Having recently finished playing through the last episode of the season, it's time to take a few moments and review the aggregate first season of Sam & Max.
A little background before I get started, I first encountered Sam & Max in the back of the LucasArts Company Store catalogs that used to be packed in with games purchased in the pre-internet dominant days of the early and mid-nineties. Not too long after that, I found that our local library had a copy of the Sam & Max graphic novel. I was hooked. That book became pretty dog-eared over the years, and I'm pretty sure a lot of the readers were my brothers and me.
A couple of years later I got my first computer, and acquired a copy of Sam & Max: Hit the Road. Arguably the pinnacle of the LucasArts SCUMM engine games, Hit the Road was an instant classic with lines I still quote to this day. If you ever walk into a room and someone says "You're back! And you're bigger than a breadbox. Three breadboxes even!" then you're in the presence of a Sam and Max fan.
Thus it was with great joy that I learned that LucasArts was going to resurrect the six-foot dog and three-foot rabbitty-thing for a new adventure, and great sorrow when I learned that they'd canceled it. Telltale Games announcement that they had picked up the license, and would be publishing new Sam & Max games in an episodic format was met with cautious optimism. Hey, it was new Sam & Max, and they were working with the original creator, but episodic? I wasn't convinced.
I'm convinced now. Each of the six episodes, taken alone, play out as short 2-3 hour games. Some are a bit better than others (Episodes 4 and 6 are my favorites), but each can stand alone. However, much like a good TV drama (Firefly, SG-1, ER) where individual episodes stand out on their own merits, but full seasons weave more complex plots and over-arching stories that cary from episode to episode, so it is with Sam & Max. The first three episodes serve to establish an overall conspiracy and introduce the cast of characters. Things take a dramatic turn in the fourth episode though, and the remaining two are madcap jaunts through ever-growing weirdness before reaching a conclusion of truly global proportions.
For those who aren't familiar with the previous incarnations of Dog and Bunny, here's the ADD summary: Sam is a six-foot dog, and the nominal voice of reason for the duo. Max is a three-foot rabbitty-thing and the voice of insanity and mindless violence. They're private detectives, and freelance police. Each episode opens with a call from the commissioner, providing them with some new case to look into. In each episode they also have encounters with Bosco, the owner/operator of the local Inconvenience store, and Sybil, the job-hopping careerist down the street.
The first episode revolves around a plot to take over the world hatched by the washed up stars of a '70s children's TV show. Of course, they must be stopped, but this is only the grease-tipped tail of the massive rat called Conspiracy.
The games are available now on Gametap or from Telltale Games' website. If you fondly remember the original game, or just want to try a great new adventure game, give these a shot.
For an additional taste of weirdness, check out http://www.maxforpresident.org/
Genre: Adventure Game
System: PC
Rated: T (Ages 13 and up)
Appropriate for Ages: Probably ten and older, although at that age, they may not get some of the more obscure or esoteric humor.
System Requirements: If you've bought a new computer in the past three years, you should be fine.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Video Game Review: Sam & Max: Season 1
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
D-Day Rememberance
Take a moment today to remember that 63 years ago, 155,000 American, Canadian, British, Free French, and Polish volunteers landed on the beaches of Normandy, on the North coast of France, to begin the great push to free western Europe from the Nazi war machine. The crosses, tombstones, and other markers that now show their passing are reminders of a time when battles were fought with the expectation of a minimum 10% casualty count, and when friendly troop deaths for single battles were measured, not in tens, but in hundreds or thousands.
Let's also be grateful that the modern media and opposition did not have the power then that they have now, or the invasion plans would have been leaked and published in the New York Times two months before the invasion began, and political commentators would be calling for a pullout and impeachment of President Roosevelt after the casualty reports of the first day.
Finally, remember that there are still young men and women serving now, in Iraq, Afganistan, Germany, Okinawa, South Korea, aboard ships, all over the United States, and scattered in countless other deployments that we may never know about, who still serve to protect the freedoms we enjoy today.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Fallout 3 Trailer
Back in 1997, I picked up a bargain bin game from my local software shack for my shiny new and expensive Pentium 200 computer. The game was Fallout 2, and it included, as a bonus, a copy of Fallout 1 as well.
