Season Two
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Each page contains a blurb, details (spoilers!), screenshots, concept art, music, video, critics, trivia and further reading.
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also known as Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space Developer: Telltale Games Publisher: Telltale Games and Gametap (online), Atari (retail) Designers: Brendan Q. Ferguson, Dave Grossman, Steve Purcell Composers: Jared Emerson-Johnson Voices: David Nowlin (Sam), William Kasten (Max) Engine: Telltale Tool Platforms: PC, Mac, Wii, 360 First release: November 8, 2007 – April 10, 2008 (episodes), March 8, 2010 (retail) Control: Point and click |
Blurb
Join the Freelance Police for a second season of adventure, crime fighting, and chaos. Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space starts with a giant robot attack and never lets up, taking our valiant crime fighters on a gut-wrenching mission from the North Pole to Easter Island, from outer space to Hell and back. Babies will dance. Mariachis will sing. A giant battle robot will trash the streets. And when their friends are caught in the middle, Sam & Max risk their very souls to set things right.
Details
Hot off the heels of Sam & Max Season One, Telltale were hard at work on the duo’s next adventures. Just around six and half months after the last episode, the first episode of season two – Ice Station Santa – was being released to the world. Despite this quite short gap between releases, Telltale were able to add in some new features into their ‘tool box’ such as widescreen monitor support, a hint system, mini-games and the ability to make the character run. On top of this, presentation in both the character animation and title and menu screens saw improvements.
Also known as ‘Beyond Time and Space’, this is certainly where the season heads to throughout the season, with Sam & Max mending the Christmas they ruined, landing on Easter Island and discovering lost babies, stopping Jurgen in his German castle, finding out just what significance a happy birthday has, and paying a visit to a certain pain in Hell. Each episode has an individual case, but there are a few plot threads that are stranded throughout them all, especially as the season draws to a close in episode four and five where all is explained.
As well as the obvious return of both Sam and Max, characters such as (but not limited to) Bosco, Sybil, Abe and Jimmy make a reappearance, albeit it in certain different situations than before. Bosco has kitted out his store with new devices, and due to the street being trashed, Sybil’s has been transported over next to Stinky’s diner – which also marks a key new location and character, as well as the first ever appearance of Flint Paper in a Sam & Max game, having only been referenced in Hit the Road and seen in the comic books.
Keeping to a fixed schedule, episode one was released in November, the second in January and the rest following on a month from there. Whereas Season One had the episodes being released a week in advanced before even appearing on Telltale’s site, this time around the gap was reduced to one day and saw each episode being released on both the second Thursday and Friday of each month. This was a tight, fixed schedule which interestingly wasn’t retained in Telltale’s future releases (Strong Bad, Wallace & Gromit, Tales of Monkey Island).
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Critics
Eurogamer (PC) – And so the second episodic adventure with Sam & Max comes to a close. The final episode – What’s New, Beelzebub? – is very much of a piece with the previous entries in this season. That’s to say that it’s exquisitely written, packed with some of the best humour ever seen in games, but curiously disappointing as an actual game … Sam & Max Season 2 still offers a thoroughly enjoyable adventure, provided you value jokes over puzzles. I love these characters, and I love Telltale’s ambition for finding new ways to deliver classic gameplay.
Gamespot (PC) – Santa going postal, staking an emo vampire, and taking the Soul Train to hell are just a few of the insane moments crammed into Telltale Games’ absolutely hilarious Sam & Max Season Two … Each episode can be played through in just a couple of hours, although you would be best advised to drag out the experience and check out everything you can click on for the extra laughs. This series is a great example of how much creativity, intelligence, and humor can still be poured into this classic genre.
IGN (PC) – The humor and story elements have really become stronger this season … Setting aside the issue of humor and character, the Sam & Max series is still married to the standard adventure game format. Players will enter a scene, look for items to use, use those items and then progress to the next scene. There’s a fine line between paying homage to tradition and just going through the motions and, perhaps because of their focus on humor and story-telling, the developers here seem to be relying on a less inspired sort of puzzle design.
Blurb
He’s the most ancient and powerful opponent they’ve ever faced, a hairy, bloated, pagan God – Santa Claus! With Christmas presents on the attack and carols of gunshots drowning out the bells, Sam & Max must storm the North Pole to bring down a less-than-jolly foe. Can the Freelance Police make sense of this Christmas conundrum in time to save the world’s children from a holiday tainted by tears, turmoil, and Torture-Me-Elmer?
