Zeusthecat

The Big LucasArts Playthrough

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I started 

 

Sam and Max Hit the Road

 

So far I've played past the intro scene, went to a restaurant/convenience store type place, and went to a carnival. Nothing too crazy has happened yet, I've just poked around the environments, picked up a number of items, and managed to convince the fire breathing carnival guy to let me into the tent. Before heading out I also got a bunch of money from the mouse hole which I then used to purchase a few things at the convenience store place.

 

I'm liking this game so far. The writing and voice acting are both pretty good and it seems like there is a touch of dark humor that I wasn't expecting from such a cheerful looking game. The only complaint I have so far is the interface. I really don't like it. I feel like the way verbs and items worked in previous games conveyed everything very clearly and this new system is just unnecessarily confusing. Maybe it will grow on me as I continue to get used to it.

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Hit the Road's cycle-thru, icon-based interface always did comes across more as a reaction to Sierra than it did a natural evolution of SCUMM.  That said, it was an interesting experiment in a streamlined dialog system that protected jokes from being given away (since you only know the "tone" of Sam's comment and not the content) and it kind of accurately anticipated the general approach some adventure games would take many years later.  It's also the first LEC game that finally awarded the game world the totality of screen real estate.

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managed to convince the fire breathing carnival guy to let me into the tent.

Can I ask how long it took you to work that puzzle out? I remember that when I first played S&M when I was about 11, that one puzzle took me weeks.

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I never really liked the cycle-through interface either, but it shows up all the time both before and since Sam and Max so somebody must think it's a good idea.

 

I'm actually quite partial to the verb coin in Full Throttle and Monkey Island 3, and I find it strange that I haven't seen it anywhere else.

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Can I ask how long it took you to work that puzzle out? I remember that when I first played S&M when I was about 11, that one puzzle took me weeks.

 

Probably took about 5-10 minutes. There wasn't really anything else to do there so I figured I'd try using each item I had and since I had the assignment papers I got through pretty quickly. 

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Probably took about 5-10 minutes. There wasn't really anything else to do there so I figured I'd try using each item I had and since I had the assignment papers I got through pretty quickly. 

 

Actually, what I found difficult was getting the assignment papers. Perhaps it's just because I'd never played a LucasArts adventure before, but the thought of

talking to/committing violence on the cat

didn't even occur to me.

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I'm actually quite partial to the verb coin in Full Throttle and Monkey Island 3, and I find it strange that I haven't seen it anywhere else.

 

Bill Tiller purloined it for his studio's two games.

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Actually, what I found difficult was getting the assignment papers. Perhaps it's just because I'd never played a LucasArts adventure before, but the thought of

talking to/committing violence on the cat

didn't even occur to me.

 

Ah, I see what you mean. I think the main reason I got those so quickly is that I was still getting used to the new controls and was trying every action on everything in the environment to understand what verbs they all represented.. When I selected the mouth icon it showed an open mouth when I hovered over the cat so I clicked. So that one just came down to sheer luck and being overly thorough.

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I never really liked the cycle-through interface either, but it shows up all the time both before and since Sam and Max so somebody must think it's a good idea.

 

I'm actually quite partial to the verb coin in Full Throttle and Monkey Island 3, and I find it strange that I haven't seen it anywhere else.

...until I looked it up just now, I did not know about The Curse of Monkey Island's coin interface. I remember seeing the coin popping up once in a while, but I had no idea what it was for or what it meant, and my copy of the game didn't have a manual. I just learned through trial and error all of the verb keys on my keyboard.

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my copy of the game didn't have a manual

 

Yarrrgh, ye scurvy pirate!

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I swear I didn't pirate it. I got it from a store in my town, it was just in a jewel case by itself. Like this:

51JHJN1YW3L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

There was no manual with it (beyond some installation instructions in the insert.) I had to basically figure the game out myself

I still remember the day my mom bought it... I had been wanting (*some other game at said store that I cannot remember today*) but while I was at school my mom went and bought a new game for our computer! Yay! I thought for sure it would be (*game I wanted*)! Then I got home and saw... this. A game about pirates that I had never heard of before, and looking on the back didn't show me how the game worked at all. It looked nothing like any game I had ever played. BUT it also looked like a cartoon, so I gave it a shot.

Best. Decision. Ever.

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I just remembered the start of Sam and Max Hit the Road and how much I remember I just enjoyed the setting as a kid. I just liked the feeling of driving to random convenience stores or hanging around my office I guess because that was grown up stuff and I didn't know what any of that was like. Felt "free" even though it really wasn't. A lot of me playing Sam and Max early on wasn't really about solving the game but more about hanging out.

 

Although now that you guys mention it, I always hated that dialogue system. They reuse it in The Dig. I'm a fan of the cycle through the cursor stuff for the sake of real estate. I feel like most adventures have tended to use this (in the point and click era of course).

 

Also Zeus, don't forget to use Max on things routinely. That often trips me up, but Max may as well just be considered another one of your routine icons rather than an inventory item. I don't think he's used all THAT much, but I feel like he's used enough and that's when I always got stuck.

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Thanks for the tip!

