Re: The Official SBtF Sam & Max Topic!

[Uzi-Bazooka]

Oh, Wheelie likes to rebel against "The Man" by making all of his double-clicks custom. Telltale's all up like, "You gotta use these double-clicks," and Wheelie's like "No way. No way, man. I AM NOT GOING DOWN THAT ROAD." And then The Tale's all up on, "No, you have to! We make you!" But it's then that The Wheelchair breaks out with some serious, "No. I make my own. They are better than yours." And then Telltale cries themselves to sleep at night. BECAUSE THEY ARE BABY MEN.

[The Wheelchair]

Oh, Wheelie likes to rebel against "The Man" by making all of his double-clicks custom.

Actually I just prefer the concept art to the in-game models.

[Uzi-Bazooka]

SPECULATION:
In Poker Night at the Inventory, Max has memories of times with Sam. He also often mentions his psychic powers: "Oh, remember my latent psychic powers? Yeah, well, they're back. Not that I've been using them, of course!"
Both of these would suggest that this is the original Max, and not Alternate-Past-Future Max (called Max X on the S&M Wiki.) But Poker Night came out quite a bit after The Devil's Playhouse. So which Max is it? And if it's Max X, why does he have all of these memories?
(This is just speculation, of course. Nobody's really right one way or the other.)

[The Wheelchair]

I like to think of it in one of two ways:
A. Sam told Max X about the whole thing or
B. Max is so weird that he just remembers it. Somehow.

Also, Sam & Max Hit the Road came in the mail today! And from the looks of the little 12+ rating in the corner, Amazon.com sent me a European copy of the game! I think this means my home is now culturally diverse!

[Uzi-Bazooka]

Well, I don't like to think that the Max playing Poker is Max Prime, because that's too depressing to think that he died right after this. But it doesn't make a lot of sense for Max X to be it.

Oh, wait! This is supposed to be when the characters aren't gaming, right? Sorta their off-hours?
So I think that there's only one Max, who normally lives a life of Freelance Police stuff. But occasionally, he stars in video games loosely based off his life, so he actually plays Max Prime AND Max X, even though he's the same Max! (This explains those blooper reels on the DVDs, too.) So this is the actor Max, who's the only real Max.

...
...
...
This theory needs some work.

[The Wheelchair]

Eh, I prefer my theories.

Speaking of my theories, did I ever post my Commissioner theory here? I've got it over at the Telltale forum, but I don't know if any of yous guys have heard it. It slowly developed over one forum thread, getting crazier and crazier as I filled in the plot-holes that people brought up.

Spoiler:

[Uzi-Bazooka]

Yeah, I got one question. Did you merely smoke, or did you inhale as well?

[The Wheelchair]

It's less nutso if you read through the thread that it all came from.

[Uzi-Bazooka]

Actually (and I have not yet read the thread), it's a pretty good theory. However, it doesn't account for the comics or the TV show,* where the Commissioner called on a much more regular basis than in the Telltale Games.
See, Sam X and Max X lived lives completely identical to Sam and Max Prime (in fact, they were no more than previous versions of Sam & Max Prime) right up until halfway through Episode 102, when of course there was time travel crap and S&M Prime had to relive the time all over again, so as to fix paradoxes. But you knew this.

Therefore, time travel shenanigans can't have any effect until AFTER that point in time.
Oh, wait.

TIME TRAVEL.
...
...
...
Bloody Hell, the Star Trek answer to everything.

Okay, Wheels4Deals. You win this round. Happy New Year.

*=By the way, if you haven't seen the TV Show, DON'T. I rented it from our local library. There were a few funny episodes, but mostly a lot of crap.

[The Wheelchair]

That's the wonderful thing about time travel: Nothing matters.

And my theory does actually account for the cartoons. I've never seen them myself, but the people at Telltale have graciously pointed out every error in my theory, allowing me to account for all errors and make the perfect explanation.

For example, one episode apparently mentions that Sam & Max went to the Commissioner's daughter's wedding. Thus the bit about Commissioner Sam and Sybil X getting married and having a kid.

[Uzi-Bazooka]

Yeah, I remember that one.
And I suppose you can account for the only known picture of him:

Spoiler:

By pulling a "Well, Sam always wears a suit and tie! It doesn't have to be the same color, though!"

