Hit the Road...kinda sucks?

[Teeth]

After having played all three Telltale seasons, read Surfin' The Highway and watched the Animated Series DVD, I played Hit the Road again, and by comparison it just seems a bit...bland.

Obviously it's still an excellent and funny game, and a LucasArts classic, but as a part of the Sam and Max franchise, it just doesn't appeal to me as much as the other adaptations do. Sam looks and sounds utterly bored and depressed, and neither him nor Max have nearly the amount of energy or enthusiasm that I've grown to love from the other adaptations. One of my favourite things about Sam and Max is how they bounce off each other, and it's clear whenever they have conversations that they've been friends for a long time. This is very obvious in the comics right from the start of Monkeys Violating the Holy Temple, and yet In Hit the Road I just don't feel it at all.

I'm not dissing the voice actors, I think they're great (Nick Jameson always makes me laugh in Day of the Tentacle with "Have them wait on the bench in the LAAAAAAABBY!!!!!") and what we saw of them in Freelance Police!! was much better. It just seems as though their characterization was off in this game, and part of the Sam and Max magic that I feel with other adaptations is missing.

I suppose we have Telltale to thank, for bringing Sam and Max closer to how they were in the comics, and also exploring new depths of their relationship with They Stole Max's Brain and the ending of Season 3. :D

Anyway, cue the angry mob with torches and pitchforks, led on by Lattsam. :p

[S@bre]

Sod Lattsam, I'm here first. HERESY! MUTANT! BURN HIM! String him from the castle walls by his little toe and put killer ants (is there actually such a thing?) in his hair, douse him in some cheap crap whisky (something from Kentucky will do) and cleanse him with fire!

More seriously, I can understand where you're coming from, but have to disagree. Hit the Road remains my favorite Sam & Max game, I think the voices and characterisation are perfect, the writing and banter great, though it is somewhat more limited. And given that Purcell was involved in much closer work on Hit the Road than with any of the TTG's efforts and its based on one of the comics, it seems far more like the comics than any of the others to me. I dunno, maybe because Hit the Road was my first exposure to Sam & Max - and computer gaming in general - it remains the definitive version for me.

[The-J23]

Lattsam's gonna have my head on a stick for this but I totally agree. Bill Farmer and Nick Jameson are good(I like them better than the series voices) but Hit the Road my least favorite when it comes to Sam & Max. I wouldn't say it sucks, but I have only played through Hit the Road once whereas I've watched every episode of the cartoon many times, read all the comics countless times, and played every episode of the Telltale series quite a few times.

[anonima]

the voice of max sucks

[Remolay]

Yeah, it does kinda seem bland, but it has always felt like that was how it was supposed to play out, Plus limitations of SCUMM engine. I did not like the trailer for Freelance police because it was less bland with the same voices. HTR Sam and Max are good for Slow paced things, not 3D/less limited things.

[Secret Fawful]

Hit the Rod is awesome and memorable. I need to play it again. the jokes are some of the most quotable, funny, quirky, memorable adventure game jokes of all time. And Sam and Max do bounce off of each other in the game; perhaps moreso than any Telltale title.

[Falanca]

Yes. It's pretty obvious that the newer games are the superior ones.

I don't really like the voice acting in Hit the Road. It was good in the ol' days perhaps. What's getting on my nerves is that there is actually a bunch of people wishing to get the old VA cast back for a future installment of the franchise. Those people are even boycotting The Devil's Playhouse, but since most of us don't even know about them they're just playing in their own little circle. Their arrogance really gets me angry though, I mean, they just oppose because they want to oppose. But my GOD, the VAs are 60 years old now! Leave them alone, they did their jobs.

Oh... and... erm, yeah, voice acting was actually pretty bland and monotone, but I guess that's the charm of it. Sam and Max are pretty sarcastic characters and they're left unsurprised by the stuff that normal people would be surprised. What would surprise THEM, is, well, not in the game. Explosions, beating up stuff... Instead, the creators wanted the game to be a cult, something opposing our reality and even mocking our beliefs. But Telltale series didn't aim for that, you know. Hit the Road is not there just because they wanted us to see how Sam and Max deals with a bigfoot, they wanted us to see how completely absurd the world (mainly USA) can be. But Save the World, for example, wanted to show us exactly how Sam and Max deals with hypnotism, and made their jokes about absurdity only whenever the timing is right.