And thus was an obsession born. I had never really played any RPGs prior to Fallout, and this was like handing uncut Jet to a virgin user. I was hooked. In the ensuing ten years, both my brothers and I have played countless hours in Fallout's post-nuclear world, and experimented with pretty much every character you could think of. Even now, I get the periodic urge to go back in and lose myself for a week.
All that to say why I'm extremely excited and happy to see Bethesda's Fallout 3 teaser trailer. While the pessimistic game developer I've become warns that it's entirely possible they'll still screw things up and make the game suck, the optimistic fan in me says "Look at that trailer! They got the atmosphere exactly right!"
If this won't run on Buuthandi (my current computer) I'll just have to upgrade. Fallout 3 is that important.
Starting to Believe
My brain tells me it's foolish optimism. It's June, the season's not even half over. Sure, the Dodgers are in first place, but look at where the other teams are in the standings. Sure the Mariners have won three straight, four of their last five, and had a winning road trip, but they're playing teams they ought to be beating, they're still 5.5 games out of first place, and they've only won two games against the Angels this season.
Still, I'm starting to believe it might be a good year for Dodgers and Mariners baseball. I grew up a Dodgers fan, and thanks to Al Gore and the series of tubes known as the Internet, I'm able to listen to the audio broadcasts live or the next day. Of course, I live near Seattle, so much like I'd become a Royals fan if I lived in Kansas City, or an Astros fan if I lived near Houston (the exception being that if I ever have the misfortune of living near San Francisco, the only Giants games I'll be attending are when the Boys in Blue are in town, and I'd be there with every scrap of Dodger apparel I own), I'm now a Mariners fan. Back in 2001 and 02, being a Mariners fan was easy, since they were good teams. It hasn't been so easy the last few years, but this year, I think things are different.
Last night, with two outs in the bottom of the eighth, the Mariners were down by a run. The teams of the last few years would have simply rolled over and died. The team of this year put together five consecutive hits, two of them pinch hits off the bench and one of them being the third hit of the night for a sub who'd been batting .225 to put up four runs and ultimately win the game.
So it's June, and if the Mariners can put together a good run, and figure out how to beat the Angels, they've got a shot at making the playoffs for the first time since 2002. If the Dodgers can keep it together and stay ahead of the Padres and Diamondbacks, they will make the playoffs for the second year in a row. All I know for sure is that I'd better stalk up on antacids, because it's going to be a wild summer and fall.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Bleeding is Easy
Before work today, I headed into the local blood center and had them take a pint of O+ out of my right arm. I try to do this every eight weeks or so, assuming my health cooperates.
It tends to leave me feeling a bit light-headed for a day, and I hate being stuck by needles, so why do it? Simply put, it's any easy way to do something good. I'm not a cop, a fireman, a soldier, or an ambulance driver. While I'd be willing to do so, I'll probably never rescue someone from a burning car, use the Heimlich to save a choking person at a restaurant, or stop an out-of-control bus carrying nuns and orphans from crashing into a gas station.
But I can do this. I can get up a half-hour earlier on a Monday morning, answer a bunch of check-box questions about my travel and sexual history, and sit in a chair while someone sticks a tube in my arm and drains out some a pint of blood. And maybe, for somebody, somewhere, one of those pints of O+ has been the difference between life and death.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Which Star Trek Character are You?
Because Ambulance Driver and Ahab did it first...
Your results:
You are Uhura
| You are a good communicator with a pleasant soft-spoken voice. Also a talented singer.  |
Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Quiz
I'm so humiliated. I should at least be Geordi. Then again, I use Scotty's advice about giving time estimates to your superiors on a regular basis.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Weekend Aviation Fun: Stupid Citation Tricks
For my new reader(s), here's a weekend feature I'll try to keep going: Stupid (or sometimes cool) aviation tricks. For this week, though, it's definitely stupid: video of a pilot trying to land a Citation CJ 525 on a wet 3000' runway near Atlantic City. Note, the Citation model in question lists 3250' as the minimum runway distance.