Helpful advice and links

Find Software: Downloads FTP Search Our Privacy Vow

Sam & Max Hit the Road

Sam & Max are characters from a comic book I haven't read. The are "freelance police:" a detective dog and his psychotic rabbit sidekick who you can use to do your dirty work. On the trial of a missing big foot and his giraffe-necked girlfriend, you crisscross the country, stopping off at identical diners along the way, checking out the world's largest ball of twine and sending messages to aliens. You also meet a fisherman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Woody Allen (back when he was funny).

I came as close as I ever have to not cheating on this game. There were only two places where I was stuck, one where I didn't realize I could pick something up because someone was standing right next to it (there is a general problem with people getting in the way of objects) and another where I didn't realize that I could walk past someone (even after I knew it I had difficulty getting past -- it's sometimes difficult to walk through doors in this game, and you have to click around a bit to figure exactly where the mouse has to be to have you walk where you want), but I didn't have to cheat to solve any of the actual puzzles. On the other hand, a lot of times I just tried everything in my inventory with everything around me, so I didn't always solve the puzzles with cold logic.

When my games-writing friend first showed me this game the visuals blew me away, although by the time I borrowed it I'd played enough slicker games that it didn't seem all that impressive. Still, it's a good looking game that looks pretty much like the comic book, judging by the art in the documentation.

There are a few arcade games and other silliness in the game as a bonus, none of which are worth bothering with, in my opinion. A game where you jump over road signs, a battleship-type game, a coloring book, a dress-up doll book, can all be skipped. The Whack-A-Rat game, on the other hand, is fun, but it's an integral part of the gameplay anyway.

Toward the end the scavenger hunt was getting pretty boring. There is a lack of ingenuity to many of the puzzles: find an object, use it with another object, find an object, use it with another object. But it's really, really, really funny, and well worth playing.

-- Charles Herold -1998

Glitches:I had a terrible time getting this game to work with my sound card. LucasArts adventure games from this period are more particular than any other type of games in terms of sound cards. After endless experimentation I found a working setting.