[Irishmile]

I will always love hit the road... I do not know if its nostalgia having played it when it was brand new.... But I think it holds up to this day...

[Remolay]

I would like to note, I would like to hear the old voice actors in, but only if they play two characters that only resemble Sam and Max or an Alt universe Sam and Max. I wouldn't notice it if they were playing to random characters

[jp-30]

What's getting on my nerves is that there is actually a bunch of people wishing to get the old VA cast back for a future installment of the franchise. Those people are even boycotting The Devil's Playhouse, but since most of us don't even know about them they're just playing in their own little circle. Their arrogance really gets me angry though...

I think you're referring to just one guy who tends to post the same stuff with multiple accounts. He may have picked up a supporter or two, I guess.

[Falanca]

I think you're referring to just one guy who tends to post the same stuff with multiple accounts. He may have picked up a supporter or two, I guess.

I've seen many other people on sites such as DeviantArt or Facebook, so...

[Remolay]

Those are the same people who think that Monkey Island now sucks because it is 3D, I bet

[Irishmile]

Its easy to get around the not liking 3D thing if you just play the game with one eye closed.

[doodo!]

Hit the Road was the first time I was introduced to the characters and I loved them. Later adaptions evolved the characters a bit but saying the first game sucks is sort of hmm, shallow?

[Falanca]

Hit the Road was the first time I was introduced to the characters and I loved them. Later adaptions evolved the characters a bit but saying the first game sucks is sort of hmm, shallow?

Ethics suck, dog.

[Hungryfreak]

I think Hit the Road was amazing despite the many limitations. It also includes my favorite cultural parodies in the series and a number of my favorite scenes. Also, the lines are more biting and Max was at his most violent, which I love.

[Hatley]

You know, this thread is kinda like a reverse TL;DR version of the conversation between Sam and the Max Spore in Max's inventory when you click the bucket of fish in 305.

[jeeno0142]

I am currently playing this game for the first ever time and IT IS AWESOME. I can't wait to finish it so I can do it all again! I think the puzzles are great, the dialouge is great, and the graphics are my favourite style. It took a little while to get the hang of the voices as they were so different to Telltales versions, but now I quite like them. The only fault it has is that it is making me very sorry the second one was cancelled.

[Rather Dashing]

You guys,I don't think we can be friends anymore.

[BlankCanvasDJ]

I actually agree with you on most of your points, Teeth. I still think Hit the Road is a great game - one of my favorites - but I agree that the voices and the character interplay is better in the Telltale games (in my opinion anyway). I think after 3 seasons, Nowlin and Kasten have become the definitive Sam & Max voices in my mind. So much so that if they ever do a high-res remake of Hit the Road, I hope it includes an option to have Nowlin and Kasten play the characters.

[thesporkman]

I've always felt that Hit the Road perfectly captured the tone and the language of the original comics. The Telltale games have never really managed to perfectly emulate Steve Purcell's distinctive idiom and writing style and have sort of developed a unique voice of their own.

[Secret Fawful]

Hit the Road isn't as good as a Telltale game to me so that must mean it sucks! Nyah nyah nyah!

My ass.

You guys,I don't think we can be friends anymore.

This.

[Ash735]

But my GOD, the VAs are 60 years old now! Leave them alone, they did their jobs.

YEAH!!! *quickly hides "Bring Back Earl Boen in Monkey Island" leaflets*

[lombre]

You guys,I don't think we can be friends anymore.

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d56/the_katoo_kat/scan0012smaller.jpg
(greenheadphones drew this, not me)

[Shwoo]

Suddenly I don't feel so alone.

I wouldn't say that it sucks; I do like it a lot; but the Telltale games appeal to me more. Hit the Road doesn't focus much on character, and that's one of my favourite parts of a comedy. So it just seems, like Teeth said, bland. The jokes are still really funny, but they don't grip me because they're not character driven enough.

