Sam and Max starts Season 2

THEY'RE BAAACK! Yes, Sam and Max are back for 'season 2' of their critically acclaimed (1) point and click adventure series known as Sam and Max. We told you a little about it earlier, now it is time for the full review.

The first episode of season 2 is called Ice Station Santa, I will leave it up to you to work out the pun, but I will say it is only the first of very many things that will make you groan in playing the game. It is a classic point and click adventure, that started with the Sierra *Quest games, and was transformed into a legend by the Lucas point and click adventures. The best of these was Sam and Max Hit the Road.

Season 1 brought these games into 3D, or more like 2.8D, the scenes are fairly limited in where you can travel, but you can move in more than one direction. There were a few niggling anoyances in season 1 that I can happily say have been purged in season 2.

The biggest two of these are the ability to run, you just double click and comparatively fly across the screen, and a much more varied choice of screen resolutions. In season 1, you were mainly stuck in 4:3 form factors, and capped at 1600*1200. No more, you can run happily at 2560*1600 all day long now, these games were made for panoramic wide-screens.

Speaking of resolutions, the initial setup screen introduces you to the game with four new characters, and if you are into old school gaming and computing, this one will hurt badly. In a good way. If you want creative genius, you don't need to look farther than the introduction screen.

The game itself is pretty much the same as season 1. The goals were pretty simply that in season 2, make the locations more varied, change how the cases are doled out, and make the mini-games less tedious. On top of it, they went for 'edgier' humor, that is PR speak for darker and more twisted.

I think they succeeded on all counts. The first game season had much of the action taking place in the office and two surrounding shops, both of which are still there, but more has been added. You used to start every case/episode with a call from the commissioner, but no more, now they come at you in different ways.

The mini-games are also a welcome change. Those games in season 1 were all driving games with somewhat obtuse logic puzzles. There was one where I spent 20 minutes trying to figure out how to make a car chasing me hit a ramp when that was not the goal at all. I admit, I had to look it up.

The new games are varied, the one in Ice Station Santa has you playing a Boxing Betty doll who looks like a hazing victim that was then attacked by a gang. She beats up on colorful characters like Wally "Glass-Jaw" Puddlesniffer, a rat. If you wanted a example of the 'edgier' humor, this is a good one.

I can't talk much about the game itself because of the limited number of puzzles involved. I don't want to destroy large chunks of it with an errant spoiler. The action starts out in S&M HQ, but quickly expands to a few new local locales. Bosco's Inconvenience is still there, but there is more in the neighborhood now.

You quickly move on to the north pole for Christmas themed hilarity, including exorcisms, outsourcing elves, the four horsemen and a gun wielding Santa barricaded in..... nope, can't say that. As crazy as the big things sound, they have nothing on the little bits hidden around the rooms. Spend the time it takes to click through all of the food choices at Stinky's, trust me there.

That brings us to the game itself. It is still a point and click adventure(P &C), something you either love or hate. Up until very recently, I was in the hate group, poisoned by too many obtuse and frankly sucky P&C games that were billed as the next big thing because they used a CD to store the enormous volume of data on. The late 90s were full of them, may they rot in.....

Sam and Max changed all that. Some of the puzzles in season 1 were annoying and a bit obtuse, what you do with the bowling ball for example, but for the most part, it was a fun logic puzzle with snarky commentary. Season 2 makes things a bit more obvious, not necessarily easier, but more obvious, and has a very nice integrated hint system.

That is probably the best part, when the system senses you are flailing, one of the characters, in conversation will drop you a hint. You can set the frequency of this, and in general, decide how much you want to know. It works really well to keep the game moving, and entails things like Max saying " Shouldn't we be going to the north pole now?" or other such hints worked in to the story. It is never blunt, no "Please insert the fish into the orifice".

It will play on almost any close to modern hardware, may make a plane trip more tolerable, and be a few hours of fun. Sam and Max is an episodic game, tipped off by the 'episode 1' in title, which is code for shorter than you might expect. That said, it took me several hours to complete, mainly because I clicked on everything and listened to the dialog many times.

In the end, Sam and Max: Season 2: Episode 1: Ice Station Santa: is a lot of fun. It made me laugh in a number of places, fixed almost all of my gripes about season 1, and in general was worth the $8.95 I didn't pay for it because I got an early preview, but you can get the demo here. I definately would have bought it though, season 1 was well worth the $35 or so I paid for the CD. µ