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Sam & Max: Episode 2 – Situation Comedy

January 2, 2007

PC / Reviews / by Ben Jacobs Make a comment! / Tweet it!

The episodic format has become much more clear to me now. I wasn’t sure how it was going to feel at first, but Telltale has done something really neat. You start [i]Episode 2[/i] in the same place you started [i]Episode 1[/i], in Sam and Max’s dingy office space. It feels familiar, and gives you a launching pad into the new mystery. Everything feels and looks the same this time around. The character models are still very passable, the voice acting is good, and the environments are well-crafted. This actually feels a lot like a TV episode, which Telltale was clearly going for. Mix a little of the familiar, and send our heroes off somewhere new. Past characters return, Bosco is just as paranoid as ever, and Sybil has started up her fourth or fifth business in the same building. This and future reviews of these episodes are going to concentrate on the episode itself, as I’ve covered the gameplay aspects in [url=http://www.snackbar-games.com/r395.html]my first review[/url].

I can honestly say that the series really comes into its own in this episode. The pilot was an introduction, just trying to set the ground work, and the first real episode really runs with it. It wastes no time goofing around and you are right into the thick of things before you know it. [i]Episode 2[/i]’s story revolves around an Oprah-like talk show host named Myra who has kidnapped her audience and will not let them leave the studio. After giving away cars, trips, and money to her audience, she has gone a little crazy. Fortunately, the freelance police are available to, ya know, save the day. Hopefully.

The puzzles in [i]Situation Comedy[/i] are much, much better than in the first episode. Almost every complaint I had about difficulty and length has been addressed here. While there are still a fair amount of gimmies, the puzzle solutions are a little more convoluted now. You get items and you actually don’t use them immediately! Novel, I know. Length was definitely an issue in [i]Episode 1[/i], but [i]Episode 2[/i] feels much longer. It’s hard to tell if this is because of more content and puzzles, more difficult conundrums, or just that [i]Episode 1[/i]’s story was wrapped up so quickly. The ending in [i]Episode 2[/i] definitely takes its time and by the end of the game, is very satisfying.

If Telltale can keep churning these out on schedule, I think they have a real hit on their hands. If you haven’t bought the first episode, do it right now, just so you can get to this episode. Fortunately, this show is a little more Friends and a little less Sopranos so far. What I mean is, you could play the second episode without playing the first, but you’ll miss out on some jokes and references to the first. It is ultimately still very playable without playing the entire series, but there is no excuse not to gobble up both episodes.

Neverwinter Nights 2

December 20, 2006

PC / Reviews / by Mike Carabajal Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Get out your monster guides, DM handbooks, and twenty sided dice, and then throw them out the window. [i]Dungeons and Dragons[/i] once again makes its way to your computer with the release of [i]Neverwinter Nights 2[/i]. The first [i]Neverwinter Nights[/i] delivered an excellent single player campaign, but moreover, it offered a toolset that let the community create its own role-playing or hack-and-slash worlds to be shared with their friends. Obsidian takes over development from mega award winning uber developer Bioware. Could Obsidian take the franchise and run, or would they fall flat on their face? Depends on whom you ask.

[heading]Two types of people to please.[/heading]

There are two types of people whom [i]Neverwinter Nights[/i] appealed to. You had people who wanted a [i]Dungeons and Dragons[/i] experience to play by themselves, with a rich storyline full of dungeon crawling, riddles, and a little bit of hack-and-slash (err a whole lot). Then you had those people who wanted to birth their own realm, invite their friends to play, and then take the game to a whole new direction.

Let’s not beat around the bush; [i]NWN 2[/i] offers a cinematic experience much like [i]Knights of the Old Republic[/i]. Your main conversations happen in cut scenes, you experience the drama of well-done storytelling, and your character interacts with the world and your companions brilliantly.

