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Sam & Max Season 3

The Sarge

By The Sarge
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The Sarge

The Sarge

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Having just released the fifth and final Tales of Monkey Island chapter yesterday, developer Telltale has already begun teasing what is presumably its next release.

Freshly launched teaser site "Sam & Max 2010" confirms the duo's imminent return across the next year, and also packs a selection of concept art and sound clips.

"It's a familiar tale, a power-mad space gorilla pitted against a canine detective and a sociopathic bunny with psychic powers," declares the site's narrator. "But my friends, this story is different. In this story, you are in control."

As is the nature of such teases, some details--in particular, platforms--have yet to be revealed. Telltale's Sam & Max outings have brought the episodic adventure series to PC, Wii and Xbox 360, with the company eyeing PlayStation 3 for unspecified works.

Traditionally, Telltale's efforts have tended to hit PC first and consoles later, but CEO Dan Connors recently told Shacknews that "our goal, going forward, is to launch on as many platforms as we can simultaneously."

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Teaser Site

http://www.telltalegames.com/samandmax2010

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giant_frying_pan

giant_frying_pan

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Hopefully they'll cut down the amount of repetition, the first season was pretty painful at times.

They listened to feedback and season two didn't suffer from this.

What repetition in the first season?

Locations and some characters.

* * *

Full-sized adventure game: can't happen and won't happen. The episodic model is why these games have been successful. Telltale have been able to produce regular content and more importantly in my opinion, more quickly address criticism and improve on experience with earlier episodes. A two year cycle on one game and one story which wouldn't produce much more gameplay content than five or six episodes, wouldn't be as successful commercially. Players would whizz through it as well and the wait would be much, much longer for the next game.

Telltale has proved that the current model works. Abandoning it would kill adventure gaming all over again. I think the positives of the episodic schedule outweigh the negatives of not having a bigger, one-time game. It's not worth the risk for a potentially better game (and I disagree that a game with an increased budget and development time would be significantly better than the current situation where the developers can quickly react to trends and not go too far down a path that would result in lower quality).

2D, hand drawn visuals: I'd prefer it too, but it's *significantly* more expensive to do and again, not worth the risk. It would completely prohibit an episodic model too as they games wouldn't be able to be turned around quick enough.

The best way forward is to improve upon, iterate and perfect the current model before wishing a return to the glory days of adventure gaming which also resulted in its inevitable demise. It's short-sighted thinking and annoys me that Telltale don't get the credit for what they've done and instead, they get criticised or judged for what they won't do (and can't do).

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  • 3 months later...
The Sarge

The Sarge

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This time around a Rod Serling-style narrator will act as host, ushering players through the story and popping up now and then to provide commentary. The narrator is a ghoulish old man who seems to be Telltale's best-animated character, yet. Overall, what we saw of this first episode was prettier than previous Sam & Max games, but that slight stuttering we've seen in the other console versions was still there. It runs in 1080p and sports real-time shadows.

Telltale is changing its game to encourage players to think through problems instead of trying to use every item in their inventory on every object in sight. Max now has psychic powers like telepathy and the ability to transform into inanimate objects. For many of the puzzles in Devil's Playhouse you'll need to utilize Max's powers instead of a massive inventory.

Telltale is really trying to make this a console-friendly game, and also trying to welcome new players to the series. Sam keeps a notebook with him players can reference to learn about returning characters and mission objectives. For example, Max is still President at the beginning of The Devil's Playhouse, but newcomers won't know what that is all about. You now directly control Sam & Max, instead of using point-and-click controls. Nearby interactive objects will be highlighted, and you can hold down the R2 button to see all interactive objects in the area.

Episode one of The Devil's Playhouse arrives April 15, with four monthly episodes to follow. Telltale is offering a pre-order incentive to secure the entire season early for $29.99, which amounts to a $5 discount. PlayStation 3 owners can pre-order the series from the PlayStation Store, a first for the service. PC and Mac players who pre-order will gain access to the Sam & Max Elite Forces to chat with the developers. As of now, Telltale isn't selling individual episodes – just the full season.

http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/107/1076816p1.html

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BabelRich

BabelRich

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Completed it yesterday.

