The Pros and Cons of Culture Shock

[anonima]

what did you like,what worked, and what would you like to see?
what didn't you like, what would you like improved?
start listing! :D

[anonima]

the theory of this post is too put all feedback in here instead of having 100 individual posts :)

[anonima]

I had a few thoughts:

Pros-
-Quite funny
-Puzzles, while not difficult per se, are logical enough that completing them still made me feel clever
-Outstanding music

Cons-
- The lip sync is problematic, which is especially noticeable in close-ups.
- While I agree with the concept of eliminating verbs to make the game more streamlined, the right mouse button now does nothing. Why not have it set up such that the left button is "interact" and the right button is just "look"?

I might come up with more things, but overall I liked it very much, and I feel the urge to replay it just to check out every dialog tree.

[anonima]

The Thing I do not complain about: The voices

The voices are to my expectations for the new installments of Sam and Max. To me, the voices match what Sam and Max would sound like if they had voices.

PRO/CON: Mostly easy and a little hard...

Recently, I have been playing the point and click adventure games on Gametap. Some people may agree with me that in some of those games, in some instances, the puzzles are really in the vein of "WHAT? I cannot begin to understand the thought process needed to complete this! (Or, I am too lazy too...)"

Sam and Max does not have this in the overall scheme of things. Although alot of puzzles seem easy, there were some that probably got a lot of people to think, even me. (posting SAT scores to undermine whatever argument I am trying make is not required[though we all know you lie anyways])

Although, with the logical (sometimes read as: Lucky I tried THAT) approach, I am always awarded with The Funny.

I see Episode One as a begginer course into this style/genre of gaming and perhaps the world of Sam and Max. Perhaps the next episode could be a tad bit harder.

[anonima]

PROS
- music
- voice acting
- clever puzzle design
- animation
- writing(very funny)
- level of detail in the game
- dialogue trees where you answer as sam and max
- length(i'm quite happy with roughly 4 hours a month)
- price


CONS
- delivery of Sam's lines
- few locations
- story could be a lot weirder( in the sam and max sense)
- level of difficulty( if they are aiming for the seasoned adventure gamer..it needs to be harder)
- lack of verbs

[Alucard]

I'd have to agree with the lack of verbs being a con. For the designers it is a pro because it is less work for them. I'm not for going back to the monkey/monkey 2 set up (lots of verbs which made things funny at times)
but I think something like full throttle/ monkey 3 would be nice

[anonima]

Considering how I always considered the voices from Hit the Road to be the definitive voices of Sam and Max, I warmed up to the new voices pretty quickly. I could nitpick, but I give the new guys an 8 out of 10.

Now, I don't know if it's just my computer or not, but the actual sound quality of the voice acting sometimes seems kind of poor... almost as if they're too compressed. Some of it sounds kind of scratchy.

Like I said, maybe it's just my computer. But the dialogue and acting is so strong, it would seem like a shame if the sound quality got in the way of that at all.

[anonima]

It was too short, i mean it took me a week for each episode of Bone, in finished this in 2 days of a few hours...

MORE MORE MORE

And yes, the voices seem different then the ones in some of the previews i saw, they seem closer to the hit the road voices

And yeah i also noticed that at least on the gametap version that the compression was a lil too severe on the voices, since most people have broadband it wouldnt killa to give em a few more khz samples

And while i appreciate the ablity to play windowed and to go up to 1024, since most 19" lcds are 1280 it would have been nice to go up to that, or even better the full unadorned glory of my 24" dell :)

All i know is I signed up for a year of gametap just to play the game and it was worth it :)

[anonima]

I loved the game, the animation and oddities (I found a fish flopping in the rat hole?) were sweet. One of the best adventure games I've played (althoughI haven't played many).

One thing that bugged me through the entire game was the mouse though. I feel like I'm swining it around on a 10 foot poll. Perhaps a mouse sensitivity option. Perhaps it's my computer (Gametap said I didn't have a fast enough processor, but I have an AMD Athlon XP 2400 running at 2.0 ghz).

The mouse problem compounded my desire to move faster though text selection. I'd love it if the next episode of Sam and Max allowed you to make speech selections by hotkeys. It seems like most menus have 4 or 5 options so it seems like assigning each option to the numbers 1-5 on my keyboard would be a logical choice.

(Fix the mouse, but add the hotkeys anyway ;) )

[Legolas813]

^ Lower the graphic settings and the mouse will move faster/smoother.

I found I could usually run the game on medium settings, but during certain scenes I had to put it all the way low for the mouse to move at an acceptable rate.

My specs:

1.5 GHz
768 RAM
64 MB video card

[anonima]

I really loved the game. I thought the humor was spot-on, the animation was excellent, the voice acting was great, and there were clever puzzle ideas/scenerios (like the whole dream sequence) that just made the game cool. It was just a blast to play, really, and I really look forward to the next one.

As far as suggestions, I think it definitely could have the difficulty raised a bit. Perhaps you could raise the difficulty more and more every episode? And, God-willing, every season. That way newcomers aren't overwhelmed by the challenging and creative puzzles, because they'll be eased into it. (Maybe that's what's already going to be done?)

I think the graphics look nice, but the intro/outro really made me realize how cool the game would look cell-shaded (obviously not just two-toned). It would maintain the 3Dness but also maintain that cartoony quality of Sam and Max that we've all grown to know and love. Not essential, it would just be cool.

I think more verbs and the ability to combine items would be cool. Even if "more verbs" just means to look and a context-sensitive action (perhaps simply left click/right click). That way they would only need to add a little extra dialogue to the objects you can actually interact with. Combining items is just fun. And it seems Max needs a little more of a part in the story. Having him be an item was a fun element in HTR because Sam often uses Max as an item in the comic series. And usually the results of using Max as an item are hilarious.

I personally had a problem with the graphics being too high. Everything ran smoothly when inside the apartment/Bosco's/etc. but outside it was really sluggish, as well as certain scenes with more animations and characters. I was running on the lowest settings possible. I guess you could just say to me, "get a faster computer," but since this game is meant to appeal to a wide audience, perhaps adding a third option of decreasing the graphics quality even further would help those like me who aren't updating their computers every year. After all, graphics are great, but it's really the actions, dialogue and play control that are important.

I know, a lot of suggestions, but it's only because I loved this game and I want subsequent games to be even better that I'm making them. Thanks for bringing back Sam and Max!

[anonima]

I suggest releasing a demo before the game's release.

[anonima]

Mike, it's essentially shareware, so it will undoubtedly have the same "try before you buy" strategy as Bone.

