{"id":1423,"date":"2007-11-16T12:00:05","date_gmt":"2007-11-16T17:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=1423"},"modified":"2007-11-16T11:37:42","modified_gmt":"2007-11-16T16:37:42","slug":"free-game-sam-max-episode-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=1423","title":{"rendered":"Free Game: Sam & Max Episode 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been very negative of episodic games before<\/a>, mostly because I don’t want video games to turn into soap opera stories that string you along forever because they want to keep selling you games. This was a real concern with Dreamfall, which brought the tale to a gut-wrenching low<\/a> and then abandoned the player without any assurance that a sequel would be made. <\/p>\n

(The jury is still out for me on Half-Life 2. I thought the ending to the game itself was a cheap cliffhanger, the opening of Episode 1 was a deus ex machina, and that episode ended in a cliffhanger as well. I’m not crazy about this, but unlike Dreamfall Half-Life is more than just the story. It has fantastic gameplay to back up the story. I’m ready to forgive Valve’s cliffhanger excesses if they can bring Episode 3 to a satisfying close.)<\/p>\n

Sam & Max, freelance police.<\/td><\/tr>
Sam & Max, freelance police.<\/td><\/tr><\/table>But here is how episodic games can be done, and right: Sam & Max<\/a>. The game is a comedy, which means you’re playing for the laughs and not the overarching plot. Moreover, there is <\/i> no overarching plot: Each episode is a self-contained story. <\/p>\n

Sam and Max are “freelance police”. Sam is a Humphrey Bogart-ish dog. Max is his insane saw-toothed bunny rabbit sidekick. The two of them inhabit a world otherwise populated by humans who don’t seem to question the existence of a Dog & Rabbit freelance police team. This is modern adventure gaming at its best: Click on stuff, listen to the funny dialog, pick up everything that isn’t nailed down, solve puzzles, and watch the surreal events unfold. <\/p>\n

I can’t sum up the plot in any meaningful way. It’s just too strange. Episode 4 is titled Abe Lincoln Must Die!<\/strong> and indeed you do meet Abe Lincoln, visit the White House, and sucker-punch the President of the United States. (Sort of.) The game steers clear of partisan politicial humor and aims for more universal themes like “the government wastes a lot of money” and “politicians are liars”. This is a smart move not just because it appeals to people all over the political spectrum, but because the more specific, headline-driven humor tends to age poorly and quickly. The game got me to laugh a number of times. <\/p>\n

You can get the full game here<\/a>. On the right you can see a big green button for “Get the free DEMO”, and just to the left of that is a link to “buy” the full game for $0.00. Yes I realize that is strange. No, I don’t know why it’s like that. <\/p>\n

It’s nice to see adventure games thriving again. I’m sorry I didn’t check out this franchise sooner. Great stuff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been very negative of episodic games before, mostly because I don’t want video games to turn into soap opera stories that string you along forever because they want to keep selling you games. This was a real concern with Dreamfall, which brought the tale to a gut-wrenching low and then abandoned the player without […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[65,21],"class_list":["post-1423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-adventure-games","tag-free-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}