Also, I never understood how Conroy Bumpus could love collecting things with grotesque features and have no interest in Sam and Max.

[zprospero]

I think it's more a matter of what you saw/played first.

My first exposure to Sam & Max was Telltale's Season 1, so the older game doesn't appeal to me. It's not about graphics as much as characterization and the voices.

When you expect to hear a certain voice out of a character and it comes out different it's a little jarring. You get used to it, but you can't help noticing the differences.

Which is why I suppose people who played Hit the Road first like it so much, because it was their first experience with the characters, and why those of us who first encountered them in Telltale's version have a different reaction.

It's unfair to compare them really, they were made by different companies with different actors in different time periods.

They're almost entirely different games. The characters are the main connection, and if you didn't first encounter them in Hit the Road it will always feel different.

[Shwoo]

I've seen many other people on sites such as DeviantArt or Facebook, so...
I saw you arguing about this with someone on Maxilyah's journal, and if that's what you're talking about, that was lattsam too.

[light_rises]

Oh dear. Long comment ahoy!

So ... I was watching some clips from a Hit the Road playthrough a while back, and it was the first time I had taken a close look at the game since reading through Surfin' the Highway. So it finally struck me just how much most everything -- the dialogue especially -- mirrored the comics' sensibilities. HtR is about as close to a direct transplant of the comics into an adventure game as possible. (The fact that it's 2D doesn't hurt either.) Sam & Max is also one of the very few franchises-turned-old-school-adventure-games where the esoteric nature of the puzzles are largely justified. Beyond Time and Space is much more my speed in terms of difficulty, but there's an inherently Sam & Max-ish charm to HtR's puzzle solutions that's hard not to like, however frustrating the gameplay got for me at times.

It's little wonder HtR is considered a classic. I certainly think it is. And it's aged better than a lot of its contemporaries.

But you know what? Honestly? I just enjoy the Telltale games more. Even through the weaksauce weakness which is most of Season 3's puzzles.

It boils down to the type of storytelling and characterization I like best. Seasons 1 and 2 strike those chords with me better than HtR because the characters (including the title ones) feel more fleshed out and more like they're actually in the thick of whatever craziness they've got themselves involved with this time. And even as I sorely missed Season 2's level of difficulty, I was on cloud nine with TDP's approach to, that's right, storytelling and characterization -- even more so than the first two seasons. And since, for me, stellar writing and a strong story can elevate an adventure game that's otherwise found wanting on the puzzle design front ... well, there you go.

As for faithfulness to the comics: thesporkman kind of hit on what I was thinking. Like the cartoon (oh boy, I have a feeling I'll get into trouble bringing that up, but I think it's a valid comparison), the Telltale games feel more like an interpretation of the characters and their world rather than a direct adaptation. Which is fine with me. I love and cherish the comics as much as the games; yet from an adventure gaming perspective, and for reasons that largely have to do with what I talked about above, I've ended up enjoying Telltale's approach to Sam & Max more than HtR's thoroughly faithful one. You could say that maintaining the core of what makes Sam & Max "tick" is far more important to me than being as faithful to the source material as possible.

... This reminds me of a thought I've had about Season 3 being both more and less like the comics than either of the previous seasons. But this post is long enough, so maybe I'll come back to that another time, in another thread.

You guys,I don't think we can be friends anymore.

But ... we can at least be amicable acquaintances, right? Like, the kind who don't shout "NO U" and throw empty beer cans at each other whenever we disagree on something? :(

Hit the Road isn't as good as a Telltale game to me so that must mean it sucks! Nyah nyah nyah!

My ass.

I'm pretty sure the "sucks" part wasn't meant to be taken all that seriously. Especially when the OP goes on to say that HtR is "an excellent and funny" game. It's just not as much to his/her taste as the Telltale games. This also seems to be true of everyone else who's been agreeing with Teeth so far (myself included).

Also, I never understood how Conroy Bumpus could love collecting things with grotesque features and have no interest in Sam and Max.