[Hero1]

keep it going

[baardhimself]

Pros:
Its Sam and Max, finally!
Script is magnificent
Max's voice acting
Graphics are stunning and highly polished

Cons:
$10,000 Puzzle was poor
Sams voice acting
Having to wait for part 2!

[Mikkel]

I love the game.

The one thing I thought could be improved, was the controls. Like people've mentioned; it felt a little weird not having a right-click option; the interface felt a little bit constraining actually, which is not a good thing when you already have a really limited/closed environment (not many locations). The result is what feels like a pretty "small" game.

In addition, I felt the controls were a little "slow". It would be great if you could set the mouse speed manually within the game. I'm used to working with a very high mouse sensitivity and speed, so the control felt kinda sluggish.

But this is nothing. The game was GREAT.

[Erwin]

Hehe, the first thing I did when I played it for the first time was exactly that: Trying to right-click. But I got used to it pretty quickly, and it never bothered me.

--Erwin

[Markusdragon]

It was too short :P

Now what am I going to do for the other 29 days of November? University work?

[JK1985]

it felt a little weird not having a right-click option; the interface felt a little bit constraining actually, which is not a good thing when you already have a really limited/closed environment (not many locations). The result is what feels like a pretty "small" game....
... The game was GREAT.

I couldn't agree more!

[0renji]

Pros:
-I was laughing a lot. In fact I found the humour in Hit the Road to be kind of gentle in comparison... I don't mean less funny, just sort of a different type of humour. I didn't really laugh out loud with HtR, but I did here.

-For such a short game, SO MUCH STUFF. I was overjoyed being able to click almost everything in the office, although I wish we could have seen the 'back' of the office too (you can see it while Sam/Max are talking sometimes)

-The graphics are fairly amazing. Nothing is blurred, backgroundy stuff; you can read all the text on everything (like the post-it on the calender). Even parts which aren't really seen are that detailed, like the office back.

-References back to HtR. Especially liked the comment about the old car.. I was wondering about it ;D This just made it seem like Telltale were way more involved than LucasArts would have been perhaps. Like a fan game, but, you know, actually good (fan games almost never are, eh!)

-Logic/smart-assery in item combos is rewarded with different lines instead of the standard not-doing-that lines.

-Inventive! I loved the whole psychoanalyis dream part. It was neat. As was the hypnosis dream part.

-Others seem to hate it, but Sam's voice was cool; he was the only break in the high-pitched irritation of Max and the Soda Poppers too. It sounded fairly HtR-ish to me, but I might be an idiot.

Cons:
-I was this close to trying to strangle Max. I feel more instances where Sam says something alone are needed, but that might be because I find Max's voice irritating.

-No seperate look and use buttons, although you could right-click inventory objects to look at them. The inventory would then close just to annoy me. Ack.

-Sometimes if you use an item, then right-click to skip dialogue lines, your cursor will get stuck as that item until you use a different one or go to another place.

-Fairly slow plot, as plots go. Most puzzles were straight-forward too, except one or two I got stuck on. They did turn out to be logical enough, I just wasn't getting them.

-I know this was kind of what I expected, but even for a short episodic game, it felt... SHORT. Maybe due to not much happening in the plot?

-I feel a little animation of Sam TRYING to hit the Soda Poppers wouldn't have gone amiss. Because the first time I saw them run away, I was like "what the hecks just happened?" maybe I'm just dumb. :x I - I mean - if I were Sam I would have hit them while they were doing the run-away pose just before they leave. Y'know.

------------

I wrote lots. :'( I wrote lots cause I CARE. I seem negative but... for the amount of time the game took (2 and a half hours, for me), awesome overall. Awesome. We heart you Telltale :'D

[Sean A]

Pros:

Nearly everything. The voice acting was great, though I think the timing needed a little tweaking, but that'll come with experience. I actually found myself liking Max on an equal plane with Nick Jameson's (Hit the Road) Max, which surprised me more than anyone.

But, all in all, from art direction to difficulty to humor, was rounded and excellent.

Cons:

THE MOUSE CURSOR. Oh my god, if that thing was any laggier...I wanted to put my fist through the screen. I mean, I have a P4, Nvidia FX5200 256, 1.5GB of RAM which can run Half-Life 2 @ 1440x900 with high graphical settings and everything but anti-aliasing turned on. A cursor should not be lagging in this game. Period. I hope they get it ironed out in an update, or at least by Episode 2.

But I still loved it.

[Mikkel]

Now, it's a good while since I last played HTR, but I also felt that the humor was even edgier in this game - as in more provocative and violent. Which is good!

Make it even nastier next time around! Sam and Max might look like a kid's game, but that's what makes it funny - the adult humor.

Also, like many have said, the voices are set too low compared to the music and sound effects on default. It's not a problem to adjust it, but still.

Wo wo wo!

[Narwaffle]

Cons:
$10,000 Puzzle was poor



Spoiler Warning!

The $10,000 puzzle was poor? It was hilarious! First realizing that you could actually shoot people's tail-lights out was pure hilarity in itself, but then figuring out that you could pull people over for it and fine them was even funnier! Getting your $10,000 was just the icing on the cake.

[Pvt._Public]

I loved everything. Maybe adding in some more resolutions would be nice *Cough* 1680 X 1050 *Cough*. Oh, and make the right mouse button do something more than look at stuff in your inventory. Maybe it could look at stuff OUTIDE your inventory... Other than that, everything was nigh on perfect.

[Laserschwert]

All right, I'm not sure WHERE to post suggestions, but I guess this one's just fine. But first of all, I REALLY liked the game. Took me about 2.5 to 3 hours to finish, and got some really hilarious moments. Yet:

- Increase the polygon count for the characters. I'm sure that doubling the polys used on each character would still keep the game playable on lower-end machines. S&M was an improvement from Bone (Thorn looked VERY jaggy), and I know what a pain in the ass re-modeling can be (assuming you can keep the animation and just re-do the rigging), but still, I hope it can be upped, since the wonderful camera-work (close-ups) make this necessary, IMO.

- Scaaaaaale. I don't mean the length of the game, but the scope of it. Right now you're wandering around a relatively confined space. Taking the duo out for a road trip should be doable, and just having some scenes look "big" (something like a huge view across the landscape would help... doesn't have to be walkable), maybe having the walkable area allow for a 360 degree turn of the camera, to show all of the surroundings (the far ones don't have to be modeled, just like the city background in Ep1). "Hit the Road" did this (not the 360 degrees thingy) in quite a lot of scenes (Ball of Twine, Bungee Park, World of Fish), and it increased the epic ("road trippy") feel of the game.