Details
Release: November 8, 2007 (Gametap), November 9, 2007 (Telltale)
After a huge robot wrecks most of the street, Sam & Max discover that it was sent by Santa Claus. They drive on down to the North Pole and discover that the jolly man himself as gone crazy and is firing his machine gun at whoever approaches. Sneaking into his office, a piece of paper instructs to collect the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to capture a demon that is running lose and controlling Santa.
After all four have been collected from various locations and presented to bring the demon forward, it is revealed that it wasn’t Santa who was possessed, it was one of his elves. Sam & Max continue their tasks by jumping through time with the help of three Christmas spirits (past, present and future) and fix all of the Christmases they’ve ruined.
After completing everything that is required of them, the demon – now known as the Shambling Corporate Presence – turns into a plate of jelly. Santa, being a bit peckish, can’t help himself scoffing it down, thus causing the demon to enter him. A quick hit on the head solves the problem, and Sam & Max discover that the demon should have been sent to Satan, not Santa. All that’s left to do is deliver the presents, and take a guess which dog and rabbity-thing step up to the task.
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Critics
Adventure Gamers – Just slightly below Reality 2.0 on the list of great episodes; it’s laugh-out-loud funny, with very intelligent puzzle design and a totally demented self-contained story which interjects demonic possession into a sacred holiday. An absolute must-play … constantly revisiting the story quality and depth, the difficulty, and seeking new ways to inject energy and creativity into the technical aspect … If you haven’t jumped onto the bandwagon yet, you are doing yourself a disservice by missing the best comic adventure games in the modern era.
IGN – It’s hard to judge these small episodes by the standards we normally reserve for most games, but anyway you slice it, this new episode is a great beginning to what we hope is going to be a great season. The puzzles are enjoyable but not overly taxing, but that’s not what you play the game for. What you’re really going to enjoy here are the great new settings and gags. The new stuff makes the whole experience seem fresh.
Eurogamer – Ice Station Santa is certainly well up to the standard that previous episodes set in terms of gags, surreal set-pieces and all the quirks that we love about the series. If you loved the previous episodes, you’ll love this, no question … A year ago it was nostalgic and fun to go back to the point-and-click style, but now…it’s feeling old and stuck in its ways. For the money, you can’t argue that it offers great value and the gags are as fresh as ever – but I can’t deny that I think standing still in gameplay terms is a mistake that won’t help it attract a new audience.
Trivia
- The title Ice Station Santa is a parody on the book and movie Ice Station Zebra.
- After only being referenced in Hit the Road, this is the first time Flint Paper has appeared in a Sam & Max game.
- Sam & Max take over delivering presents for Santa, but Max questions why they are delivering in November, the month the episode was released.
- Upon seeing the Soda Poppers again, Max asks “what the hell are they doing here?”, foreshadowing onto where episode five takes place.
Further Reading
Blurb
A surprise trip to the tropics turns into a working vacation when Sam & Max sign up to stop a massive volcano eruption. Will their special blend of bewildering wit and renegade justice be enough to win over the gods? (Not to mention the locals?) Find out in Moai Better Blues, the second episode of Sam & Max Season Two!
Details
Release: January 10, 2008 (Gametap), January 11, 2008 (Telltale)
Having just got back from the North Pole, Sam & Max return to find a giant vortex is chasing Sybil down the street and sucking in anything it can. Bosco tells them that its actually a Bermuda Triangle and gives them information on how to stop it. When the vortex sucks up Abe Lincoln, Sybil follows to go and rescue him.
Sam & Max go after them and find themselves landed on Easter Island. Sybil and Abe seem to be perfectly fine and enjoying a picnic. The ancient Moai heads of the island say that the appearance of Sam & Max signifies the start of a prophecy that will cause the nearby volcano to erupt and destroy the island.
After exploring their island, the pair make their way into a secret underground cave and see that a group of Sea Chimps are worshipping the ghost of their fish Mr. Spatula. He has a machine that will cause the volcano to explode with lava. They trick the Chimps to make Max the High Priest, but Spatula activates the lava machine. Sam redirects the lava flow and saves the island from its doom.