Personally, as interesting as this is, I think that the Commissioner is exactly what he seems like. I always enjoyed the parts with his phone calls, though, so I'm depressed that he has been appearing less and less in the seasons.

[Uzi-Bazooka]

Here's something interesting which I hadn't thought of, courtesy of TV Tropes:

In the very first episode, we learn Max is naturally immune to hypnosis and brainwashing. The following episode, after Sam gets hypnotized himself, he gets himself some kind of hypnosis-proof hat. The former would explain perfectly well why in "They Stole Max's Brain!", after Sammun-Mak rewrites history and makes himself ruler of all creation, Max is able to recall what actually happened and recognize that history was rewritten. Why not Sam? The first thing Sam does upon discovering Max's brain was stolen and going on his noirish Roaring Rampage Of Revenge is ditch his trenchcoat and hat. Nice job screwing yourself there, Sam.

The same trick is pulled in "Beyond the Alley of the Dolls." One of the Samulacra/Dogglegangers steals Sam's hat early on, leaving him without it for the majority of the episode and leaving him vulnerable to Charlie Ho-Tep's mind control.

I wonder if TTG thought about this at the time, or if it's just awesome that way.

[The Wheelchair]

I noticed that as soon as I got into Sammun-Mak world in They Stole Max's Brain. If Telltale didn't think the same than that's one heckuva coincidence.

[The Wheelchair]

So, I've almost completed Sam & Max Hit the Road, and I gotta say that I'm loving every minute of it. Sam and Max's old voices take some getting used to, but other than that it's a really excellent adventure. If anyone here at the Sam & Max thread doesn't have it yet, I'd highly recommend ordering it online.

Oh, and the musical number is just great.
"Thaaaaat's whyyyyyy Iiiiiiiiiiii'm... happy to be King of the Creatures!"

[Uzi-Bazooka]

I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again:
OLD LUCASARTS GAMES DO NOT WORK ON MY WINDOWS SEVEN COMPUTER!!!
Which is a shame, because a bigger fan of 'em never lived (and before you say anything, Wheelie, remember who had Sam & Max first, and got you INTO this stuff in the first place.) Zak McKraken, Loom, every Monkey Island...I just gobbled 'em up! But no more, I'm afraid.

And, YES, I have tried ScummVM, and NO, it didn't work at all.

But on the subject of the game, have you tried getting Sam to do something he can't do three times? (One of those "I can't use X with Y" moments?) He...well, just do it, okay?

[Kinda Long Hair]

So, I've almost completed Sam & Max Hit the Road, and I gotta say that I'm loving every minute of it. Sam and Max's old voices take some getting used to, but other than that it's a really excellent adventure. If anyone here at the Sam & Max thread doesn't have it yet, I'd highly recommend ordering it online.

Is there a free download?

Anyway's, I've had this idea for a while but never posted it ready... a multi-player S&M series! Think about it. Sam and Max have to very different personalities. Sam is more of a "I don't want to kill him unless we need to." while Max is a "Let's slowly tear off his limbs untill he screams out false confesions!" So I was thinking that one player could controll Sam, the other Max. Sam could solve the puzzles and stuff, and Max could intimidate the people into doing stuff. Example: Let's say you have to get through a door, but some guy's gaurding it. Sam can't find a reason as to why he needs to move (other than "We need to get through!") If you tried shooting the guy with Sam, he'd say something like "I can't shoot him! I have two or three morals that I always stick too!" Well then you'd switch over to max, and use his gun on the guy. Max would fire off several rounds, getting the guy to move out of the friggen way. If you wanted to play one player, you could switch back and forth like in the lego star wars games. Last thing: The display for Max would be the same as for Sam. No first person.

[The Wheelchair]

I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again:
OLD LUCASARTS GAMES DO NOT WORK ON MY WINDOWS SEVEN COMPUTER!!!
Which is a shame, because a bigger fan of 'em never lived (and before you say anything, Wheelie, remember who had Sam & Max first, and got you INTO this stuff in the first place.) Zak McKraken, Loom, every Monkey Island...I just gobbled 'em up! But no more, I'm afraid.

And, YES, I have tried ScummVM, and NO, it didn't work at all.

Weird, Uzi. I got it up and running on my Windows 7 with ScummVM in nigh on 5 minutes. Do you have the CD re-release with full voice acting and all that?