- More attention to secondary characters. The animation of the secondary characters looked very simple for most parts. I know, lip-synching is a lot of work, and maybe you're already doing this, but can't the lip-synching animation be combined with the speech-files? Like, having the necessary phoneme-morphs for the faces ready, and just have each speech-file contain the lip-synch info (so that basically every character could say every line of text lip-synched the same way, without extra work, because each file just plays down the necessary phonemes from the "face morph library" of the particular character)? Hope this was understandable...

[baardhimself]

Spoiler Warning!

The $10,000 puzzle was poor? It was hilarious! First realizing that you could actually shoot people's tail-lights out was pure hilarity in itself, but then figuring out that you could pull people over for it and fine them was even funnier! Getting your $10,000 was just the icing on the cake.

I didnt mind getting it but the whole fact that a guy would have $10,000 in his car.. that he phoned his attorney.. it felt like they needed a way to give them Sam and Max money but they couldnt think of anything so they almost GIVE it to you.

[0renji]

I didnt mind getting it but the whole fact that a guy would have $10,000 in his car.. that he phoned his attorney.. it felt like they needed a way to give them Sam and Max money but they couldnt think of anything so they almost GIVE it to you.

That seems to fit in, though. The whole thing is built around random convenient occurances... Sam makes some kind of comment about that near the end of the game, I think (can't say where; spoilers XD). They seemed so utterly sure that the way to get money was to pull over a rich driver that it couldn't NOT happen.

[NHJ BV]

Personally I would have liked better controls for the car. The arrow keys on my keyboard, for example :)

For the rest, I loved the game. The student loan joke was good :cool:

[S3BR4]

Maybe adding in some more resolutions would be nice *Cough* 1680 X 1050 *Cough*.

I second that :D As far as the story and voicacting goes its pretty much perfect. I would have a few sugestions though. The steering of the car with the mouse wasn't really a good solution, I'd preferr the arrow keys on my keyboard. I#d also like to see a mini timewaster game included in every episode, like for this episode an extended action racing game with sam and max, just something you can play for fun that doesn't take much time and that you can play over and over after you finished the main game. Even though I'm not gonna complain about the difficulty level, I certainly wouldn't mind if it would rise in the next episodes. I was also missing a way to use max on things and combine stuff in the inventory. Oh and Laserschwert is right, it would be nice if you could up the poly count a bit. It looks good to me, but I know it could look even better :p

[Linque]

There's one thing that bothers me.
Whenever a person says a line, the game zooms into a close-up of that character, except for Sam. A system where the camepera pans or pans & zooms to view the the person talking would be much nicer.

Perhaps when talking to Bosco, the camera could automatically zoom into a view where you see Bosco's face and on the side you see Sam's head. I'd enjoy the game using cinematic view angles much more than the instant hopping between character mugshots.

[balloftwine]

Ive been waiting for this game for 13 years so I cant help but compare it to the original... although bearing in mind its obviously going to be a lot shorter.

Pros : Just the fact that there is a new sam and max game is amazing, the graphics are great, the humour is there and the characters are really good. It was great to see Bosco's again. And Jesse James's hand!
I loved the psychoanalysis bit. But....

Cons : TOO EASY! I finished it in under 4 hours which isnt bad and as long as I was expecting... but the puzzles are very linear... I need to get C to happen so ill use A on B and it will. Remember things like getting the twisted spanner to unscrew the metal fish and have it taken away on the helicopter in Hit the Road? Or making the Sasquatch costume? Thats what im talking about. One puzzle leads into another and the results are hilarious and much more rewarding.

As a sub game the driving was ok but could have been developed more. One of the best things about sam and max was the games some were worth playing in there own right and, quite frankly, driving the car with the mouse and shooting tail lights was too easy, repetitive and dull. Gator golf for instance was hilarious and included a difficult puzzle. The results of which were really funny as well.

Also the camera angles need some work. Sometimes I found myself looking at a close up of the back of maxs head. This is a bit sloppy... which brings me to the mess with the release of the activation key. :mad:

I think telltale have looked at what made the original game so good and thought about that in their design - I just think they need to look a little bit harder. Gameplay is THE most important factor in games like this and if they are going to make a comeback thats what needs to be concentrated on.

Edited... the sounds not great everyone talks like sylvester the cat ('schukering shuckertash') I just didnt notice at first cos I was so overjoyed to HEAR anything from sam n max! (I originally owned the floppy version)

[Gemeinagent]

I had no Problems with Cursor movement whatsoever... And the one thing thats missing is the ability to "use" Max - this was a hilarious part in the first game. I'd loved to use max on the pipsqueaks...
As mentioned by someone before, the caffeine rush of the soda poppers did come a bit unexpected. At least an animation of Max trying to hit them or a matrix-like bullet-dodging would've been cool... ;)

Which reminds me of the Gun... could Max please point it in the direction of the cursor, not "somewhere"? And please give it a sound worthy of a "Big Gun"...

[Yandros]

Pros:
- Felt like Sam and Max, very rewarding and entertaining
- Puzzles were good and well paced, maybe a little bit easy
- Music
- Voice acting
- Script

Cons:
- I think there is a memory leak somewhere in the game... After playing for about 3 hours (getting toward the end of the game) my machine was paging (swapping memory between ram and disk) like mad. I remember one particularly bad transition while leaving Boscos where it literally took 5 minutes to load, HDD going crazy the whole time.
- When you say full screen, really make it full screen. Use the full screen directx mode or whatever. I have dual monitors and I kept clicking outside of the edge of the window! (to the right) Which in turn ended up crashing the graphics engine and I had to restart the game.
- Use a verb coin like in the curse of monkey island! I feel that this was and still is the height of adventure gaming interfaces! It allows for much more complicated puzzles which involve the combining of objects and gathering of clues... both of which would be/are difficult with the new Sam and Max interface.
- Use a loading screen instead of jumping into the next scene and beginning the dialog while the game play thread catches up...

Although I have many gripes with the telltale engine still, I feel it has come a long way since Bone (I played a friends copy) which crashed a lot more and was harder to interact with.

So in essence: Writing, Graphics, Sound, Music, Voice acting, and Price are all good. Engine still needs work. But telltale is shaping up to be quite the indie gaming company! I look forward to playing your future releases!

[Vesh]

(Please pardon my typos, this is a large field-o-text. I've likely missed seven or ninety.)

Thirteen years is a long time to wait. Thirteen years is long enough to make you realize that if you're just old enough (or young enough depending on which side of the fence you're viewing the concept from), Sam & Max is now part of your childhood or early adulthood and definitely a part of who you are. Especially if you sound kinda like Max and go around quoting Hit The Road and saying Max-esque things to strangers on the street.

