Sam & Max: Culture Shock

Most of us who began to play computer when the CPU is still called 486 will know the name of this odd coupling duo Sam & Max from the game Sam & Max: Hits the Road. Now they are back on PC again with the episodic Sam& Max: Season One, Culture Shock from TellTale Games.

Here is the sypnosis from the official website:

The former child stars of the Soda Poppers TV show are wreaking havoc all over the neighborhood! But this is no ordinary tale of child stars gone awry. There's a dark force behind the Poppers' baffling antics. Using only their wits and a slew of heavy household objects, it's up to Sam & Max to save the day!

The graphic of the game is, while nothing innovative, fits the series very well. Everythings were done in the spirit of Sam & Max series all cartoony and slightly over the top, from the funny headlines on the newspaper to the weird looking posters and magazines (How to loath yourself, for example :P) will make you stares at the screen in each location, noticing all the funny details. There were many hotspots that Sam and Max will give comments on, all of which are funny so I would encourage you to try them all :).

The voice acting, which for this game is very crucial as it is the heart of how the characters' personalities will shine and captivate the players, while some what decent for the main protagonists, require some getting used to. Sam's voice is laid back almost paternally sardonic contrusting to Max's hyper and somewhat crazy like. The dialouge in this game do honor the name of Sam & Max quite well in delivering the dark humour style comedy along with some slapstick ones as well. The rest of the casts might not as captivating but of cause you cannot please everybody. The BGM were done in Jazz music with the flim noir detective movie style to fit the story, this is a game about detective duo afterall eventhough there are dog and a rabbit thingy :P

The lenght of the game is short, but well worth the price tag of 8.95$. The puzzle are not overtly difficult although I must admit that I use walkthrough from time to time. The ending is not that dramatic but this is just the beginning of six episodes.

The second episode will be release on Janurary 5 with the name 'Situation: Comedy' will be reviews when the PC version is released.