Hmm, never thought of that. I'll have to look at a playthrough or fire up the game again, but I got the impression that Bumpus was too fixated on Trixie and Bruno for Idiot Ball-induced reasons to care about anything other than getting them back. Or maybe after meeting Sam and Max properly at the Gator Golf course, he decided they were too much trouble to bother with. And I wonder how "normal" Sam and Max would be considered in their world, at least the way HtR imagines it? Hmm ...

I think it's more a matter of what you saw/played first.

My first exposure to Sam & Max was Telltale's Season 1, so the older game doesn't appeal to me. It's not about graphics as much as characterization and the voices.

When you expect to hear a certain voice out of a character and it comes out different it's a little jarring. You get used to it, but you can't help noticing the differences.

Which is why I suppose people who played Hit the Road first like it so much, because it was their first experience with the characters, and why those of us who first encountered them in Telltale's version have a different reaction.

It's unfair to compare them really, they were made by different companies with different actors in different time periods.

They're almost entirely different games. The characters are the main connection, and if you didn't first encounter them in Hit the Road it will always feel different.

I do think that's a factor for a lot of people, but it's not always the case. Different fandom, but I know many people who were introduced to a manga through its less-than-faithful anime adaption, and still came away after reading the manga liking the source material much better. Even when the adaptation was widely acclaimed. So I tend to trust personal preferences as a gauge for what version of something someone will enjoy best over what he/she was exposed to first.

[Rather Dashing]

But ... we can at least be amicable acquaintances, right? Like, the kind who don't shout "NO U" and throw empty beer cans at each other whenever we disagree on something? :(
Empty beer cans are weaksauce. I prefer power tools, glass, or full and liberally shaken beer cans.

[light_rises]

Empty beer cans are weaksauce. I prefer power tools, glass, or full and liberally shaken beer cans.

Ah, I see! So ... we can not throw those things at each other instead. A'ight?





Wait. I think we could make a good game of Modified Fizzball out of that stuff.

Never mind! Game on.

[Rather Dashing]

Wait. I think we could make a good game of Modified Fizzball out of that stuff.

Never mind! Game on.
Really, with the last one, I'm just the pitcher in a game of Intense Fizzball. It's not really the big leagues until you absolutely hate the person on the other side of the field because they think a video game you enjoy sucks.

[Jennifer]

I enjoyed Sam & Max Hit the Road a lot when I first played it several years after it first came out. I had first encountered Sam & Max in the comics in LucasArts' Adventurer magazine, so it wasn't my first taste of Sam & Max. I enjoyed that it played like a Sam & Max comic, and I liked Bill Farmer and Nick Jameson. :)

I still like the game, and I like the Hit the Road vocal performances, but I enjoy Sam & Max Season Two a lot more (I'm not quite sure where to put The Devil's Playhouse on my enjoyment list. It's certainly the most varied and most polished game, but I missed the absurd musical numbers, and catchy off-the-wall music of the first two seasons), and I prefer David Nowlin and William Kasten since they had several games to really get into the roles of the characters.

I would really love to see a special edition of Sam & Max Hit the Road though. :D The animations looked great at the time, but looking back they were pretty stiff due to technical restrictions. It would be great to see what the game would look like with the restrictions lifted, and the simplified interface would make the controls work a lot better than either of the Monkey Island special editions. Though, if they did remake it, I hope they stick with Bill Farmer's and Nick Jameson's performances. I really couldn't imagine the situations in Hit the Road being delivered by anyone else, no matter how much I enjoy the current voice actors.

[Joop]

I really love Hit the Road and Season one kinda seemed one dimensional after that.
Every episode had Bosco change costumes, had Sybil in another job and had one new location. I thought the recurring characters and the story seemed a bit bland honestly.

After the first 5 episodes of season one, I took a big break on Telltale's Sam and Max, I just didn't like it that much.
After about a year or two I tried Season 2 and Boy did they get that one right!
It just felt more fleshed out, more alive. The recurring characters didn't just have a single change in their lives, they evolved, they dated or got more paranoïd. Sam and Max seemed more like their old selves again too, with Max's reaction at the end of Jimmy Two Teeth's puzzle in 201 leaving me baffled at how well they got the character.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that Season 2 hit a mark (at least for me) where Sam and Max felt like their own selves again.