But... thirteen years is also a long time to build up expectations and dream up scenarios for how a perfect-for-you sequel should feel, what its content should be, what should be updated, what should stay basically the same. For the most part it looks like Telltale is approaching the return of Sam & Max - both technically as a game and artistically as precious chunk-o-culture - with a well balanced hand, but there's always room for improvement.


I'll start with some technical points.

Technical output qualities were lower than acceptable. Audio encode qualities and texture resolutions - crank em up! While I understand that part of the reason they'd want to keep things lower quality is to reduce download size for gamers (and to reduce thier own bandwidth usage bills), the end result doesn't feel worth the cost.

If the download size consideration is more for the budget, they need a better deployment method. If they're trying to make the download smaller for us, that favor shouldn't come at the expense of quality. To put that side of it in perspective, consider this: today on a whim I downloaded 3.5GB of episodes of a mildly obscure late 80s science fiction show - not even to watch, but just to have around. I definitely wouldn't mind a 500+MB download for a current and payed-for episode of Sam & Max that I'll actually play.

Voice is one of the most precious aspects of adventure gaming. Actor performances and potentially great dialogue shouldn't be knocked down several pegs because of a technical hitch. Any audio should at least be encoded at the generally-accepted transparency level for the format used, never lower. The swish and swim artifacts on voices knocked me [and a chunk of fun] out of the game on more than a few occasions.

There were several times where backdrop (and even some foreground) textures were too low resolution. While it was even noticeable at a screen resolution of 1024x768, it was extremely noticeable - to the point of being distracting - at the screen resolution I choose to play at: 1600x1200. Not limited to these, but some examples of problematic low-res textures are the backdrop outside the office window (which should have really been a mesh instead of a flat anyway) and the curtains in Sybil's.


Geometry and lighting could use some love. While not the worst issue with the game, the visual style would seem much more tuned and rich if the geometric detail were higher. Especially in the character models, there were too many visible corners and awkwardly turned edges. Granted, a small percentage of strange turns aren't generally held as unacceptable for realtime animated models but when a mesh is so sparce that an oddly turned edge darkens, say, a large portion of Max's teeth... there's a problem.

General roundup: For the world, some large sweeping curves and a few subtle curves could stand several extra edge loops and a tighter handle on fixing broken smoothing. Character faces need nearly twice the amount of geometry they have now. Character bodies need smoother curves and a refactoring of pinched edges (where the attempt at smoothing from one high-degree poly/tri to another creates an unwanted darkening). They could also stand a little attention to smoothing the construction of hard corners (Sam's lapel looks like it was cut from thick rubber, needs to be softened a bit). Architectural corners might do well with some thin bevels to catch a highlight here and there.

That brings me to the next bits, the shading and lighting. While for the most part the simple bright setup seemed to work, I would have loved the subtle inclusion of a realistically solved (GI) lightmap muliplied overtop the cartoon brightness (again with the me wanting a little more richness and depth) to create some gathered pools of shadow and light. That kind of shading is beautifully compatible with a cartoon-style world if applied with a subtle hand.


Ok, now some gameplay and creative points.

Movement could be streamlined. There were times when Sam outwalked the camera pan and left very little room in the frame to click, causing me to have to inch him over for the camera to reveal whatever I was after. That got annoying. I'd love for there to be either an option to use keyboard arrows to move the character directly - OR - simply allow the ability to slide the cursor all the way to a point on the edge of the screen, hold the button down and have the character continue to move in that direction without having to click over and over.

Puzzles need greater difficulty and more complexity. Outlandish convoluted, yet strangely logical combinations of concepts, items and situations shouldn't only be possible in the world of Sam & Max... they're what I expect! The puzzles in Culture Shock weren't horrible though, just a little obvious and simple. They would be a good primer for somebody who hasn't played Hit The Road, so I suppose it's proper for the first episode. Trouble is... if all six episodes in this season are going to be as short as this one, there's not a lot of time to waste on simple and obvious.

World needs attention to scale, scope, accessibility and life. It's already been touched on by Laserschwert. We need to feel like we're in a large, living world. In Hit The Road, that was accomplished by showing movement, having extras in the foreground (even if all they did was grunt when you tried to talk to them), showing a nice expansive vista here and there and even having unrelated, even distanced plots and run-on jokes in the background (such as news blurbs of peripheral affects of Sam & Max's carefree adventuring). Add enough of these little bits into the game and suddenly you've got the feeling of a living world.

Another issue somewhat contributing to the shoebox-/fishbowl-scale problem is accessibility and freedom. If something is part of the foreground set and there's no visible reason it's blocked, you should be able to go there. Just as an example, let's take the alley beside the office building: there was nothing blocking access from the sidewalk, yet Sam wouldn't go back there. No quip about not wanting to, nothing physically blocking his movement, it simply wasn't allowed and as such, felt like an arbitrary limitation. Arbitrary limitations add up and make a gameworld feel unwhole and constrained.


Now, onto my biggest gripe with the whoooooole works.

If every episode is going to be set up like Culture Shock, they're too short, too simple, too linear and too self-contained to be worth the asking price.

Use episodic storytelling for all it's worth! Maybe I missed it, but I saw no beginning of an overall story arc in Culture Shock and that makes me worry about the quality we're going to see later. I want story arcs over the entire series and this season. I want plots and sub-plots. I want many more secondary and bit characters. While I enjoyed Culture Shock, it did feel like a simple 30-minute Saturday morning cartoon for kids when these episodes - if they're to feel worthy of the price - should feel like a one-hour show or at least like a tightly packed half-hour cartoon for adults.

Sam & Max is supposed to be for adults, I thought. I didn't feel the cartoon series was a great example of the Sam & Max world because the stories were too simple, the humor and dialogue made too easy and family-safe. I dont want this episodic game series to suffer similarly.

[S3BR4]

Maybe I missed it, but I saw no beginning of an overall story arc in Culture Shock and that makes me worry about the quality we're going to see later. I want story arcs over the entire series and this season. I want plots and sub-plots.
Uhm I really think you missed it...

*SPOILER AHEAD*

In the end you see this tv show and that guy on it, is clearly hypnotized too. So I think thats a very obvious hint to a continuening hypnotiv story arc... just my 2 cents :D

[Laserschwert]

Uhm I really think you missed it...

In the end you see this tv show and that guy on it, is clearly hypnotized too. So I think thats a very obvious hint to a continuening hypnotiv story arc... just my 2 cents :D

I think Vesh wasn't talking about the main storyline, and how it might continue into the next episode, but some sub-plots that just happen alongside the normal mission (and don't end in episode 1 already). Stuff like Max planning to join a club, something that just gets mentioned in conversations, and in some later episode, the "club" actually plays some role (probably a stupid example, but I couldn't think of anything right now). Generally something that makes it appear that Sam & Max have a life outside those missions they get.

