebody’s thumb, kind of telling us what we can and can’t do.

We’re really interested in seeing what people are interested in, and what they’re responding to, what they’re really liking about it and what they don’t, so the community shows you that kind of stuff. Which is cool, when you have a community they tell you what they like. It seems like they’re liking what they see, because really it’s just going to be more Sam and Max and even crazier, wilder situations.

Andrew explains to Dan that yellow paper is easier on the eyes

Q: How have people responded to the adventure game aspect? Have you ever thought of taking those characters and putting them in a different type of game?
A: Well, we want to evolve adventure games to something that is much easier to use for everybody. Sam and Max is a little bit of a double edged sword. It was an adventure game, there are a lot of people who want it to stay an adventure game. And those people are the ones we can count on no matter what to come back and enjoy the experience. So if you think about who the consumer for Sam and Max is going to be, the adventure game makes a lot of sense.

Now using that mechanic and taking the best things about Sam and Max– the fact that they’re outrageously funny, the characters are a riot, the situations are a riot, so running around with a gun shooting at all of them wouldn’t necessarily deliver that. But the adventure game mechanics can be evolved in a way that the world is more alive and more active.

What we’re really thinking of now is the passive nature of an adventure game. You walk into a space, and you have to make something happen. You have to click on something to happen. What we want is the world to be more proactive towards you and come at you. If you walk into a room in a first person shooter, people don’t stand around waiting for you to do something. You’d get your ass blown off, and you move.

So that’s a driven experience, and that’s really how we want to evolve Telltale Games in general. Now, dramatically doing that to the Sam and Max audience that we have, love, and allow us to be funny and creative and come up with great characters, it’s a very sensitive thing. It’s not something we’re going to just drop on them.

Q: So would you be open to a spin-off series that is more action-oriented, or in a different genre?
A: No matter what genre we do, it’s still going to be about the characters and the story. If we do something like The Flint Paper Capers, I see it being closer to a CSI type of experience than a Max Payne type experience.

One of our mottos early was, in a Telltale game, if you’re going to shoot someone, you’re going to have a good reason. So vision-wise, the company’s vision is still to get to that point where there’s real connection between the player and the AI characters in the world. The Sims and Railroad Tycoon are both types of games we look at for inspiration. Even Façade and the more experimental stuff.

Q: Why did you choose to put Episode 4 for free on Gametap?
A: Because we think it’s a great episode. It’s topical. It’s going to be on our site in a couple of weeks too, as kind of a hey, here comes the new season, check out the best of last season. So we’re going to make it available to as many people as possible, and we know free is a great enticer. Right now, from a market standpoint, the first episode sells the most by far. People come in and they start on the first episode. Shouldn’t shock us or anything.

Q: But you don’t consider that to be the very best?
A: I don’t think anybody in the studio considers that to be the very best. It’s funny because it’s the best reviewed, and it won adventure game of the year, but that was just because it didn’t suck. I think more people can relate to [episode 4], swing on by and check it out, get introduced to Telltale Games, and say hey, this is pretty cool.

Q: Will making episode 4 available encourage people to review the rest of the series, or do you want to push them forward into season 2?
A: Our hope is it’s going to be something that gets people interested to go buy season 2. By four we hit our stride, and we weren’t stressed out about finishing it and wrapping it up. It was just sort of the perfect set of circumstances.

Q: Any plans to go back and refine the first season?
A: I think the first season is going to stay as it is, and if people want to start from the beginning, that’s great. We’re still incredibly proud of it. And it’s going to be part of the evolution of the series no matter what. Like you watch the first season of the Sopranos, and they weren’t exactly in their stride, but you look back at it later.

Dan is proud of the first season and its part in the evolution of the series

We took everything we learned from the first one and put it in from the ground up into Season 2. From the arc of the story, as far as type of puzzles people liked and didn’t like, as far as what the frustrations were for people. Everything we learned in Season one, we’re starting Season two with.

And then it was funny watching the production team kind of get their groove again, in the design and everything else, and watch the story flesh out. I think by three or four again this season it’s going to be kind of the best stuff. One is also outrageouslly funny, especially since it’s a Christmas spec ial. Having the ability to do that is something we’ve always wanted to do with episodic games.

Q: Where would you like to see the characters end up eventually? Are Sybil Pandemik and Abe Lincoln’s Giant Stone Head going to have little half giant headed babies?
A: You know, the sky’s the limit. You can see what the beauty of Sam and Max is. It’s like, you set up some ridiculous situation and ridiculous ideas come out of it. If there were six little Lincoln baby heads and they had a biting problem, and they were biting Max in the ankles, whatever… anything can happen. And that’s the beauty.

Q: What can you tell us about the new character, the waitress at Stinky’s diner?
A: Her grandfather originally owned it… and there’s definitely something fishy going on there. You still have a lot to find out about it, because the designers always kill me for giving away their secrets.

The waitress at Stinky’s is the granddaughter of the original owner,
and her story will be explained in Season Two.

Q: What are you doing to evolve the technology of the adventure game?
A: We’re doing a lot. We’re really focusing on understanding where the player is in the world. The engine is checking in with the player, saying have you done this before, how many times have you clicked on this. With that feedback, we then can tell the characters how to respond to that player. So it comes back to that bringing the player back to the world alive.

If I’m standing in the store not looking at anything, Bosco will say “What’s wrong with you?” and he should really recognize it. Understanding the player’s intent can be tricky because you never know when they’re going to go out back and have a smoke or whatever, but there are certainly things you can pull from it. Help direct the player, but don’t direct them when they don’t want to be directed.

If someone just wants to play a game that’s not just running around shooting, they want to get introduced to Sam and Max, they want to laugh their ass off, they don’t want to get frustrated. So we need to give them a directed experience. Immediately their first instinct is to not want to solve a problem. So we’ve got to recognize that and immediately make them feel like they are solving problems but they’re being helped enough. All those nuances.

So you’ve got the game telling you you’ve done this, that, and the other thing. We’re incubating that right now. And a lot of the other stuff is about the production proccess. Five episodes in six months is not easy. And we got better at doing it in the last one. By the end we were good at doing it and of course the designers made things three times more complicated. So it still took just as long. So they pushed, we optimized, they push, we optimized.

You’ll see our characters will be acting better this year, added animations, better use of animations. Just everyone has more animations to choose from and we’re selecting them better, and there’s better blending between them. Holistically, everything’s less rough. It’s going to be a good season.