However, describing Sam and Max Season One as an adventure title and indicating that it has all of the standard adventure components doesn’t even begin to illuminate what playing it is really like. Sam and Max, through clever writing, turns the adventure game archetype upside down. The story, dialog, setting and themes aren’t present to shuffle the player from one puzzle to the next, nor do they set the stage upon which the player acts, as we see in many CRPG titles. Instead, the adventure gameplay elements are the background against which the witty wordplay, satiric stories and silly settings play out.

For example, in episode two, Sam and Max must gain access to a TV show in order to save hostages from the host of a talk show, a premise for an adventure which is itself noteworthy. In order to do so, they have to complete a series of tasks, as one might expect in any adventure game. What makes Sam and Max Season One different is that the tasks themselves are entertaining enough to make the player almost forget they’re completing an in-game objective. The point was illustrated when I realized I had gone back to the set of the cooking show, “Cooking Without Looking,” and filmed several episodes despite the fact that I’d completed the task in question. It was simply so much fun that its relevance as a task was less important than its entertainment value. Rather than calling Sam and Max Season One an adventure game, a term such as “humorous interactive comic book” might be a better way to describe what the player encounters. Regardless, whatever you want to call it, it’s fun.

Another clever facet of both the writing and gameplay is how Sam and Max’s dialog is handled. Most of the time, as the player, you move and speak through Sam. This is the better choice 90% of the time, as Sam is the more rational and less violent of the pair, his larger-than-Dirty-Harry revolver notwithstanding. It also allows you, as Sam, to play the straight man to Max’s outrageous dialog. Nevertheless, when the situation warrants it, you get the chance to speak through Max. Instead of switching control of the game to Max, the dialog has a simple interface that switches to Max’s potential dialog. True to Max’s character, however, what you read in the dialog box might not match what comes out of Max’s mouth, due to his personality.

The comic potential of this simple design decision becomes fully apparent when Max debates Abraham Lincoln during the presidential election and has to give a speech. Attempting to guide Max through the campaign speech almost becomes a mini-game in and of itself as you try to avoid any dialog choices that could possibly be subverted into something politically incorrect. Given that it’s Max who’s speaking, your choices are generally limited to heinous and less heinous, but that’s part of the game’s charm.