[UnConeD]

- I think there is a memory leak somewhere in the game... After playing for about 3 hours (getting toward the end of the game) my machine was paging (swapping memory between ram and disk) like mad. I remember one particularly bad transition while leaving Boscos where it literally took 5 minutes to load, HDD going crazy the whole time.


I had the same problem, it's rather serious IMO. I'd played the game in one go, and I think about 2/3rds through, I suddenly got a message from Windows saying it needed to expand the virtual memory. A glance in the task manager at that point showed 1.3GB(!) of RAM in use total, though Sam&Max only listed about 250MB in the process list. I closed the game and immediately watched my total memory use plummet back to 200MB. This is on Win2K, Geforce 6600GT.

I also have to echo some of the criticisms here:

Too easy. The game puts the solution right in front of you way too many times. In the few cases where the solution was not immediately obvious, there were so little options (item / dialog wise) that I could simply try every one of them and get through the puzzle that way (e.g. end-game). A puzzle should not be solvable by brute force in 5 seconds...

I know, you don't want to turn off casual gamers either, but maybe you could reward the seasoned adventurer with some extra content, scenes or dialog, hidden behind some tricky, optional puzzles? That could increase the replay value too.
Driving controls. Having to click repeatedly with the mouse is a horrible design decision. Even click-and-drag would've been better, but really there's no excuse for not allowing use of the arrow keys. Why break with years of gaming common sense? The chase scene was very irritating because of this.


Also, I did feel the game was over way too soon. It took me 3.5 hours to finish. That means for the full game, it would take only 21 hours... that's not much for an adventure game.

Still, I massively enjoyed the game and laughed out loud from beginning to end. There are way too many good things about this game to list.

I also agree with the above poster about the stylized black/orange opening scene: that was awesome. I would love to see some more experimentation in this direction in the game itself.

Major con: no Mac OS X version! I'd love to play this on my PowerBook.

[ATMachine]

This game was lots of fun. I can't remember the last time an adventure made me chuckle so much.

Pros:
-Psychoanalysis.
-Controlling Sam AND Max in conversations sometimes.
-The driving sequences.
-Talking to Bosco. "You ever stare down the barrel of a loaded cheese?"
-Lots of the general responses for looking at things. The banter is great.
-Replayability value. The first time through I never saw the documentary on the Soda Poppers, for instance.
-It's SAM AND MAX!

Cons:
-The cursor design. It's too "blah." Why not make it into Sam's hand like in Hit the Road?
-I sometimes wished that dialogue sequences would indicate more clearly whether new lines were left in a topic of conversation or not. It doesn't have to be a full listing of the line, which might spoil the jokes; just something to indicate there're some lines which the player hasn't heard yet when he or she clicks on a dialogue topic for the second time.
-David Nowlin as Sam isn't as bad as I thought he'd be from trailers, but he still needs to show more emotional range. Sam isn't wooden.
-As Laserschwert said, Sam and Max should be allowed to travel more in later episodes. While the focus on their neighborhood is fine for an introduction, I don't want following parts in the series to do the same.

Overall, a fine effort. Bravo Telltale!

[Guybrush_Threepwood]

Pros: Totally great.
Cons: Can't think of anything. The lenght of the game was good, considering it was a single episode. And for the price. So... I'd say no cons.

[DoubtedEdwardo]

Pros: Everything except...
Cons: the camera, it's the one thing that bugged me as I played. The jumping from person to person in cut scenes is fine but it gets a bit tiresome when it happens every time someone speaks. Also some of the locations felt kinda claustrophobic, I think because the camera was so close. It would have been nice to have seen some areas in all their glory without all the camera swinging, Sam and Max's office for one. I think someone suggested larger vista's, not visitable but visible, that would help too. Also, I found the control system okay for this episode but a FT/MI3 type interface would have been just as fine and might have increased the interest levels of each object. Sams hand as the curser would be cool too.

As I said above this is still a great game and I really did laugh out loud at many points. I just have one last thing to say, is visitable even a real word?

[Yandros]

More gripes, after sleeping on it…

I'm not so sure I'm liking the episodic feel. Its too much like the TV series? Very linear.

I would enjoy a true sequel more. In the spirit of the original game...
Perhaps they can spin future episodes into more open-ended style games? You can have ‘episodes’ and still retain the freedom of an adventure game. Take money island for example… four games vaguely fit together but the actual game play is very free with plenty of quirks and dare I say it, more atmosphere than S&M episode 1.

[Guybrush_Threepwood]

More gripes, after sleeping on it…

I'm not so sure I'm liking the episodic feel. Its too much like the TV series? Very linear.

I would enjoy a true sequel more. In the spirit of the original game...
Perhaps they can spin future episodes into more open-ended style games? You can have ‘episodes’ and still retain the freedom of an adventure game. Take money island for example… four games vaguely fit together but the actual game play is very free with plenty of quirks and dare I say it, more atmosphere than S&M episode 1.
Money Island??:D
Anyway, we know that also Freelance Police was planned to have different "episodes", or let's say self-conclusive stories tied together, the only difference is that they would have been released in one game while we have to wait for each episode to come.
I think that buying Freelance Police would almost have been like buying Telltale's S&M Season 1 once it's all over.
BTW, what do you mean by TRUE SEQUEL? The continuing story of Bruno, C. Bumpus etc. (that sure would be horrible!) or a brand new adventure separated from HTR?

[Yandros]

Money Island??:D
Anyway, we know that also Freelance Police was planned to have different "episodes", or let's say self-conclusive stories tied together, the only difference is that they would have been released in one game while we have to wait for each episode to come.
I think that buying Freelance Police would almost have been like buying Telltale's S&M Season 1 once it's all over.
BTW, what do you mean by TRUE SEQUEL? The continuing story of Bruno, C. Bumpus etc. (that sure would be horrible!) or a brand new adventure separated from HTR?

Obviously I meant Monkey Island, simple typo.

By true sequel I mean a second game. Not an episode or a ‘gamette’, if there is such a thing. And preferably in the same interface style (2D would be best) even with some of the old places.

Obviously it would be another case. Take the old Sam and Max game, and wrap it around a new story/case. Make it the same length with new puzzles equally as insane as the first. We just want more of Sam and Max hit the road… is that so much to ask :(

[Lazerus101]

Well just got in from work and dotted the I's and crossed the T's on Culture Shock.
Here are my pros and cons.

