Sam & Max Hit the Road

Sam & Max Hit the Road is a graphical adventure game, originally developed and released by LucasArts in 1993 for DOS and in 1995 for Macintosh computers. A Windows version of the game was later developed by Aaron Giles and released in 2002. It is the ninth game to use the SCUMM adventure game engine.

Story

Based on the Sam & Max: Freelance Police comic book characters created by Steve Purcell, it follows Sam and Max across a kitsch, tourist trap pastiche of America (featuring such locales as The World's Largest Ball of Twine and the [[Mystery Vortex) in search of an escaped sasquatch.

Gameplay

The game introduced a slightly modified SCUMM interface - instead of the inventory and a panel with the control verbs appearing at the bottom of the screen, a right-click of the mouse cycles through a set of icons representing different control verbs, with the inventory as a separate screen. A similar interface was later used in The Dig and all SCUMM games that followed it.

Development

Hit the Road was released simultaneously on floppy disk and CD-ROM; the "Full Talkie" CD version had voice-overs for all characters and four bonus CD Audio tracks, including a higher quality recording of "King of the Creatures," all of which were composed by Michael Land. The bonus tracks were not present in the Day of the Tentacle/Sam & Max Hit the Road double pack, but they were included with the Windows re-release of the game.

Sam & Max Hit the Road bonus tracklist
Disc 1 (12:22) "Theme from Sam & Max" - 2:02 "Moleman Music" - 3:36 "King of the Creatures" - 1:39 "The Bigfoot Shuffle" - 5:05

It was written and designed by Steve Purcell along with Sean Clark, Collette Michaud and Michael Stemmle and commonly applauded for its substantial amount of humor. In the Tunnel of Love scene, looking at the first display will have Sam quote the English poet John Milton: Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven. Max then quotes musician David Byrne: Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.

Reception

Sam & Max Hit the Road received very favorable reviews in the gaming press, including a score of 9/10 in EDGE magazine. EDGE went on to say "Sam & Max is different. It's genuinely funny, and you find yourself experimenting more than you would normally just to see what the madcap pair will get up to next." They finish their review by stating "Sam & Max is destined to become a classic.".

Technical issues

A major problem encountered by users of the DOS versions is that no music can be heard. This problem is easily solved by one of two methods. Firstly, the updated executable file from the Windows re-release (which also includes optional anti-aliasing) can be obtained from the Unofficial Sam & Max Website.

Alternatively, ScummVM or DOSBox can be used to run this and many other LucasArts adventure games on a number of originally unsupported platforms while also having a number of optional filter settings for arguably improved image quality.

Sequels

Nearly a decade after the release of the original adventure game, LucasArts issued a statement to the press on August 23, 2002 announcing a sequel to Sam & Max Hit the Road, titled Sam & Max: Freelance Police . The sequel — like the original — was to be a point-and-click adventure game, although this time utilising 3D computer graphics. Michael Stemmle|Mike Stemmle, co-designer of Sam & Max Hit the Road, was the lead director on this project with Steve Purcell contributing story design and concept art. Bill Farmer and Nick Jameson also reprised their roles as the original voices of Sam and Max. The game's unexpected cancellation caused an uproar among fans.

A new episodic series of Sam & Max games was later announced by the newly formed Telltale Games, a company consisting of many ex-LucasArts employees, and the first game was released October 17, 2006.

External links

• The Unofficial Sam & Max Website
• Aaron Giles' Windows SCUMM Tips
• Sam & Max Hit the Road at Game Rankings
• text derived from Wikipedia article