On the other hand, bringing a friend along to enjoy the campaign co-operatively is a mess. Because of the nature of the storytelling and cut scenes, whoever instigates a conversation will interrupt whatever the other co-op players are doing. If one player enters a house, all enter the house; it’s annoying and downright unplayable. Don’t have friends that want to play with you is really the bottom line. If you’re going solo, you should enjoy your experience; it’s worthwhile.

[heading]More the same, which isn’t a bad thing.[/heading]

[i]NWN 2[/i] has had a graphical overhaul, but much of the original is reused. The same sound effects, voices, and music are all repeated and very noticeable. New to the game are the subraces and stat adjustments right from character creation. Like in all [i]DnD[/i] games, you build your player, select a class, and then adjust your stats. In this rendition of NWN, you have more flexibility in what your character looks like and his subclass (for instance Drow get bonuses but level very slowly) among many other benefits from rulebook 3.5. It’s a deeper experience than its previous installment.

The gameplay is not changed much- you take quests and get henchmen, whom you can control and level grind. Gone is the clicking system from [i]NWN 1[/i]; the circular right click is gone in exchange for a more drop-down method. While you get used to it, the old system is very intuitive and easy; I wish they would have kept it.

All and all the game is familiar territory. Find dungeon, battle out the baddies, get your new gear, and level up. A fun formula in its simplicity, but thanks to the stat masters that are DnD, leveling up and customizing your character is a unique experience; you have total control of how you build and role-play and affect your companions.

[heading]Satisfactory, but under delivered – Obsidian M.O.[/heading]

Obsidian has under delivered on the multiplayer aspect of the game. The DM client is in beta and pretty much rendered useless at the time this review is written. One of the main aspects that made [i]NWN 1[/i] so ground breaking was the ability to run a plot for your friends. You could really take advantage of the community that made their own modules, and have a Dungeon Master create interaction between players.

While I was most anticipating this aspect of the game, I will have to wait longer. Once again I only question why the release was done when this game is half complete. Make no mistake about it-[i]Neverwinter Nights[/i] is about both the single player campaign and the ability to play with friends.

Obsidian is getting a bad rap, which is unfortunate because they are very talented. Either way the single player experience alone is worth the cost; it’s a well made game, but do not expect to throw out [i]NWN 1[/i] just yet. It’s the only way to get your role-play online for the time being. Personally I don’t expect many development dollars to be spent to see the DM Client finished to the satisfaction of the community. That is a sad state of affairs indeed.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Dark Crusade

November 30, 2006

PC / Reviews / by Tony DuLac Make a comment! / Tweet it!

The Warhammer 40k universe is one brutal melting pot, filled to the brim with warlike alien races and militant humans, each bubbling with their own particularly violent agendas that they would love to A

Scarface: The World is Yours

November 30, 2006

PC / Reviews / by Mate Bors Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Who wouldn’t want to own the world? Tony Montana, a Cuban immigrant, worked very hard (which means killing, stealing, lying, dealing drugs, and all that fun stuff), to own what was the world to him: Miami. That is, until he was killed at the end of Brian De Palma’s classic film from the 1980s, [i]Scarface[/i]. How is it possible to make a game from a movie where the main character was shot to death at the end? It’s simple.

Instead of basing the game on the movie (meaning, have the game feature how Tony built his empire and how he died, which in my opinion would have made more sense), the game takes place as if Tony did not die at the end of the film. He lost his empire, and he needs to re-build it from scratch. He goes out to get revenge on the cock-a-roaches that made him lose everything.

The gameplay is pretty fun- better than your standard [i]GTA[/i] clone. The map is huge, and there are plenty of things to do. You can do missions, which include protecting people, killing people (gee, this is a surprise!), driving around, selling drugs, and taking over territories. You also need to increase your reputation, and with purchasing exotics, it’s quite fun.

Exotics range from small house decorations, to henchmen, from luxury cars and boats, to owning firms and enterprises. Obviously, if you purchase a multi-million dollar business, your reputation will be increased more so than if you just buy a small house decoration. More and more exotics will be unlocked once your reputation reaches a certain level.

