

Sam & Max are two characters created by
cartoonist Steve Purcell. The titular dog and lagomorph
officially debuted in the comic book Sam & Max: Freelance
Police. From there the duo found their way to their own
LucasArts adventure game Sam & Max Hit the Road and their own Fox
Kids cartoon The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police.
After the demise of LucasArts three seasons of Sam & Max adventure
games would be produced by Telltale Games- Sam & Max: Save the
World, Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space, and Sam
& Max: The Devil's Playhouse. The first two of those seasons
have been remastered in loving, gorgeous detail by the heroes at Skunkape Games.
Sam & Max work as the Freelance Police. Not quite
freelance, and not quite police the boys investigate crimes, at the
behest of an unseen commissioner, with all the finesse and subtly as a
nuclear bomb while comitting more crimes than they solve. The duo
inhabit an exaggerated cartoony world rife with pop culture references
and absurdist humor.
It's hard to impress just how much I
LOVE this dog and
rabbity-thing. They are, perhaps, the two fictional characters the most
near and dear to my heart. I think my adoration for Sam & Max- like
many things in my life- can be traced back to my uncle introducing me to
Mystery Science Theater 3000 at an astoundingly early age
(nothing attunes a kid to decades old pop culture references like
MST3K). One only has to glance at my bedroom walls, phone wallpaper, or
jacket to know I'm crazy about the Freelance Police.


As I often say to my significant other- these games, comics and show are
just jam packed with pure gold in the form of snappy dialogue. From
Sam's long winded exclamations ("Sweet suffering Saint Sebastian on the
sousaphone in a short story by Susan Sontag!") to the pair's barrage of
pop culture references had me hooked immediately. Kurt Kalata's book
The
Guide to Classic Graphic Adventure Games describes Sam & Max's
interplay like
"Like most buddy comedies, the
charisma derives from the interplay between the eponymous heroes.
Sam has a penchant for overly long, obtuse vocabulary, and elaborate
non-sequiturs, all tendencies which frustrated Max to no end. Max is
completely naked but apparently stores a massive Luger pistol on his
person... A good amount of the banter are vague references to past,
unseen events, leaving the player to fill in the implications."
Some games have protagonists that are blank slates for the player to
project onto- not
Sam & Max. If you don't jive with either
don't waste your time: you should probably play another game.
Sam & Max Hit the Road

Get
it here!
Hit the Road was Sam & Max's debut in the adventure
game world- and it's a good one. Like the comic
Sam & Max
Freelance Police On the Road Hit the Road is based in the
concept of the all-American road trip and all the icky, sleazy, and
morally dubious trappings therein. You see, Bruno the Bigfoot has
vanished and the Freelance Police are tasked with finding and returning
him to his place in a tourist trap carnival.
Sam & Max: Save the World

Get the all new remastered version here!
Save the World is the second coming of Sam & Max born from
the ashes of LucasArts' scraped sequel
Freelance Police. Like
all of TellTale's games Sam & Max will be in an episodic format from
here on out making
STW the first "season". TellTale will take
our boys to new heights (and depths) of absurdity and brilliance.
STW
will take the Freelance Police from wacked out child stars to the white
house to virtual reality with a new cast of recurring characters to
pester!
Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space

Get
the all new remastered version here!
Beyond Time and Space or
The Season Where Sam & Max Dying
and Going to Hell are Completely Unrelated Events. I could take or
leave Moai Better Blues, and I've played Ice Station Santa one too many
times but overall this season is
excellent. It has everything
Satan, time travel, romance, a Shambling Corporate Presence- everything
you need for a good time.
Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse

Get
it here!
The ambition and pageantry of
The Devil's Playhouse makes it
mine (and many other's) favorite of the 3 seasons. It's truly the most
cinematic
Sam & Max has ever been. The absurdity of Sam & Max going up
against Space Apes and Lovecraftian Elder Gods might as well have been
written for me specifically. Each episode uses a new gameplay mechanic
or psychic toy that keeps progression fresh and exciting! It also
includes incredible throw backs the previous seasons! And psst, stick
around till after the credits!
Sam & Max: This Time It's Virtual!