Pros

Charater Design: This was pretty much spot on though Max's protruding "eyebrow" creeped me out a little.
Music: This was right on the money though the intro sequence, while awesome, sounded like it was trying too hard to sound like HTR's.
General Animation: Pretty damn good with one exception, I'll get to that in Cons.
Voices: The voice actors got the characters just about right, Sam is has that noir'ish deadpan and Max certainly sounds hyperactive and his delivery is pretty good.
Dream Sequence: I loved this section was nice to the little touches like the hand and lamp moving and the pencil coat rack.


Cons

Sample quality: The voice samples in some areas were woefully poor, there was hiss and crackle all over the place especially from Sybil.
Lip Synch: Here is where the animation falls on its arse, combined with the awkward closeups its really jarring how badly synched their mouths are.
Humour: While the jokes are moderately funny their delivery and timing just isnt there. I didnt guffaw once, something HTR had me doing throughout.
Voice: Yep I know I put Voices in Pros too but heres the rub. Though Sam's voice is about right, his delivery is atrocious. It sounds like he is either stoned or just come out of a coma. There is no bite or wit to his one liners.
Difficulty: Sorry I had to put this here, its early in the game of course so this may improve with time. But as a seasoned adventure gamer with the best part of Lucasarts back catalogue and the Discworld series under my belt I found the puzzles patronisingly easy. Less "Hrrrm..." and more "Well DUH!"

[Sir Lemming]

PROS:

The dialogue. It feels exactly like it's supposed to.
The voice acting is mostly excellent.
The art, especially the background detail.
The music, especially the altered music during the hallucination sequence.


CONS:

Sam's dialogue "leads" the player too strongly to solving the disorder puzzle at Sybil's.
You stay in the main street area for too long before getting to the more interesting areas (Brady's).
Brady culture's voice acting feels sort of low-budget, like they just got one of the programmers or one of their friends.
The scene transitions -- where it just freezes on the current scene and then after an indeterminate load time jumps into the next.
The vocal dialogue gets cut off sometimes.

[touky]

First post :
Hello !

My Pros :
- Almost everything ... Really :)
- Music, ambience, dialogue.
- Lots of things to interact with, I was very impressed by the fact that sam&max had answers and thoughts for almost every object in the world. :D

Cons :
- Lypsinch is better than what I thought in the videos, but lacks speed and reaction sometimes.
- Animations are sometimes too slacky, I especially felt that with brady culture. It felt like people where too stiff.
- A detail : A little moving thing on the loading times, just to be sure things have not freezed up.


In the end, it has been a looooooong times since I laughed out loud in front of my computer, and just for that : THANK YOU Telltale !

[DoubtedEdwardo]

In the end, it has been a looooooong times since I laughed out loud in front of my computer, and just for that : THANK YOU Telltale !

Oh yeah, that had to be the BEST bit about Sam and Max. Finding a computer game funny again.:D

[Hero1]

its been a while thats for sure..

[Paly]

Pros

It's SAM & MAX ! Thankyou Telltale !

Cons

I have a heavy middle finger ( oversensitive mouse button ?) and so missed some of the characters dialogue & some scenes because I clicked the right mouse button inadvertantly...which got me cursing a bit...

Love your signature Hero...Sam & Max was the last of the Lucasarts adventures I played ..so I've only had to wait 3 years..

[Mitkey]

Hi, I have just finished the game.

Pros

- Probably the most important thing to me: Good old Sam and Max dialogues and comments (bacteria playing basketball, uncle Louie's moth-eaten wallet and false-idol-worshipphing car drivers really crack me up) :)

- Music - superb.

Cons

- Sam's voice could use some impassionedness. Although the other voices were great

- Characters are a little bit lifeless

- Too easy! How am I supposed to find all the great replicas and easter eggs if I'm not bumbling around? :D

[BRUCE0die44]

pros

Feels Like Sam And Max!

Great Musical Score!

Sweet graphics!

Voices Are Spot On!

Nice Plot!

We Get To Use A Gun!

cons

Animation Is Nice But also kind of **** it Lacks Real Emotion Hit The Road Had
2d Animation Which Had Real Quality, But This Has Some Basic 3d Animation.

Waaaaay Too Linear

Way To Easy And Short! It Took Me Like 6 Hours I Waited 13 Years For What Felt Like A Freaking Mini Game I Know Its Eposodic But The Next Ones January So Evry 2 Months I Get 6 Hours Of Gameplay? *(

The Humour Is Classic Sam And Max But It Feels A Lot More Pc And Boring Than Hit The Road. Darken The Humour A Bit Were Not Ten Dont Aim For Kids, This Is Sam And Max Not Finding Nemo Baby Puzzle Adventure!

GAAAAAAAAA IM DELIGHTED BUT VERY DISSAPOINTED

DARKEN THE HUMOUR FOR THE LOVE OF GOD IT WAS SOOO PG we dont eat rusks were not 8

i could smell the tone it down humour approach for the wider audience bs!

[Thriftweed]

Just played through and I thought it was really great, not perfect but pretty damn good.

Pros:
The humor was spot on, I personally found it much much funnier than HTR.
The music was awesome.
I found the difficulty to be slightly too easy but nothing that detracts away from the fun of the game.

Cons:
My major gripe was that by re-using the 3D models in places cheapened the whole affair, I may be wrong but in the dream Seq isn't the blacked out guy the same model as the guy who works on the Cow Race Game in Bone?

Also the place feels quite sterile, the whole lighting needs to be toned down it's just way to bright and it kind of kills the atmosphere.


My only complaints about the game were visual the rest was spot on if you ask me.. not that anyone was, but you know.

[ben.franklin]

Pros

The game looks fantastic. The graphics look much better than I expected.
The voices were much like the originals, so top marks there guys.
Decent story, with fun characters.
It's Sam and Max!
Game was a good (read: easy) introduction back into adventure gaming, which I've barely touched since Grim Fandango.
Puzzles weren't too obscure.
Relatively amusing (not 'hilarious' as some have said) ;)
Telltale were definitely the right people to do this game. You have my faith in successfully bringing back the adventure game genre to the masses.


