Sam & Max Hit the Road
| Sam & Max Hit the Road | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 | |||
| Studio | LucasArts | ||
| Publisher | LucasArts | ||
| Senior Developer | Steve Purcell | ||
| composer |
Clint Bajakian , Michael Land , Peter McConnell |
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| Erstveröffent- lichung |
1993 | ||
| platform | DOS , Mac OS | ||
| Game engine | SCUMM | ||
| genre | Point-and-click adventure | ||
| Game mode | Single player | ||
| control |
Mouse , keyboard |
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| medium |
CD-ROM , HD disk |
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| language | German, English, French, Italian | ||
| Age rating |
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Sam and Max Hit the Road is a point-and-click adventure game developed and published by LucasArts in 1993 , based on the cartoon characters Sam & Max by Steve Purcell .
action
The plot of the game leads the two main characters to be controlled by the player, Sam, an anthropomorphic dog , and Max, a psychopathic and aggressive white rabbit , in search of a missing Yeti through an America riddled with kitsch and absurdities . The story told is grotesque .
In addition to the amusing tasks known for an adventure from LucasArts, which can be solved by combining a wide variety of objects, various mini-games are also integrated into the game itself ( sinking ships , etc.).
Game principle and technology
In this game, LucasArts changed the tried and tested user guidance for the first time and dispensed with the permanent display of the action verbs and the inventory. Instead, the screen was used entirely for the game graphics. The possible actions could be selected with the right mouse button. The inventory was moved to its own screen. The dialogue system was also changed, so that prefabricated sentences could no longer be selected, but only the character of the next statement (question, statement, ...) could be determined using icons.
Sam & Max was released in 1993 for MS-DOS and Mac OS . It was the last LucasArts game that was also shipped in a diskette version. For both systems, a CD-ROM version with full speech output was published parallel to the diskette version. Technically, the disk version of the title is based on version 6, the CD version on version 7 of LucasArts' own SCUMM engine.
Production notes
Since the author of the characters also worked as a graphic artist in other games by LucasArts, Sam and Max appear again and again as a running gag . In the first part of Monkey Island , Sam and Max can be seen as idols in front of the sacred monkey head on Monkey Island. The costume rental shop on Booty Island in Monkey Island 2 has costumes by Sam and Max. There is also a statue of Sam and Max in the Indiana Jones office in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade . The house of the past in Day of the Tentacle is hanging Image by Max.
successor
LucasArts announced the development of a successor called Sam & Max Freelance Police in August 2002 . After graphics and trailers had already been shown at various game fairs, the project was canceled on March 3, 2004, as LucasArts officially stated that there was no market for adventure games and wanted to concentrate on the marketing of Star Wars games. The developers entrusted with the development of the game up to then founded the company Telltale Games .
After online petitions against the discontinuation of development were unsuccessful, LucasArts lost the rights to use Sam & Max in May 2005. Since September 2005, Steve Purcell and the company Telltale Games have been working on a new successor that is independent of the original project. Since autumn 2006, Telltale Games gradually published the six originally planned episodes. In this first season ( Sam & Max: Season One ) , the episodes titled Culture Shock , Situation: Comedy , The Mole, The Mob and The Meatball , Abe Lincoln Must Die! and Reality 2.0 are only available for download. The final episode Bright Side of the Moon was released in May 2007 for buyers of the entire first season. In September 2007 a completely Germanized version of all six parts was published as a complete package under the name Sam & Max: Season One by Jowood . In 2007 a five-episode second season was released, and in 2010 the third season was released, which also includes five episodes.
reception
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Sam & Max Hit the Road received almost exclusively positive reviews. GameRankings aggregates 6 reviews to a mean of 84%. Power Play magazine gave the game the Highly Recommended Award .
Others
After Sam & Max, the protagonists were also used in other games by LucasArts. In the third part of the Monkey Island saga, Max's head is projected onto the stage through spotlights in the theater on Plunder Island and in the amusement park on Monkey Island you can see the attractions from the circus at Sam & Max in the background. In Outlaws (LucasArts, 1997) Max appears in a secret room in history mode. In Star Wars: Dark Forces , a bonus cave is the shape of Max's head; in Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II you find Max (armed with a laser pistol) in a small house and at the end of the fuel filler neck of a departing ship (at least in the demo for this game).
In the dress-up game (which you can buy in one of the Snuckey shops) you can dress up Sam like Rapp Scallion (with an apron, hood and burning sausage) and Max as a waiter with tattered pants and a pizza box labeled Le Chuck's Pizza . There is also an obstacle at Gator Golf that looks like the giant monkey skull on Monkey Island.
In Bumpusville the cleaning robot plays after Sam would reprogram it, as in Star Wars, first as R2-D2 a message from Princess Leia from: "Help me, Sam and Max, you are my only hope." (In the original: "Help me Sam and Max, you're my only hope. ")
There is also a reference to the first Ghostbusters film in Bumpusville. When Sam plunged into virtual reality, defeated the dragon and found the key, he said: “I am the key master.” (“I am the key master.”) Of course, a swipe at Indiana Jones should not be missing: Also in Bumpusville swaps Sam put the wig and stand against an eggplant that looks like Conroy Bumpus. However, this is not the right weight either, it sinks slowly downwards, Sam is shot at with arrows with suction cups and is thrown out of the house with Max by Conroy Bumpus' bodyguard.
While the credits are running, you can shoot some well-known LucasArts characters in a shooting gallery. Purple tentacles, R2-D2 and a voodoo doll that looks like Guybrush Threepwood from Monkey Island run across the screen.
The German voice of Max is the actress Sandra Schwittau , best known as the German voice of Bart Simpson . Sam is spoken by Hans-Gerd Kilbinger .
Web links
- Sam & Max Hit the Road at MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ PC Player 1/1994, p. 30: Sam & Max Hit the Road. (PDF) Retrieved March 29, 2016 . (pdf, 85 mb)
- ↑ a b Review in Power Play 1/94. Retrieved September 26, 2015 .
- ↑ a b GameRankings.com: Sam & Max Hit the Road. Retrieved March 3, 2018 .