 

You guys definitely make a good point about the increased screen real estate with the "cycle through" system. The main gripe I have about it now that I think about it some more is that it seems to be designed around recollection rather than recognition. I feel like it falls short compared to the previous system (at least until the player becomes familiar with the mechanics) because several of the icons don't quite represent the actions they perform in an obvious enough way. Overall it's a minor complaint though and I think I've played enough to get used to it, which kind of makes it a moot point I guess.

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I made a tiny bit of progress last night. First, I picked up a cup inside the tent and asked the siamese twin guys some questions. Then I took a ride on the cyclone machine which caused me to lose all my items. I then had to go pick my items up from the lost and found and ended up with a magnet in addition to the other stuff I already had. I also had Max hit the the bell thingy which didn't seem to do anything.

 

After doing that stuff I got stuck in a very stupid way. I went into the love tunnel and rode to the end at which point the boat stopped and I didn't see any way to make it move forward or get out of the boat. I tried every item I had on everything in the area and just could not figure out how to proceed. I was so desperate I even played a game of Battleship thinking that if I beat Max something would happen that would allow me to move forward. After about 45 minutes of being stuck I started to think that maybe there was a glitch or something and was on the verge of loading an earlier save when I happened to hit the escape key. It should have clicked earlier considering I had to hit 'Esc' to get out of the Battleship game but I just never would have thought that 'Esc' had any use in the regular environments. So I am pretty fucking retarded. Maybe I should read up some more on the controls to avoid this in the future.

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Ah, yeah Sam and Max has a lot of minigames that don't necessarily do anything that help you progress in the game. Battleship is one of them. I remember car surfing a bunch when I was stuck long ago, thinking I get something out of doing well, but don't bother, it's just there for fun.

 

I feel like The Tunnel of Love puzzle is the hardest puzzle in the game.

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I didn't know that pressing Esc in the Tunnel of Love would restart it. I say that as a hint. B)

 

 

EDIT: Weird. I just tried out that part of the game again and hitting Esc didn't do anything. Were you able to get out of the boat when the ride stopped? If not, I think you might have just hit a bug.

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I feel like The Tunnel of Love puzzle is the hardest puzzle in the game.

 

I feel like it's gotta be

 

Golf retriever + magnet + twine ball.

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I didn't know that pressing Esc in the Tunnel of Love would restart it. I say that as a hint. B)

 

 

EDIT: Weird. I just tried out that part of the game again and hitting Esc didn't do anything. Were you able to get out of the boat when the ride stopped? If not, I think you might have just hit a bug.

After being stuck at the end for awhile pressing Esc made them exit the ride and come back outside. At this point Max hinted that I didn't have what I needed yet to solve whatever puzzle was in there.

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I feel like it's gotta be

 

Golf retriever + magnet + twine ball.

Ah nevermind, that one is pretty bad too. Plus all the stuff near the end. Sam and Max wasn't very good about puzzles. :/

 

I'm pretty sure pressing escape during Tunnel of Love and skipping to the end made me have a hard time with it as a kid. It's kind of like one of those puzzles where you don't know if what you are dealing with is a noninteractive animation or not, kind of like when you grab Chepito underwater in Grim Fandango and then you must move. Or I think maybe that stupid ass goat puzzle in Broken Sword.

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I'm hijacking this excellent thread again to announce that I've started playing I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. You know, just as a quick refresher, something airy and breezy and fun.

 

So I started out as Ellen, and she's terrified of the color yellow, keeps having panic attacks and fleeing rooms I send her in, and I suspect she's fond of the booze. This game is already bizarre and different, a little glitchy, but really interesting.

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Is that based on the story by... dammit I forget the authors name. The one where a computer system took over the world and has like five people held captive and tortures them, but also keeps them alive indefinitely for its own amusement? That would be one hell of a weird game.

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I believe he provides the voice for the homicidal machine AM as well. Can't wait to play the next story tonight. I love the structure of five different short stories, it makes it eminently playable for a person strapped for time.

The game is on sale now on Steam for less than 2 Centralized Old World Copper.

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I'm playing Gorrister's part now, and there are some issues popping up. This game is way too mysterious and unfathomable. Which is part of the charm! It's a double-edged blade. On the one hand it derives most of its value from its obscurity and weirdness. You never quite know what to expect! But then it applies that train of thought to the puzzles too, which makes it all but impossible to figure out.

It wasn't so bad in Ellen's part, which didn't have a lot of dead ends, but Gorrister's is a minefield. I only just realized I'd screwed up my world by taking some wrong turns and clicking on stuff. Problem is, you can't know any of this! I'm OK with dying occasionally, since you get a clear message that you have to start over. But just screwing up and the game not even acknowledging it? That's cruel game design. I wonder if you can finish this game without a walkthrough and without just starting over ten times until you happen to hit upon the right combination of events.

I still like it though, it's creepy and not too long.

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I believe he provides the voice for the homicidal machine AM as well.

 

And he is actually hamming it up like nothing! I always thought some kind of monotone computer voice would be way more effective (that is, creepy and unsettling) than the kind of over the top raving lunatic tone he goes for, but eh...

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