I've been thinking while writing this post, and I might even like season 2 more than Hit the Road, even though I've always looked at the Telltale season as a fun continuation, but not as good in terms of quality.
I like Season 3, but not as much as Season 2 though, Sam and Max seemed at their most Sam and Maxish there, and the wackiness from the comics was best translated into that season I think.

Wow, this post is getting longer and longer.

One more thing, the voice actors. I always thought Nick Jameson and Bill Farmer were the only incarnation of Sam and Max I'd truly like.
David Nowlin and William Kasten have, however, shown me otherwise. While Nick and Bill are still my favorites, I wouldn't trade in David and William for them. They've got the characters down to a tee.
These voices just belong to Telltale's version of Sam and Max, what might be funny though would be to have Nick and Bill reprise their roles like the way they would've done with the cartoon's voices in Freelance Police, having them appear as arch enemy's Sam and Max never knew they ever had.

[Maxilyah]

Oh, boy. I'd better make this quick, since I've got school soon.

I was first introduced to the Sam & Max franchise by Season One. The first episode was not, and still is not my favorite. I played that one, kinda liked it, but thought they could have done better. Maybe it had to do with Max's voice? (I really didn't like Max's voice in Culture Shock. It just bugged me.) So, I put it down for a while and focused on school. Then, summer rolled around and I finished the season and fell in love with Sam & Max (not literally, obviously, that would be weird).
Then I bought Season Two and finished that. I was surprised how well they had done on that season compared to the first one. By then, I was pretty used to the voices and characters.
Upon finishing Season Two, I learned about the existence of Hit the Road. I had heard of it before, but I wasn't too sure exactly what it was until I read a little more into it. My first thought was, "Oh, yay! More Sam & Max!" and I played that one.
Now don't get me wrong, I love that game. I love the voices. I love the puzzles. But I love it like I would love a completely different franchise not related to Sam & Max. A lot of people who have read the comics claim that Hit the Road is more like them than Telltale's version. In my opinion, Telltale's version is more like the comics.
Same thing with the animated series. I loved it, just more like a different franchise.
The only thing, to me, that feels 100% true to the Sam & Max universe is, of course, the comics, but Telltale did a bang-up job, in my opinion, and their games are my favorite.

[jeeno0142]

Also, I never understood how Conroy Bumpus could love collecting things with grotesque features and have no interest in Sam and Max.

Having recently talked to Conroy, I think I've found the answer. He's not into creatures with grotesque features, but woodland creatures. Since Sam and Max live in an office block and not the woods, I'll assume this is why Conroy doesn't want them.

Proof in this link (I made it as a link opposed to showing the picture in this thread just in case anyone thinks it's spoilerish for Hit the Road):

http://i52.tinypic.com/m9vm08.jpg

[Ash735]

If I'm honest to, I actually rate the TellTale games higher than Hit the Road, except for maybe Season One. Doesn't mean Hit the Road sucks, and I actually like the voices, they work for that game in the same way the voices for the Animated Show work for them "Does my Arsenal look big in these pants?" :D

The thing I don't get with Hit the Road is that is was unlucky enough to have most locations I found kinda meh or didn't care for, especially the Cirus and that weird place. And the music wasn't as rememorable for me, thought the Conroy Bumpus song was genius, and there were one or two locations that had catchy music. The thing that gets me most about Hit the Road is the uneventful ending really, the game feels like a set plan of puzzles and then, it just ends.

[Ignatius]

We live in strange times.

[guitarsareboring]

I still like Hit the Road but I do think Telltale have done a much better job.

[Pantagruel's Friend]

HtR remains one of my favourite adventure games - the only place it's significantly inferior to the Telltale seasons is the music. The rest stands up very well even today (I replayed it like 6-9 months ago, actually).

