Sam & Max take over the world -- availability details, game tidbits, and more!

TelltaleGames

"Are we there yet?"



We've been hearing this question from fans a lot lately, in one form or another. I bet a good number of you out there are starting to feel like kids on a road trip, dying for the car to roll to a stop, not just for an ice cream or bathroom break, but at the awesome Disneyland-type destination you've been waiting for forever. Sam & Max: Season 1 has only been in full production for about five months, yet the wait must seem unbearably long for those who have been waiting since that sequel-that-shall-not-be-named was canned back in 2004. And even longer for those of you who have been waiting since the day you first shot your way through the closing credits of Sam & Max Hit the Road in 1993. Some of you have been waiting so long, it hurts.



Today we can definitively tell you that the wait is... well, not over, but, you know almost over. In a little over a month, on October 17, people in the United States can sign up for GameTap and play the pilot episode of Sam & Max: Season 1 in all its glory. And as of November 1, the episode will be available for purchase from Telltale's site for anyone and everyone who wants it. That's right, folks. Sam & Max are on the verge of taking over the world.



There are a lot more questions we're dying to answer -- how much will each episode cost? What will they be about? What is the secret of life? We aren't quite ready to dish the dirt on all of this just yet. We're still working out the details on pricing (which will be announced very soon), and we're keeping the plots of future episodes under wraps for the time being. But we can tell you a few new things about the pilot episode, Culture Shock.[readmore]



Those little red-and-white clad guys who have been creeping into the new screenshots? They're the Soda Poppers -- former child stars who have been out of the TV scene since the seventies, and in and out of trouble almost as long. They're on the loose in Sam & Max's neighborhood, and it's up to our unscrupulous crime-fighters to figure out why. And we do mean unscrupulous. To get to the bottom of the ever-thickening plot, you'll have to throw heavy objects, hit people over the head, shoot stuff (in point & click style, of course!), and drive around like a maniac. Oh, and don't forget about faking mental illness and outsmarting a deviously clever bell-bottom-wearing foe. That's right, kids, we've got it all in Culture Shock. And this only the first episode!



System requirements will be about the same as they were for Bone and CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder. If you have a 32 MB video card with hardware texture and lighting and a processor that's about 1.5 GHz or faster, you'll be all set. Of course, the better your video card and faster your processor, the better the game will look and run, but we've worked hard to keep the specs very modest. The download from Telltale's site will be about 75 MB, so even if you're on dial-up, it's still manageable. (IS anyone still on dial-up?) And the techies out there will probably be glad to see some of the graphical enhancements we've made over our earlier games, including scalable resolutions, environment mapping, and bump mapping. As for the music, if you liked the tunes in Bone, you're going to love what you hear in Sam & Max. The soundtrack features a live jazz combo (and includes some really cool riffs!). We'll be releasing a few tracks to whet your appetite in the near future.



So, to wrap things up, no we're not there yet. But we're so close we can see Disneyland up on the horizon. Just sit back, take a deep breath, and get ready. Sam & Max are taking over the world... and they're doing it in style.



See GameTap's official announcement about the release here. Also check out these brand spanking new gameplay videos!

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