But on the subject of the game, have you tried getting Sam to do something he can't do three times? (One of those "I can't use X with Y" moments?) He...well, just do it, okay?

Yup, I did. Sam's whimpering was hilarious.

Is there a free download?

No. You have to pay for it. And order it. Not download it for free.

[Uzi-Bazooka]

Weird, Uzi. I got it up and running on my Windows 7 with ScummVM in nigh on 5 minutes. Do you have the CD re-release with full voice acting and all that?

I did not try it with Sam & Max Hit The Road, as I do not OWN Hit the Road, though I have played through pretty much all or most of it.

No. You have to pay for it. And order it. Not download it for free.

Yeah, CashMoneyManMagicMovie. Sorry to spoil your plans of stealing from starving game developers, but you can't just pirate it like the illegal piratey pirate you are. Friggin' Pirate.

As for your multiplayer game idea, that actually sounds really annoying. It's like: what if we took everything I don't like about the Sam & Max games and made it into its own, separate game. We could call it Suckem and Sux: The Suckquake Suckventure in Suckishland.

My LEAST favorite part of the Sam & Max games is when the puzzle is ridiculously easy, but the solution is really obscure. For example, in Situation: Comedy, you need to get rid of Whizzer as a judge. You know he's allergic to tomatoes. You know that you need to hide tomatoes in his birthday cake. What you DON'T know is that you have to walk ALL THE WAY to Bosco's Inconvenience Store, look at the friggin' ketchup machine, and use the cake with that. I spent forever on the Cooking w/o Looking stage just trying to find ONE. SINGLE. TOMATO.

So what if we made a game where puzzles were SPECIFICALLY super easy, but you had to switch to some other character to do it? And what would Max's disadvantage be? That he can't solve puzzles because he's not smart enough? So, in short, Max is good for a few tiny moments, like the Devil's Playhouse but less.

No offense, MagicMagicMoney, but I just can't see it being any good.

[The Wheelchair]

Uzi, in my opinion, that's how puzzles in point-and-click adventure SHOULD be. I hate puzzles that make absolutely no sense in any way, and puzzles should actually make the player think. It wouldn't have even been a puzzle if there had just been a tomato sitting around in the room. That was one of my favorite puzzles of that episode because it required to actually look around and use some logic rather than randomly guessing or simply following instructions.

[Uzi-Bazooka]

That's not what I'm trying to say. I like puzzles that require thinking and logic.
My problem with that puzzle was that it DOESN'T require thinking or logic. It requires walking around all over the place just to find a freaking tomato. And it's only after you've gone everywhere that you realize you don't need a tomato, but just a tomato-based product like ketchup. So now you have to wander around everywhere looking for anything tomato-related, clicking on everything, until you FINALLY find the ketchup fountain, in the back of the back of Bosco's store. Once you figure out the nature of a puzzle, the solution should be obvious. For example, it takes logic to figure out that you need to get Whizzer to eat tomatoes. Then, once you've gotten that, you should be able to figure out more or less immediately where the solution is. It is a PUZZLE GAME, not a WANDER AROUND game.

[The Wheelchair]

I see what yer saying, but that's just inevitable with any adventure that has more than one or two locations. Searching out what you need it just part of the genre.
Take Monkey Island 2, for example. I knew I had to set the Scabb Island innkeeper's alligator loose, but I needed a something to cut the leash with. Finding the knife was just part of the puzzle.

[Uzi-Bazooka]

Monkey Island is different.

Why?

Because I'm extremely biased and have a hard time hating anything in a Monkey Island game.

With the possible exception of the Tales of Monkey Island interface. At least in The Devil's Playhouse, you had the option of using the arrow keys (see how I managed to tie that back into S&M?)

[The Wheelchair]

Monkey Island is different.

Why?

Because I'm extremely biased and have a hard time hating anything in a Monkey Island game.

Still, it's just a part of the genre. You can't have a point-and-click adventure with some run-around searching.

With the possible exception of the Tales of Monkey Island interface. At least in The Devil's Playhouse, you had the option of using the arrow keys (see how I managed to tie that back into S&M?)

...Uh, I used the arrow keys in ToMI just fine.

[Kinda Long Hair]

This song really reminds me of Sam and Max.
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mostly Max

[Kinda Long Hair]

replaying these. might post some updated reviews

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