Cons

At the same time as it looking fantastic, it would have been awesome to have used the same comic styling as the original game, rather than the 3D models. Even so, once out on the street the design was ace. Its not really necessarily something I'd even want changing, at least not for the current series. In truth, it may be above Telltale games and their current game engine tools to do something like that anyway.
The delivery of Sam's lines just seemed to be a little flat. Lacking in any emotion.
As has been said, this game is short. Waaay to short. Which is a bit of problem when the game has little to no replayability.
The game seemed a little lacking in scale. Outside of their office and the street, we only saw one other place, and that was for a very small segment in the game.
A little too much compression on the audio in the game. Remember that most people using the game download service WILL have fast connections, and that most demos tend to be over 100mb nowadays! So don't worry about keeping the game download size to something small, unless Gametap say its a major requirement!
A widescreen option would have been nice, for my laptop screen (similar to what Company of Heroes uses).
Although some have maybe said otherwise (ie. the Tom Cruise lookalike on the TV at the end), but this series appears to be a number of small stories, rather than this being Part 1 as I thought it was. A storyline that ran throughout, would have been far better, but I can live with this format as long as you give us a PROPER story next time. ;)
Seems obvious to say it, but the game was a little too Americanised! In other words, please take into account us European gamers (I'm in the UK), who might not understand the usage of certain words in puzzles. I found the Psychoanalysis a little tricky in the word association bit - I mean who was that Emmy winning woman?
And last but not least... The game was CONSTANTLY crashing on me. Every 5-10mins, when entering/exiting a room or building, the game would crash. It was 50/50 whether the game might crash, and it was highly irritating. I'm using a Macbook Pro, with Windows XP installed via Boot Camp. It's the 1.8ghz model, which has always been fine on every other PC game before. I'll get the next Episode, but if it happens again I won't be able to continue with the series. Which is a real bastard if so. :(

Don't get me wrong, the list of Cons may be bigger than the Pros, but it didn't impact too much on my enjoyment. And I think the reviews have been justified; I think Gamespots may be closest to the mark.

Anyway... welcome back Sam and Max and well done on an ace job on a game that I've been waiting aaaaaages for. How about Full Throttle 2 next? ;)

[Yohmi]

Just a small notice, I didn't have any crash in the game, using also a Mac with BootCamp (XP SP2 for games). It's an iMac CD, so, except if you have a Core2Duo, we have pretty the same hardware... it's strange, there must be threads where you can put your crashlog to help telltale surround the problem in their engine ;)

[Thriftweed]

I am running it on a Mac Pro with 2 Dual core Intel processors and it ran without any problems what so ever.

[Fraggle]

It's been so long since I played HtR that I not able to compare it, which is probably a good thing. That said, here goes:

Pros:

- Sam n' Max are back! 'nuff said!

- There was no part of the game that felt rushed or tacked on, except maybe the driving bits, which were just generally confusing.

- Several bits put a big smile on my face.

- The dream sequence was a great idea.

- I'd heard several bad things about Max's voice, but I loved it.

- Alternating between Sam 'n Max during the interrogation was great. More please!

Cons:

- I had a "that's it?" moment just before the final scene when I realised the end was coming up. That's the downer of episodic releases. Even for an episode though it felt short.

- While you started with several puzzles to solve, they were mainly self-contained in a single location with little cross-solving. The only cross I can think of is the tear gas launcher.

- I'll add my voice to the calls for a bit more difficulty. Actually I think the difficulty level for Culture Shock is fine, as long as it's intended only as a primer. If the rest of the season is at the same difficulty, that's a problem.

- Dedicated right-click 'look at' command, please! :-)

- Sam's voice was fine, but a little too soporific. I know he's the straight guy of the double act, but I think he needs just a little more life.

- Max spends too much time talking about crazy stuff, and not enough time *doing* crazy stuff. Funniest part of the game is right at the beginning after he drops Jimmy. It's just the look on his face. His character comes out more there than in anything else he says in the game (because he certainly doesn't *do* anything else). I do like how he just randomly wanders around.

- Connected to the previous point. I have two words - "Use Max"! Heck, one of these days, maybe Max should use Sam! In order for Use Max to be a workable non-hardcore feature, it would need to be rewarding (as in funny) most of the time it's attempted, even if it doesn't progress the game.

- While it was chuckle-worthy, it just wasn't hilarious. Sam 'n Max have high standards to live up to when it comes to this! :-)

- The dream sequence was too short, for some reason I was expecting it to be a whole act in itself. I was to be greatly disappointed.

Anyway - I hope this is useful and I look forward to the next installment! :-)

[Sir Lemming]

- Max spends too much time talking about crazy stuff, and not enough time *doing* crazy stuff. Funniest part of the game is right at the beginning after he drops Jimmy. It's just the look on his face. His character comes out more there than in anything else he says in the game (because he certainly doesn't *do* anything else). I do like how he just randomly wanders around.

I agree. That part is absolute perfection. Hopefully once the game moves into more adventurous locations, we'll see more of that.

[IronCladChicken]

More gripes, after sleeping on it…

I'm not so sure I'm liking the episodic feel. Its too much like the TV series? Very linear.

See - I went completely the other way with that, I really enjoyed the 'episode' - I thought it was kinda fun having the adventure completely self-contained...

I had a laugh for a couple of hours, really enjoyed the adventure, and because it didn't have an annoying cliff-hanger ending I felt quite satisfied with the whole thing once it was complete.

For the series it would be cool if there was an overall story arc, but I found it kinda refreshing that the adventure was self-contained (as opposed to every other episodic game I've played to date), though at the same time, gave it an old-skool TV cop series, which I think works really well with the S&M universe? :)

[IronCladChicken]

Voice: Yep I know I put Voices in Pros too but heres the rub. Though Sam's voice is about right, his delivery is atrocious. It sounds like he is either stoned or just come out of a coma. There is no bite or wit to his one liners.

I thought that too - The deadpan is cool but a little more inflection wouldhave rocked (and, I reckon, made his one liners even funnier) :p

[Sir Lemming]

Another example of a perfect exchange of dialogue:

SAM: Somebody once told me that the contents of a lava lamp make a good hand cream.
MAX: That was me.
SAM: Which is why I haven't tried it.

I really like the delivery/execution of that dialogue, even though it's not inherently the most hilarious thing ever written. Also, the way Sam is talking while his back is turned to the camera gives me warm, fuzzy memories of Hit the Road.

[Lazerus101]

I thought that too - The deadpan is cool but a little more inflection wouldhave rocked (and, I reckon, made his one liners even funnier) :p

In HtR he was always deadpan, but he had that sarcastic snap that was very funny.

[IronCladChicken]

In HtR he was always deadpan, but he had that sarcastic snap that was very funny.

That's what I'm saying (Though I'd rather have more irony that sarcasm); that it's cool Sam speaks with a deadpan voice, but that his lines would be funnier if there was a little more inflection (basically that deadpan != monotone)

[thom_h]

Great little game, made me chuckle from beginning to end.
The graphics and voice acting are fantastic - to be honest I prefer 3D Sam and Max to the 2D ones!
I thought it was quite silly having the same puzzle used twice though.
(The Whizzer puzzle, which you basically only have to re-do when Sam is hypnotised?)

