The second season of Telltale’s Sam & Max games, Sam & Max: Beyond time and space, will be released tomorrow in a newly revised version and can be pre-ordered now.
If you’ve already played Sam & Max save the world, You know what to expect. But maybe you have a. not touched Sam & Max Have you played since the mid-2000s or early 90s? Perhaps you have never heard of the Freelance Police? Think of this post as your crash course.
Sam & Max are a disrespectful canine and rabbit thingy team whose confusing wit and esoteric crime-fighting methods have entertained people with questionable tastes for nearly 35 years.
They have appeared in award-winning comics by Steve Purcell, a 1990s LucasArts adventure game, a short-lived Canadian television show, and three seasons of episodic games released by Telltale Games (a company I co-founded) between 2006 and 2010. Most of the early employees at Telltale came from LucasArts, where we had worked together Sam & Max: Freelance Police, a game that was discontinued in 2004.
After Telltale closed in 2018, I met three other members of the. teamed up Sam & Max Development team to acquire the rights to the studios Sam & Max Games. We are now remastering these games with the help of a few other former Telltale employees. The first season Sam & Max save the world, came to Xbox in August.
Sam & Max: Beyond time and space begins with an unexpected delivery from the North Pole: a giant battle robot sent by Santa Claus himself to destroy Sam and Max. It seems like jolly old St. Nick is out of whack and he’s sabotaging Christmas with gifts that would put the Consumer Product Safety Commission on high alert. No problem! The professional police force is dealing with the case.
But saving Christmas is not enough. Next, a breakaway Bermuda triangle sucks Sam and Max through a portal to an island populated by quarreling moai heads, barfly babies, and a volcano about to explode. Then there is a detour to Stuttgart to face an emo vampire who keeps an eye on the souls of Sam and Max.
And after that, things start to get strange.
At the end of the five-part story, our heroes will travel through time, jump through space and look behind the veil that separates the dead from the living. But when they’re face-to-face with the demons in charge for Hell, LLC, the Freelance Police may have reached the end of the line.
Sam & Max: Beyond time and space is an adventure game with lots of strange rooms to explore, strange characters to chat with, and confusing (but never punishing) puzzles to solve. The game detects when you’re stuck and gives subtle hints – you can turn it up if you need more help or turn it off if you want to fly alone. There are also four optional driving mini-games with collectible decals for Sam and Max’s De Soto, 12 achievements, and new Easter eggs that should be fun for a long time Sam & Max and Telltale fans.
But apart from a few Easter eggs, why buy the remaster when the original does it play reasonably well with backward compatibility? For starters, because the new version looks and plays like a game from 2021, not 2007.
We revised the lighting, increased the textures and improved the lip sync. The original audio, compressed like crazy to keep download sizes small, was remastered and re-encoded from the original source files. Plus, the new version features 4K graphics on Xbox One X and newer, as well as redesigned gamepad controls that work much better than the original point and click port. But some of our favorite changes bring the game closer to the look and feel of Steve Purcell’s comics. All character models have been tweaked, including Sam and Max with Steve’s input. A new main menu and opening sequence make the game look like a cohesive whole, rather than five separate episodes. Many scenes have been spiced up with new acting and camera work, and composer Jared Emerson-Johnson contributed eight new jazz tracks played by some of the original musicians.
If you haven’t played Sam & Max save the world, you might be wondering if you can dive into season two. Sam & Max: Beyond time and space stands on its own, but some recurring characters, jokes, and plot elements are carried over from season one, just like on TV. If you want to start over, you’re in luck because Sam & Max save the world 25% discount until December 13th.
This Christmas season, treat yourself to a rubber shoe dog in a baggy suit and a naked rabbit thing without an internal filter. Trust me, it’s a much better gift than anything Santa Claus gives you.
Sam & Max: Beyond time and space
Skunkape Games LLC
$ 19.99
Join the Freelance Police on a bizarre adventure from the North Pole to the fountain of youth, from space to hell and back. Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space is a remastered version of Telltale’s second season of the episodic Sam & Max games that has been lovingly updated by a small team of the original developers. Sam is a six-foot-tall dog detective with a keen sense of justice. Max is a hyperkinetic rabbit thing with a penchant for chaos. Together they form the Freelance Police – a disrespectful comedy duo whose esoteric way of fighting crime has entertained comic and video game fans for more than thirty years. In this five-episode collection of interconnected cases, Sam and Max are back on the road to crime in a showdown with Santa, a race over a giant volcano, and a duel with a Eurotrash vampire. And then things get even stranger. Does the paranoid shopkeeper Bosco have something under control with his talk of a major conspiracy? Is the restaurant owner Stinky hiding the truth about what happened to her grandfather (aka Stinky)? Will lanky neighbor Sybil Pandemik ever find true love? Did someone say … BIRTHDAY ?! Hop on the DeSoto for a hilarious getaway that first won IGN’s Adventure Game of the Year award and now looks and sounds better than ever, with gorgeous HD graphics, redesigned lighting, and lip-syncing, more refined Cinematography, remastered audio, and eight brand new pieces of music featuring live jazz musicians. Zombies will dance. Mariachis will sing. A giant combat robot will ravage the streets. And when their friends’ lives are at stake, Sam and Max risk all their souls to fix things.