DOUBLE FINE GAME CLUB: Sam & Max: Culture Shock  (starting 9th March)

The Double Fine Game Club is a community run weekly event where interested gamers play through and come together to discuss what they do and don’t like about a particular game (sort of like a book club, but for games). We usually aim to play one or two hours a week, and we normally have somebody streaming the current game so that those who don’t have the game or don’t feel like playing it again can still feel involved.

Discussion takes place here in the forums and on the Double Fine Game Club home page. Game Club is a very informal weekly chat, and everyone is welcome!

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GAME CLUB SESSIONS
  - 9th March, 9:00pm UTC (click for your time zone): First game session (Stream 1) and general discussion (log)
  - 16th March, 9:00pm UTC (click for your time zone): Final game session (Stream 2) and general discussion plus dev chat with Jake Rodkin (log)
 

SPECIAL GUESTS
  - Jake Rodkin (@ja2ke)

ABOUT THE GAME
  The former child stars of the Soda Poppers TV show are wreaking havoc all over the neighborhood! But this is no ordinary tale of child stars gone awry. There’s a dark force behind the Poppers’ baffling antics. Using only their wits and a slew of heavy household objects, it’s up to Sam & Max to save the day!

  Culture Shock is the first episode of Telltale’s first season of Sam & Max games, Sam & Max Save The World.

WHERE TO GET ONLINE
  - Telltale Store (Windows, full season)
  - GOG (Windows, full season, special edition features)
  - Steam (Windows, full season)

GAME CLUB INFO
  - Double Fine Game Club home page (with webchat, stream and session countdown timer)
  - Game Club IRC: #DFAdventure on irc.foonetic.net (use the link above if you’re not sure)
  - @DFGameClub on Twitter (keep track of announcements)
  - Game Club planning thread

This is a game I’ve been meaning to check out but never got around to. It will be interesting to see what it’s like. ^^

I think that Save The World came out at a time when Telltale were still finding their footing, but it’s still a series I love very much :D

Yeah, it’s what got me started with Telltale Games in 2006. I greatly enjoyed it even if it’s not their best season and the soundtrack is awesome. The second season might be my favourite and Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People, Wallace and Gromit and Tales of Monkey Island are also definitely worth playing.

Yeah, as you play through Telltale’s earlier stuff, its easy to tell that they were still kind of stumbling around, both in writing and puzzle design. I think they mostly found their footing with the Sam & Max series by around episode 4 or so of Season 1, and from that point on it seems that they went with refining what they knew worked while still experimenting with new ideas.

And Telltale’s Sam & Max series does indeed have an awesome soundtrack.

Season 1 is kinda rough to play now, Season 2 and 3 were MUCH better in terms of gameplay, puzzles, and to me, soundtrack and story. You can tell it was their first major project as it feels pretty stiff now, especially when you’ve played the later games.

Ash735 - 05 March 2013 11:58 AM

Season 1 is kinda rough to play now, Season 2 and 3 were MUCH better in terms of gameplay, puzzles, and to me, soundtrack and story. You can tell it was their first major project as it feels pretty stiff now, especially when you’ve played the later games.

We’re going through them in order now, so we’ll be able to look at the progression. For now, I know I’ll be definitely be judging the game on its own merits. Even though it’s rough around the edges, I still think it stands up as a good game/series of games - later stuff being super awesome doesn’t make these episodes less good to me ^_^

On another note, it looks like we’ll be having Jake Rodkin (long standing Telltale guy, Idle Thumbs person, and did some graphics/UI stuff for season 1 of Sam & Max) and Nicholas Herman (cinematic artist who I believe was an intern during season 1) joining us for the second session!

Hey, I actually have this game. I might be joining in at some point.

When this came out I was pretty thrilled to have Sam and Max back, but really, in hindsight, the humor wasn’t the same. I don’t think anyone else can really nail Steve Purcell’s voice.

Speaking of voices, I hate both of the Max VAs in the Telltale series. They don’t get any of the wry sarcasm of the character, they just turned him into a Bart Simpson.

flesk - 05 March 2013 03:58 AM

the soundtrack is awesome.

This bears repeating.

Aww, man. It looks like I won’t be able to attend the game club on Saturday. Got work early on Sunday which means that I’ll have to turn in early on Saturday. And here I was looking forward to the game club. I’ll hopefully be able to make it to next week’s session.

I think I’ve yet to play the latest season.. and I should.., but I think I’m with Frogacuda..

It might just be the sitcom-like structure, but the bad guys didn’t feel as terrifying, or the plots as dramatic and clear, as my memories of the comics/first game…  and that kind of flattened the tone of the first couple seasons for me.

jonathanfrisby - 05 March 2013 08:57 PM

I think I’ve yet to play the latest season.. and I should.., but I think I’m with Frogacuda..

It might just be the sitcom-like structure, but the bad guys didn’t feel as terrifying, or the plots as dramatic and clear, as my memories of the comics/first game…  and that kind of flattened the tone of the first couple seasons for me.

The third season takes an approach similar to Tales of Monkey Island, with a single interconnected story being told across 5 episodes, so you might enjoy it a bit more than the previous seasons.

jfrisby - 05 March 2013 10:20 PM

Syd - 05 March 2013 10:20 PM

It might just be the sitcom-like structure, but the bad guys didn’t feel as terrifying, or the plots as dramatic and clear, as my memories of the comics/first game…  and that kind of flattened the tone of the first couple seasons for me.

The third season takes an approach similar to Tales of Monkey Island, with a single interconnected story being told across 5 episodes, so you might enjoy it a bit more than the previous seasons.

Narrative wise, season 3 is definitely strongest, and the antagonists are pretty compelling as well.

Wait a sec. Are you saying Conroy Bumpus was terrifying? :D

Season 3 is definitely my favorite, I feel in tone and humor it’s somewhat closer to the comics than the previous two seasons. I just wish I hadn’t encountered an object vanishing bug in episode 2 which necessitated a restart. Really put a damper on my enjoyment. Oh, and don’t play it with a gamepad, it’s nearly impossible to select some of the hotspots this way. The controls with keyboard aren’t exactly great either, but they’re at least functional instead of atrocious.

So, Culture Shock, eh? I remember it being somewhat underwhelming overall. Actually, the first episode I liked of the first season was the third one, which seems to be widely considered the worst of the bunch. No patch on “Abe Lincoln Must Die!”, of course. Stopped playing the season halfway through “Reality 2.0” because I got all these ideas how to solve certain puzzles and the game wouldn’t even let me try them out. Continued from Season 2 onwards then, though didn’t finish the third episode there. It was fine, but I didn’t fell exactly in love with it. But Season 3, oh man, I love it! :D (Not without complaints though, like the rather tedious Episode 3 and said object vanishing bug) I really really wanted a Season 4 so badly after the credits rolled…

Yeah, Season 3 is also my favorite overall. It may be a wee bit easier than Season 2, but that is not to say that it doesn’t have its own fair share of challenging puzzles. I cared more about the characters and laughed harder at the jokes in Season 3 than any of the previous seasons.

It’s interesting that the difficulty dropped a bit as the production values went up.

I can recognise that Sam & Max Save The World may not have been Telltale’s nor Sam & Max’s best, but it’s still got a pretty special place for me. I’ve just been testing out streaming a bit, and I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face :D