I’m not quite sure if the recent adventure game invasion of the consoles (think Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaro’s Treasure or Hotel Dusk: Room 215), Telltale’s mainstream success or the dozens of point-and-clickers released during 2007 signal a genre renaissance, but I’m absolutely certain that Sam & Max Season One would be my top 2007 pick, should anyone care to ask. Six episodes, hours of great humor, innovative puzzles, beautiful cartoon graphics, absurd songs, a genuine point-and-click experience in the Lucasarts tradition and an impressive attention to detail was all I could ever ask for.

Well, almost. A brand new Ron Gilbert game wouldn’t be that bad either, but for the time being the recently released Sam & Max: Season One box set will suffice. For me, that is. Well, for you too I guess. Provided of course you haven’t played through all of the episodes already or haven’t bought the season directly from Telltale. Not hating adventures would probably be nice too. Other than that, having all of the episodes on one disc accompanied by a selection of brilliant extras such as behind the scenes videos, concept art, wallpapers and trailers should be the pinnacle of your adventure game purchases of the past decade.

As for those of you, oh wise and beautiful readers, that haven’t heard of neither Sam nor Max, let me just say they are but a psychotic duo consisting of a dog in man’s clothes and an unashamedly naked lagomorph embarking on surreal quests. They also happen to call themselves the Freelance Police, enjoy being pointlessly violent, savor their odd sarcastic moment and have even starred in their very own, very retro Lucasarts classic.

For the rest of you, the S&M loving masses, I’ll just point out that each and every episode of Season 1 is on par with Hit the Road (only shorter and in glorious 3D) with episode 5 being the only notable exception. It’s better and even manages to pay homage to them forgotten text adventures. Yes, it’s that good.

Posted on January 3rd, 2008 by konstantinos