Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse

[Jake]

The gratuitous film grain is great and with the new dialog thing it feels like I'm playing Mass Effect 3! When can we expect to see the awkward sex scene?

Did you try giving the engagement ring to Max outside BoscoTech labs?

Er I mean... what?

[Tanukitsune]

My only complaint is that it looks like the hint system seems to be getting worse and worse....

I know WHAT I have to do, but the game never seems to hint on how to do so... It only tells me the obvious, as like it's reminding me on what I'm supposed to do...

The again, the game does have "another" hint system which, which can be useful when you learn how to use it right...

The new HUD reminds me so much of the original Sam & Max, it even has the same "use" logo and the cardboard box!

It took me a while to adjust and fully understand how the "new mechanic" works, but once I did I had a blast!

[toblix]

Damn it, I was about to enjoy some fine gaming, and then this:

[syntheticgerbil]

That's unfortunate, toblix.

[toblix]

Yeah, it's no big deal. I got it up and running, though the mix was all crazy. The default setting was max voice volume, and effects and music at 10-20%, which I assumed was a bug. I adjusted the music and sound effects up to about 60-70%, which caused the music to drown out the voices.

[tabacco]

Damn it, I was about to enjoy some fine gaming, and then this:

For what it's worth, that error usually means you're missing one of the directx updates microsoft sometimes quietly releases. They love to update directx all the time without actually changing its version number. Give this updater a shot:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2DA43D38-DB71-4C1B-BC6A-9B6652CD92A3&displaylang=en

[Garple]

I really got a kick out of the fact that the narrator guy gave a salespitch at the end of the demo. It seems like a great point of re-entry for an adventure game skeptic. Jake and Famous, please enjoy my monies. Man..."Jake & Famous" sounds like a hot sauce company.

[Brannigan]

I really got a kick out of the fact that the narrator guy gave a salespitch at the end of the demo. It seems like a great point of re-entry for an adventure game skeptic. Jake and Famous, please enjoy my monies. Man..."Jake & Famous" sounds like a hot sauce company.

Jake's Famous Vanaman sauce?

[Garple]

Jake's Famous Vanaman sauce?

Jake's Famous Van of Man-Sauce

[thorn]

Just started playing the game and really like what I see, aside from the bugs and crashes. The extremely painful crashes.

Minor bugs:

• At times, audio is a fraction of a second ahead of the character's lipsync
  
• In the opening FMV, the visuals freeze for a moment before camera angles change. This might happen later as well, but I haven't been able to progress all that much further.
  

MAJOR OH GOD PLEASE HELP ME!

• The game crashes my computer when Max first receives the Rhinoplasty and the spinning coloured wheel thing comes up.
  
• I updated DirectX and it got past that point, only to die just before teleporting to Harry Moleman's phone
  

Has anyone else had similar issues?

Other than that, what little I've played has been brilliant. The dialogue has made me laugh out loud several times and I always love an opportunity to sound intelligent by describing something using the the phrase 'in medias res'.

[Nizzleworth]

I finished it earlier today and I thought it was great.

Also, Idle Thumbs are the Devil's Playhouse.

[Twig]

Finished this yesterday and, fuck yeah, it's awesome. Love Sam and Max. :3 Definitely my favorite Telltale series so far. (Though to be fair it's the only one to have multiple seasons!)

Can't wait for the Scoggins thing (hopefully it's a game!!) and here's hoping for a Day of the Tentacle/Maniac Mansion announcement at some point in the future. Or, dare I say it, Space Quest. OOO: (Or, best of all, Team Fortress 2.)

[Thyroid]

Add me to the "I think this is awesome!" list. Buy it. It's superb.

[juv3nal]

Finished this on PS3 after checking out the demo to see if the control scheme "worked" for me. I don't really remember how the Sam & Max on the XBLA controlled, but this felt better at any rate (because I never ended up buying that one). Maybe it was the same and I'm just delusional. Load times between areas could get a bit bleh on the PS3, but ultimately tolerable. Game itself was fantastic.

[Simon]

Agreed! I'm some way into the episode and finding it to be terrifically good. I had my complaints about the first season and skipped the second, but so far I'm really happy with this. The story, atmosphere, writing, puzzling, and interface are all significantly more satisfying than before.

Jake, that intro sequence is astonishingly good, well done! I've only seen it once as I didn't save my game near where it kicks in - I wish there was a button to watch it over and over.

[Quanta]

Played the demo and liked it much. Just like Simon I was dissapointed with the first season - I dislike its visuals and the compression artifacts in the voice recordings are excrutiating - and skipped the second season altogether.

So, I'm excited how much Telltale improved everything. The presentation has improved considerably. I will wait and see how the season progresses and may end up buying the whole thingy on DVD perhaps (just like I did with the first season).

[Wurtsi]

Did you try giving the engagement ring to Max outside BoscoTech labs?

Er I mean... what?

I can't believe that actually kind of worked.

