Udvarnoky

Speaking of almost finishing the game, shouldn't we be receiving a tentative (but specific) release date soon? I'm tired of hearing first half of 2005.

See, that doesn't make sense to me, since the size difference between the two versions is so small it's negligible for a floppy, and especially a CD. I'd check the numbers but I'm too lazy. I can tell you that the enhanced version is under a meg, though. Maybe it was the copy protection? There was never an issue of the enhanced version where the security door is open like with the old one. Of course, LucasArts could have just "hacked" the door or simply kept it open like with SCUMMVM. Dunno. I'm going to stick with my theory of LucasArts' discrimination against green people.

You can run it through SCUMMVM, just not through DOTT itself yet. I never understood why THAT version was chosen as the easter egg when the enhanced version had already been made. I've always assumed it was because the Edisons were white in the older version (rather than green), so they wanted to be make it consistent, or something.

So I'm guessing this part of the interview has all the Maniac Mansion questions, right?

Woah. Everyone go check out Psychonauts.com again.

Holy fuck! Anyone who doesn't think that new video kicks serious ass should have his head examined.

Schafer just updated once again. No real news; just more kitten abuse.

Those screens are on the Majesco site as well.

Alright, I cancelled all of my Sam & Max games August appointments in order to get truckloads of info on Psychonauts, and I've been left out in the cold. What the fucking hell.

Haven't you been reading?

OK, so you believe that Purcell possibly lied about the game. Reading his response, I see nothing to indicate his being polite about it. And I think LucasArts is more than capable of telling us the game sucked. I don't think that telling us what they did was a smarter move at all. It's very unclear and remains a source of much frustration.

The problem with what you're saying is that we actually had indication that S&M was going to be awesome beyond LucasArts' PR department. Myself, I was sold when I learned that Stemmle and Purcell were teaming up again, rather than a team made up completely of people who had never worked on anything Sam & Max. FT2, on the other hand....well, we knew Schafer wasn't going to be involved, and that's basically all the info we needed to start being critical (FT was largely Schafer and pretty much needs him...S&M, though it wouldn't have been ideal, could conceivably work with newcomers). The FT2 screenshots and the concept of an action game were the final turn-offs. If LucasArts' would have given us a similar reason for canceling S&M as they did for Full Throttle, I simply wouldn't have believed them. Look at Stemmle and Purcell's comments on the game. And of course Purcell's comments after the fact destroyed any hope of the game sucking, and certainly ended the argument that the game was "not what the creator envisioned," or something. We had more than just a nagging feeling that FT2 was going to be less than great, and we had more than just a hunch that Freelance Police was going to be fucking awesome. We simply can't pretend like the game was going to suck, because it wasn't. I know we shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but if anyone can look at the screenshots without wetting themselves, then nothing will.

Screw all of you; I'm actually going to look forward to this game, though I think I would have preferred the player being a human character. Of course, when the only basis of comparison you have is that awful Jaws 4-based NES game, there's really little chance of this game being a disappointment.

Grim had good long-term sales.... Killing Sam & Max doesn't exactly make sense from a financial perspective, either. It's not as though the game was in pre-production stages or early development. The game was also accomplishing something very rare: gaining support from the press. I'm not pretending like I've run a major company before, and maybe Sam & Max 2 did indeed have the potential to lose more money if it sold poorly (as a opposed to, say, cancelling the game so that the on-hand marketing cash could be used to support Star Wars), even though it was far into development and had likely already eaten a lot of money. But you'd think there's a line that a game can cross before it should certainly be released. You'd think that the game had crossed that line already. And it's not as though LucasArts attempted to defend itself, either. As we all know, all we were treated to was that incredibly short press release, and then the removal of all things related to the game. LucasArts never issued an announcement later explaining a complex, underlying financial situation. The magazine previews and advertisements for the game that sprang up in April as well as information about the game being revealed mere weeks before March 3 tells us that the game must have been on safe ground just a little while before its demise. Personally, I think the reason we've never heard a real explanation for the game is because its cancellation really was as abrupt, unforseen, and stupid as many of us have assumed. We have ample reason to believe that even LucasArts employees didn't sense the game's impending doom (*cough* programmer recruitment adertisement *cough*). OK, so your argument is that adventure games don't sell well enough to merit a release, despite the inevitable fortune that development has already consumed. But LucasArts' going out of its way to can this game makes me believe that there was something else going on. I suppose we'll never know what it was, but I'll always hold the Sam & Max 2 was the last (and very good) chance for LucasArts to redeem itself and the adventure genre, and they destroyed it. Sam & Max may have had a damned good chance to actually sell. I guess it's easy to say that it would it would have bombed. I don't know, but I think SNM really should have been the game to decide whether the genre would make a comeback. Now we're going to have to wait a long time for that to happen. It's pitiful to think that all this time has passed, and I'm still no less frustrated or eager to vent about the game.

Well, he is thanked in the credits.

The Double Fine Action News' take on the matter is up.

Indeed. I can't think of a bad one. Even the oldest had good intros. For me the highest honors go to DOTT, Full Throttle and Grim.

Loom is a good game.