Get it here!
You're on your own with this one because I haven't played it. Look- it
breaks my heart too but I have $40 in my bank account right now. I can't
afford to buy a $250+ VR rig to play one game- even if that game is the
first brand spanking new Sam & Max game in years. I haven't even
watched the trailer that how despondent I am.
Click Max to go back to the top!
Imagine, you've purchased a sprawling 19-century mansion on the New
England coast at shockingly low price. Well, turns out that
mansion was previously owned by a magician and practitioner of
phantasmagoric theater. And just so happens that magician was possessed
by a demon and he married and murdered a bunch of women. And just so
happens that same demon escaped when you opened a shoebox you found on a
demonic alter in your house.
"Oops!" may be the understatement of the
century.
Phantasmagoria is far from a critical darling. There actually
seems to be a small cult of people who
hate this game. It's not
the greatest game ever made. It's overly long, objectives can be hard to
grasp, and having one of seven discs almost solely dedicated to going
into town to buy drain cleaner is unnecessary and hilarious.
The visuals have aged poorly. The acting and writing vacillates from
underwhelming to ridiculous. Players complained about awkward character
interactions and the gameplay left critics cold.
And yet I unironically
love this game- faults and all.
I'm someone with a preference for the horror genre, a collection of over
3,000 b-movies and willingness to suffer through hours of astoundingly
boring film- all of which combined make me the perfect
Phantasmagoria
enjoyer. I'm pretty much primed to enjoy
Phantasmagoria for all
it's bad effects and acting. I discovered this game as a 12 year-old
with unmonitored internet access. I was instantly
fascinated
with this game. It was my gateway drug for horror films and FMV games.
This game was some tasty, tasty
FORMATIVE MEDIA for me.
The game's user interface will seem very familiar to fans of the
HeR
Interactive Nancy Drew games. UIs for adventure games
aren't very diverse but there are times where
Phantasmagoria looks like a biazarro version of The Curse
of the Blackmoor Manor.
I personally I believe that
Phantasmagoria was a direct
inspiration for
HeR Interactive when developing the ND series.
Phantasmagoria (1995) is a point and click adventure game
designed by mother of the genre
Roberta Williams- for better or
worse. The game features
Full-Motion Video blue-screened over 3D
rendered environments- surreal. The game caused significant controversy
over it's
violent and sexual content.
Said
sexual content amounts to a
not even a minute long love scene with a little side boob.The
violence
on the other hand is a wonderful gore fest that ramps up in the mid-last
part of the game.
Content Warning!
Most of the public outrage was directed
at the game's infamous rape scene. But the thing is, the rape
scene really isn't that bad. It's not explicit at all and is
fairly short. In my opinion it's the most tastefully done scene in the
whole game as it focuses more on the emotion of the scene rather than
the physical assault.
That gameplay is slow and objectives
are not very obvious. Gameplay is exploration
based so just follow the adventure game mantra "click on anything
and everything you can find". The bulk of the
game has you moving Adrienne around the massive Carnovash
mansion while encountering various bizarre
secrets and supernatural
happenings in
between trips to town to deliver stilted lines of dialogue to
NPCs
and buy drain cleaner. If you ever find yourself at a loss as what
to do or where to go you can click on that cute little skull guy on
the UI for some direction.
Things really kick up as Adrienne's husband Don is
replaced by the same demon that drove Carno the magician to
murder all his wives in comically ironic fashions.
The game's ending sequence consists of fast moving cut-scenes where the
player must quickly click on the right part of the screen to progress
(and keep
Adrienne from meeting an unfortunate end). This
section is probably the most difficult and annoying of the whole game
so-
save often.
Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh
There was a sequel though it's
pretty much in name only.There's only one reference to Adrienne from
the first game to unite the two games.A Puzzle of Flesh is a
different beast- it has some heavy Hellraiser vibes and.. umm
aliens? It's not a very enlightened take on mental illness.But, it is
goofy and has a distinct 90s flavor that I love.
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