Damn this was a good episode. I'm really looking forward to this season. It seems though that Telltale has taken a step in a different direction with the story thing. In the earlier seasons it felt more like each episode was kind of it's own thing and the different cases were only loosely tied together with a recurring theme like the mind control or the mariachis, but now it seems like they're going for a more consistent story arc thing. I like it.

Also I love the new Telltale logo animation, especially the audio in it. It somehow reminds me of the Everything is Terrible logo, which I guess is going for a 80's television special effects look. It's pretty great. Good job on that, dude who made it.

And also, wasn't there talk of a scoops reference in the intro. I managed to completely miss it somehow. What was it?

Edited April 21, 2010 by Wurtsi

[Erkki]

Awesome episode. At first I found the toys to be ridiculous, but I got used to them and they were pretty fun. A few minor quibbles:

* the sound level thing Toblix mentioned. Menu sounds are too quiet.

* had to turn down some visual details, it was a bit slow with things maxed (but I guess it also looked better than the earlier games)

* I wish Tab opened the inventory

* some interface unresponsiveness

[HPopper]

Played the demo and liked it much. Just like Simon I was dissapointed with the first season - I dislike its visuals and the compression artifacts in the voice recordings are excrutiating - and skipped the second season altogether.

The second season - in terms of presentation - is pretty similar to the first, but the writing and puzzles are improved by leaps and bounds. 204, Chariots of the Dogs, has one of my all time favorite gags from any adventure game:

Past Sam wandering around saying things like, "I can't shoot future me!" and "That doesn't need to be made radioactive."

[Thyroid]

Past Sam wandering around saying things like, "I can't shoot future me!" and "That doesn't need to be made radioactive."

This is what made the episode for me. Well, that and

Bosco's parents. His "Hello, fool. Mr. President, fool" was a out-of-nowhere laugh as well

. The whole episode is constantly inventive with its gags, situations, and, to a lesser degree, its puzzles, and the designers are always several steps ahead of the player. It's also what made "The Penal Zone" so great. "What's New Beelzebub?" did it several times too (though the best gag in that episode was

Timmy's bleeping

). I think players love being fairly duped. It makes finishing puzzles so much more satisfying.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I only got around to playing this now, and I think I can sum up my experience in one word:

Holy fuck

I was expecting more of the same, but with slightly better writing, maybe a stronger plot... but oh no, this was a total, full on progression. Fuck me.

I'm not very far into it, but anyone who thinks they've played Sam & Max before should forget all that: This is something totally new and wonderful, and exactly what was needed to keep the franchise fresh and alive. In short: Exciting creative risks! That's precisely the way to move forward.

I'm very excited. EVERYONE should give this a go. It's nothing like what you're expecting. They've really upped the ante here

[thorn]

Yeah, it's no big deal. I got it up and running, though the mix was all crazy. The default setting was max voice volume, and effects and music at 10-20%, which I assumed was a bug. I adjusted the music and sound effects up to about 60-70%, which caused the music to drown out the voices.

Yeah, I found that too. My issue with the sound was that the music was inconsistently balanced; in some scenes I had to turn it way down to the lowest notch to be able to hear the voices, but in others it was so quiet as to be almost inaudible.

[miffy495]

Dear whoever is in charge of this at Telltale:

I respect that you need controls that work on consoles. Really, they work very nicely. But on PC, I'd like to just use my mouse. I feel tempted to plug my 360 controller into my laptop in order to play Sam and Max. I shouldn't feel that way. I know that broadening the appeal is important, and using WASD for movement and click for interaction is ok, I guess, but I just don't understand why "move where I click" isn't even an option for those of us who want it. I love that you're progressing the adventure genre, and I love what you're doing with it for the most part, but 1:1 controls are not what I want for a character in an adventure game. With the way the camera and geometry work, more often than not I find myself stuck on an in-game object and breaking the flow anyway. I figured that with MI it was a temporary thing and that though the controls would carry over to Sam and Max, it would be a choice we could make. It just frustrates me is all. I love everything about the games, but the way they control destroys the immersion for me. Clicking and seeing my character adeptly navigate the scenery in order to get to the point I clicked at keeps me involved. Holding W and D while my character is caught on a table in the diner, trying to navigate my way around and getting frustrated does not have the same effect.

Please, just in a menu somewhere for us old-timers, click to move? It doesn't seem like anything in the game depends on how Sam gets around the world. If puzzles depended on it, it'd be another thing entirely and I'd understand. As it is, I'm just frustrated.

Had to get that off my chest. Sorry.

Sincerely;

A longtime fan who has bought all your games and has no intention of stopping.

[Garple]

curmudgeonly ranting

And what's with all these fancy 3D graphics and such! Please make the next Sam and Max game as a text adventure.

Just teasin'

[thorn]

And what's with all these fancy 3D graphics and such! Please make the next Sam and Max game as a text adventure.

They've already done that. Haven't you played Reality 2.0?