There is a pretty fun mini-game incorporated when you are buying/selling drugs, laundering your money, fast talking cops, and so on. You press and hold T, until a red line goes a full circle. You need to do this quite often, and depending on your reflexes (at times, the line goes faster than at other times) you can score much better deals with drug dealers or laundering your money. For example, if you let go of T at the right time, you will be able to sell 100 grams of coke for 10,000 dollars instead of 6,000 or make no deal at all. In banks, the bank takes a certain amount of your dirty cash when you go and deposit it. If your reflexes are good, the bank takes only 1% of your cash instead of 13%. These rates go up as you progress. Depending on your reflexes, you can be filthy rich, with very low gang and police heat (which I will get to soon), or extremely poor and wanted by pretty much everyone.

Heat from cops as well as rival gangs plays a big part in the game. You gain heat from gangs very easily. Killing gang members from rival gangs raises the heat from them. To lower it, take over their territories, deal drugs, or pay big bucks in the A

Sam & Max: Episode 1 – Culture Shock

October 23, 2006

PC / Reviews / by Ben Jacobs Make a comment! / Tweet it!

Adventure game fans, rejoice. No longer must DOSBOX be the only application on your computer that lets you enjoy a classic adventure game. After 13 years, the bad boys of the adventure genre are back. A new Sam and Max game has been a long time in coming, suffering multiple cancellations by Lucasarts, some time in limbo, and finally ending up with a development team that actually realized what it had. It’s new, it’s pretty, it’s episodic, and holy sasquatch on a hot sunday morning, it’s funny.

[i]Sam and Max: Culture Shock[/i] is the first episode in a series of new Sam and Max games. Instead of creating an epic story that spans hours and hours of gameplay, Telltale games has decided to release Sam and Max in discrete, self contained episodes. There are a few ways you can get this game. You can buy each episode individually when they are released for $8.95, a season pass for $34.95 (Which includes a disc at the end of the season) or use your GameTap subscription. Whatever way you decide that you want to play this game, if you like adventure games, you are in for a treat.

The jump to 3D for most adventure games is ridiculously clunky. Escape from Monkey Island is a prime example. Sam and Max : [i]Culture Shock[/i] is, in contrast, a joy to play. In fact, it emulates perfectly a 2D point and click interface, albeit with 3D graphics. Anyone who has played the original or any Lucasarts adventure game will feel right at home. Everyone else will pick it up in no time. The graphics are mostly great, with a few blurry textures here and there. Nothing too distracting. Everything looks like it should, especially the characters. Hell, even the office looks untouched from its 2-D roots. Some may be disappointed, however, by the voices used for the characters. Not that they are necessarily bad, but they are not the same voice actors from either the original game or the cartoon. Sam’s voice sounds pretty good, but Max’s lacks a little of the sardonic attitude that makes his character so funny. I hope in future episodes that they work on Max’s delivery.

Don’t get me wrong, though, the dialogue is hilarious. It all feels distinctly Sam and Max. From Sam’s exclamations to Max’s sadistic take on… everything. Their love of violence has not changed either. This is probably the funniest game I have played in years. The puzzles suffer a little bit from the episodic nature of the games. Since the games are short, you are using most items that you pick up right when you get them. This does make the adventure a little more straight forward and the puzzles a little less convoluted, but it also makes the game pretty easy. Seasoned adventure gamers will breeze through [i]Culture Shock[/i] in a little over 2 or 3 hours. [i]Culture Shock[/i] feels short, but it works. It is very comparable to a tv episode, in fact. You sit down, you play it, and then when it’s over, you can’t wait for the next one.

[i]Sam and Max: Culture Shock[/i] is a game that anyone can play and get into. It’s fun, it’s pretty, and hot damn, it’s refreshing. I look forward to seeing how Telltale plays out the upcoming episodes. If you played Sam and Max back in the day, you owe it to yourself to get this game. Go. Now. What are you waiting for?

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