1.9.09

Telltale Games: Sam n' Max 1.1: Culture Shock

The first game in Telltale Games revitalisation scheme of the classical adventure couple "Sam & Max" is a pleasant re-acquaintance. The pairing of the eloquent and super sarcastic Sam with the hyper violent and primitive Max works better than ever. Especially Max has some hilarious comments during the game.
For example:
Sam: "Remember our motorcycle trip through the midwest?"
Max: "Just you, me and the authorities from seven states. But those were quieter times."
and:
Sam: "2002 was a great year for calendars."
Max: "I'm glad we stocked up. We've been going through them at a rate of about one a year since then."
The terrific interplay between the two main characters creates a sarcastic and silly ambience, which works very well.
The introductory puzzle is very good too and so is the presentation of the first secondary character, the criminal rat, that lives in the appartment rat hole; Jimmy Two-Teeth ("I ain't tellin' you nothin'! I ain't no rat... or... eehh... well, I ain't tellin'!").
Unfortunately the next (and main) part is hampered by a main villain lacking personality and his extremely annoying sidekicks. The villain Brady Culture lacks character, a proper motive and good voice acting and his sidekicks have annoying voices and highly stupid catchphrases that they seem to repeat endlessly. Fortunately you get to knock them all out. Also it helps that the two main characters find them as annoying as you do. The puzzles of the main part are okay, but not that original. The final part however offers some puzzles of great originality and variation including fooling a psychiatrist into thinking you have "artificial personality disorder" by navigating through a Rorschach test, a free association test and a dream interpretation and breaking out of hypnosis by entering your own head and destroying the intruding hypnotizer. Both are quite challenging and satisfying.

Verdict: Good - very funny at times, varied and original puzzles, but a bit tedious in the middle part