I was excited to get my hands on Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space once I heard it was about a rabbit and a dog. How can that not sound fun? This is a point and click adventure game on the XBOX Live Arcade. The game revolves around two main characters where one is The President and the other is his best friend. In Episode one: Ice Station Santa it is your job to help save Christmas and help Santa by saving him from being possessed by demons.
In the first few cut scenes, you will find the humor of the game in the dialogue as no one or nothing is safe from ridicule. The tradeoff between the main characters and the giant robot discussing things via song lyrics is great.
The positives of this game are abundant. Easy controls is the start, (although for the first couple times a pop up text would have been nice, just to make sure everyone understood the controls.) Sadly I have to admit I was about 25 minutes in before I realized I could walk anywhere by clicking on the floor as I was expecting there to be an arrow saying I could scroll the screen) a simple point and click scheme works great here with your standard A B C D dialogue choice boxes. The game remains simple yet provides a couple challenges along the way. (Like the diner trivia game or the boxing mini-game) The dialogue is great for many reasons. This game has what I call “Shrek humor” kids will find it funny and laugh at certain things but the adults will laugh more at “the inside joke.” The back and forth of the characters is also very great and sarcastic as well. However, the gem of it all is some of the one-liners. Like when Abe Lincoln end the conversation with “Represent”
I really only found a couple small negatives if any in this game. The earlier mentioned lack of control explanation is very small and if I were experienced in point and click games this would probably not be an issue at all. The only other thing I can say is there are some dialogue choices that will remain a choice even after you have completed it. Which is annoying for two reasons; 1) You end up cycling through many times just to make sure you did not miss any piece of the story 2) There is an achievement for doing every dialogue with every AI. As an achievement junkie, I found this annoying.
Overall, the positives of this game are way more abundant then a couple small tedious negatives. As of this date, I have only completed Episode 1 and am very excited to finish the game as soon as possible. Telltale Games hit a home run with this game.
[starreviewmulti id=5 tpl=46]
[starratingmulti id=5 tpl=49]