[mikdog]

Thom...thom, thom, thom.

That's why we love you.

[RMJ1984]

it would be so nice with the old style mouse cursor. thats changes from use, look and pickup with you click on the right mouse button.

More puzzles and items would also be nice.

[Kejero]

PROS
Everything that's been mentioned. In particular I like the visual style, the puzzles seemed fresh enough, the voice acting of both main as supporting cast are good, music is great (has it a very 'McConnell' sound to it, or is that me?)

Also, I like the interface the way it is. I don't mind "one action"; mostly you'll be only able to "examine" anyways. You get enough "That's not gonna work"'s when you try to use items on objects as it is.

CONS
- The talk animations didn't convince me too much. It's not so much an issue of lipsync to me, more an issue of lack of expression. The characters look like cartoon characters, but are animated (when talking) like 'realistic' 3D characters. Max is fine, but with a big mouth like that it's easy to be expressive. Sam seemed alright too. But Sybil for instance barely moves her mouth. Of course, she doesn't have to move it like crazy if she doesn't want to, but that's when bad lipsync shows. Not saying the lipsync in this game is awful; personally I've never seen good, convincing lipsync anywhere ever. It baffles me people are still even trying.

- It's been mentioned before: Max doesn't do much. It's more "Sam" than "Sam and Max". The game would work perfectly well without him at all.

- Punctuation consistency in the dialogue options seemed a bit off. Not that a lot of people really care about such things, but it should be covered now anyway with Squinky aboard ;)

- One specific glitch: Max would often 'jump' from one place in the room to another; and I mean instantly, between frames. It would mostly occur when he's been kicked up by Sam, and Sam starts talking immediately afterwards. Max would then instantly be positioned right to deliver his lines, in stead of first finishing his animation.

- One other specific glitch: you'd sometimes click on the edge of the screen to make Sam walk, and he'd walk to a completely different spot in the room.

[Vog]

PROS:
- Sam and Max(!!!)
- Graphic
- Sam and Max (!!!)
- everything else except my cons :D
- and: Sam and Max (!!!)

CONS:
- 1. Far too short even for just one episode. Less than 2 hours :(
- 2. For me, who played Adventures since DOS exists, it was far to easy...could be the reason for point 1. I just stuck 5 mins to disable the Graffiti guy. It was the same thing with "Geheimakte: Tunguska" (however it's called in english) or other current adventures... just clicking my way until the end of the game without to think about what I could do next because mostly it's obvious what I need to do next.

[J-Blade]

Could someone tell me what happened to the original Desoto? why the convertible? And at Boscos store in Hit the Road, was the kid in his store like a guy working there, cuz he got his lower lip stretched complitly over his head. I might have answered that question myself, being that Bosco is black and thats cool and all. guess things dont really need to run together with hit the Road.

Main thing: What happened to the Desoto.

Telltale u guys need to put Snuckys back in. Unless Bosco's replaces Snuckys.

[Quuux]

Bosco is black? I thought he was grey

[Pvt._Public]

Main thing: What happened to the Desoto.


In game: Click on the bent parking meter and you'll find out.

In real life: I'm lead to believe that Steve Purcell decided to go with the newer Desoto. And why not? 'tis a fine automobile. Big 'n' beefy enough to run over motorbikes yet also stylin'. Or maybe because sam is a big dog and felt that being able to stick his head out the window wasn't enough. :p

[J-Blade]

In game: Click on the bent parking meter and you'll find out.

In real life: I'm lead to believe that Steve Purcell decided to go with the newer Desoto. And why not? 'tis a fine automobile. Big 'n' beefy enough to run over motorbikes yet also stylin'. Or maybe because sam is a big dog and felt that being able to stick his head out the window wasn't enough. :p

well its a change ill have to get used to. Just means no more Highway mini games for Max, being that he cant stand on the roof of the desoto.

[Pvt._Public]

well its a change ill have to get used to. Just means no more Highway mini games for Max, being that he cant stand on the roof of the desoto.

I thought that too. But I guess Highway surfin' is always achievable by standing on the bonnet. That way Sam can't see where he's driving and it's twice as fun!

[thebirdistheword]

PROS:
Personally I thought they got everything pretty damned close to perfection (game of the year, as far as I'm concerned), so the best I can come up with are some

PEDANTIC QUIBBLES:
-Poor use of positive/negative space, particularly when I need Sam to walk large distances (the street scene). I don't really need to see much of what's behind Sam, but if I could see more of what's in front of him, I wouldn't have to click as constantly to keep him moving (this has bugged me for fifteen years of adventure gaming; I think there may be something wrong with me).
-Unable to continue moving around whilst Sam is still delivering his "look at" dialogue. He can't walk and talk at the same time?!? (Again, fifteen years, something wrong, me).
-Blind obediance to the almighty 4:3 aspect ratio. Seriously, this is meant to be the age of flying cars and trips to the moon, y'know?
-Being able to double-click on an exit to cut straight to the next scene would get rid of some petty frustration when "I just want to go THERE, dammit!"

[Chipster22]

Pros: Great game with good clean humor.

Cons: It does seem to have a memory leak. It gets sluggish after a while and when I close GameTap, WinXP is complaining about not enough virtual memory. I have 512MB installed and nearly 40GB of free HD space.

Thanks for the great game TellTale.

[fco.]

First, I didn't have any of the mentioned technical issues, everything ran smoothly for me.

I agree with most on the music being awsome.

The jokes were great, but they would have been really improved with a better acting. Not from the voices, but from the 3D models: they mostly use the same face to say something funny, something problematic, something witty, something angry, etc. There where times when I knew they where saying something funny, but I just couldn't laugh because of the lack of expression in their faces (remember that about a 70% of a message meaning depends on the non-verbal part of the comunication).

The game was short, but ok for it's price. I think most complains come because we're used to play big games, and it'll take some time until people get used to the idea of an "intentionally" short game. But that'll change once we've got more episodes available. I guess we'll see by the end of the season if I'm right...
Anyway, TellTale have done a great job giving the game a "bigger" sense by leting you click on almost anything, but I think this should be improved by adding secondary charachters which don't have to have anything to do with the story (for example, Flint on Hit the Road was awsome, and he didn't even appeared!). This would also help to give the game world a more "live" feeling.

The other thing I miss from Hit the Road, but to which I think I'll get used to (I know, they're different games...), is the absense of alternative actions (look at, use, etc.). I'd love to use Max as an item again, or to hear Sam's amusing sobbing after forcing him to do something he can't...

So, as a final note, I'm really enjoying the series so far, but it still can be even better. Keep on the good job, TellTale! and Thanks!