Found it a little lacking in decent puzzles compared to Season 2 and Monkey Island. But it was a solid start to the season and I'm hoping the uses of Max's powers will get more interesting as he aquires more. His future vision seemed sketchy, sometimes giving you a puzzle to solve and other times just giving the answers.

The script was top notch tho IMO, and produced more than a few belly laughs.

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Okotta

Okotta

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Anybody played The Tomb of Sammun-Mak on PS3?

I'm so tempted to buy the whole The Devil's Playhouse package on PSN, since both Episode 1 and 2 of The Devil's Playhouse are getting very good reviews. I've played the demo of The Penal Zone and liked it.

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biggerbob

biggerbob

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Anybody played The Tomb of Sammun-Mak on PS3?

I've played it and thoroughly enjoyed it. (But as a disclaimer: I've pretty much enjoyed everything I've played by Telltale to some degree)

There's a nice jumping around in time thing going on, which they always seem to do well and makes the game feel quite open. And I quite liked intentionally trying to get cursed / get other characters cursed as a puzzle mechanic. And train levels in games are always great.

I'm so tempted to buy the whole The Devil's Playhouse package on PSN, since both Episode 1 and 2 of The Devil's Playhouse are getting very good reviews. I've played the demo of The Penal Zone and liked it.

If I've understood correctly, the demo of The Penal Zone is the first few minutes from the real game - in the spaceship with a brain telling you how to use Max's powers?

Even as a fan of the series, I thought that bit was pretty poor. It was bewildering and patronising at the same time - You've no idea what's going on with the characters, you're being introduced the loads of new controls (some of which aren't even used again in that episode), and you're not encouraged to think for yourself at all.

So if you liked that then I'd say definitely get the full thing because it's much better.

As a side note, I can't decide whether having trophies in this is good or bad. It definitely gives the game some replay value (there's a few I missed that I want to go back for), but some of them ended up influencing the way I played the game the first time (e.g. complete the sections in chronological order), so I was always thinking about that rather than just sitting back and enjoying the game.

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Okotta

Okotta

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If I've understood correctly, the demo of The Penal Zone is the first few minutes from the real game - in the spaceship with a brain telling you how to use Max's powers?

Even as a fan of the series, I thought that bit was pretty poor. It was bewildering and patronising at the same time - You've no idea what's going on with the characters, you're being introduced the loads of new controls (some of which aren't even used again in that episode), and you're not encouraged to think for yourself at all.

So if you liked that then I'd say definitely get the full thing because it's much better.

You're excactly right about the demo and I too thought that it was a bit restricted and poor, but I liked it as an introduction to the series since I never played any of the other seasons. BTW will that be a problem that I've never played Season 1 and 2? Is Season 3 in some way a continuation of the story or is Season 3 a completely new standalone season with a new story?

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NoVisAnima

NoVisAnima

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You're excactly right about the demo and I too thought that it was a bit restricted and poor, but I liked it as an introduction to the series since I never played any of the other seasons. BTW will that be a problem that I've never played Season 1 and 2? Is Season 3 in some way a continuation of the story or is Season 3 a completely new standalone season with a new story?

Season 3 is a completely standalone season. There have been call backs to previous seasons but you don't need to get them to know what to do next, or understand what's going on.

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biggerbob

biggerbob

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Hmm... I guess that's true overall, but I was quite surprised about how many references there were to the previous series in the first part of the first episode. Most of the characters you meet Sam and Max know already and start their conversations with references to what happened in previous games. I would have thought it'd be quite off-putting for newcomers, although I suppose it'd be just as odd for people who played the previous games if they acted like they'd never happened.

Once the game gets going, though, that's put to one side and it's a stand-alone story. Episode 2 has very few callbacks.

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