[Epic Kiwi]

One more thing, the voice actors. I always thought Nick Jameson and Bill Farmer were the only incarnation of Sam and Max I'd truly like.
David Nowlin and William Kasten have, however, shown me otherwise. While Nick and Bill are still my favorites, I wouldn't trade in David and William for them. They've got the characters down to a tee.
These voices just belong to Telltale's version of Sam and Max, what might be funny though would be to have Nick and Bill reprise their roles like the way they would've done with the cartoon's voices in Freelance Police, having them appear as arch enemy's Sam and Max never knew they ever had.
Not gonna lie, I stayed completely away from even trying Telltale's Sam & Max games for the longest time because I was so worried that the new voices would ruin the characters I knew and loved from Hit the Road. Now they're my favorite Sam & Max voices. :)

As for the cartoon, I hate hate hate Sam's voice, Harvey Atkin reminds me too much of his previous voice work as King Koopa to be able to think of him as Sam... too loud and gravelly. Max is okay.

[Shwoo]

http://i52.tinypic.com/m9vm08.jpg
I did forget about that line, but then why did he want Trixie the Giraffe-Necked Girl? Scranton isn't the woods.

[Sausy Gibbon]

My first introduction to the franchise was through a demo for Abe Lincoln Must Die but I still like Hit the Road. So I don't think what you play first taints your preferences. What I prefer from Telltale: voices (when I read a HtR quote I hear it in the new voices), music, characters and variation of locations, what I prefer from HtR: design of the locations seems more true to the comics, humour, puzzlesand situation seems more true to the comics also.

People have said that one or another is more true to the comics, but I believe an adventure game has it's limits in recreating the what the source material was about. What an adventure game can never capture is the timing, example if the Rubber Pants Commandos burst through the walls on to some unsuspecting gutter trash and you had to talk to Sgnt Blip, he'd have to be sitting in a corner and will stay there until you walk up to him. If a there was ever going to be a sucsessful recreation of the comics I think it would have to be something like an action-adventure or an animated series. Yeah, but I'm getting off the point, the moral of the story is HtR and the new series are good in their own individual ways.

[splash1]

I have to agree with Teeth, I know even though it was the first game and it was an original Lucasarts classic but it stunk. I played Hit the Road in 2007, won it in 2009 and finally came to the conclusion: Boring, bland, and useless compared to the now.

That doesn't mean I feel this way about the original Monkey Islands, I liked them a lot for a game 20 years before my time. HtR is just.. Not worth it, the voices were awful and the plot didn't fit with Sam & Max even back then!
I think that Hit the Road is an okay game. But not enough to be the best S&M game in my book.

[Breakman]

I've always felt that Hit the Road perfectly captured the tone and the language of the original comics. The Telltale games have never really managed to perfectly emulate Steve Purcell's distinctive idiom and writing style and have sort of developed a unique voice of their own.

My same opinion short and sweet.


I played the TT version first. I think I first played HtR in the middle of Season 2. There's a definite different feel to both versions (which I really do believe is dependent on how much involvement Mr Purcell had). And since I love the comics, I tend to lean towards HtR.

But I have to admit, Season 2 is probably the most played on my computer then HtR comes second.

[Rather Dashing]

My same opinion short and sweet.


I played the TT version first. I think I first played HtR in the middle of Season 2. There's a definite different feel to both versions (which I really do believe is dependent on how much involvement Mr Purcell had). And since I love the comics, I tend to lean towards HtR.

But I have to admit, Season 2 is probably the most played on my computer then HtR comes second.
You and I can be friends, k? :)

[Breakman]

You and I can be friends, k? :)

I thought we were before! ::looks at my bedstand and sees a framed picture of you:: ^^;

[Rather Dashing]

....Okay, maybe I need less friends and more restraining orders.

[SHODANFreeman]

Where's my creepy stalker? :(

[Secret Fawful]

Where's my creepy stalker? :(

/bangs a drum outside of SHODANFreeman's bedroom

And I-i-i-ee-yi-i-i will al-wa-a-ays love you, oh I-i-i wi-i-ill alwa-ays love you ooh-woo.