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Critics
Adventure Gamers – Despite whatever criticisms may exist, the pattern of the series continues: the complaints are overwhelmed by frequent belly laughs and blasts of bizarre, chaotic fun. Moai Better Blues is a gorgeous game to look at and listen to and a unique, enjoyable experience as a whole. However, all the compliments that the game is worthy of come with a slight caution that the balances between brilliant ideas and actual humorous execution, and between story progression and puzzle challenge, are tenous ones that must continue to be attended to.
IGN – Moai Better Blues is shorter and smaller than previous installments in the series. But size and length isn’t an indication of quality. If anything, the smaller scale means that there’s no filler here. Everything you come across is pure comedic content. Moai Better Blues never loses its focus so you’ll get as much enjoyment out of its two-hour length than the three or four hours you spent playing some of the previous episodes.
Eurogamer – But old problems remain: while the gameplay remains intuitive, it feels frustratingly constricted by a limited number of locations and recycled old ones, and no sooner has it got going than the credits are rolling … the increased writing quality, cunning puzzles and Telltale’s self-referential ability to know when the game is slipping into self-parody makes Moai Better Blues a marked improvement on the last one.
Trivia
- The title Moai Better Blues is a parody of the movie Mo’ Better Blues.
- The crates underwater feature pictures of Duke Nukem with the letters D.N.E., a reference to the game Duke Nuken Forever.
- The Wilhelm Scream is heard when baby Jimmy Hoffa is shrunk.
- Max says that the Bermuda Triange is the “second biggest” he’s ever seen, a reference to what Guybrush Threepwood comments on a giant monkey head in The Secret of Monkey Island.
Further Reading
Blurb
Zombie attack! Droves of undead are converging in the streets. Now Sam & Max must confront their leader – a Eurotrash vampire with a style all his own. Are the Freelance Police cool enough to outsmart this emo before his flesh-eating army usurps the western world?
Details
Release: February 14, 2008 (Gametap), January 15, 2008 (Telltale)
The episode opens with our heroic duo trapped in some sort of crushing device, donned the Soul Stealer by Jurgen, a German emo. Max wonders how they ever got caught up in such a situation, and so the episode begins through flashback.
Sam & Max are in their office when the Commissioner rings about a zombie attack. They are told that they zombies are coming from The Zombie Factory, a nightclub run by the aforementioned Jurgen in Stuttgart, Germany. The “Factory” is actually a rave, and Jurgen tells the freelance police there is nothing they could do to stop him thanks to his “incomparable style”. They manage to stop him by ruining his reputation, and have a big fight with him — at which points Max remembers, and the flashback ends. Sadly the Soul Stealer crushes them and turns them into zombies, separated from their souls.
Sam & Max, with assistance of Jurgen’s monster, manage to gain control of their souls once more. They fight Jurgen again using the monster, and it is this time Jurgen himself who is crushed in the Soul Stealer. Just before the episode ends, Flint Paper shows up to reveal that Bosco has vanished.
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Critics
Adventure Gamers – Sam & Max still bring plenty of technical excellence and creativity to the table, and I have to admit that despite the weaknesses in dialogue and the dramatic change in tone, I am in love with the fresh ideas that are displayed and continually impressed with the clever re-use of past supporting characters. There are plenty of references to prior events to reward the loyal player, and yet no major events hinge on knowledge of what has come before. This is a rewarding and enjoyable game, but not the best introduction to this franchise yet
International House of Mojo – The writing is funny with some obscure literary references thrown in. On the aural side, Jared Emerson-Johnson has again composed an excellent soundtrack with music ranging from the cliched church organ with thunderclaps to annoying techno beats. The voice acting is also top notch, though raising the sample frequency certainly wouldn’t hurt. I don’t think everybody’s supposed to have a lisp … All in all, I find this episode to be an improvement on the previous one. It’s longer and the characters are more interesting.
Eurogamer – It’s better than Ice Station Santa, yet not quite as good as Moai Better Blues. It remains small in both size and scope, while those who have stuck with the series since Season 1 will find that much of the actual gameplay is basic meat-and-potatoes fetch-questing. And yet…it’s indecently cheap and, for all its minor flaws, the ongoing saga of Sam & Max is still the funniest game around. I’ve not laughed this much since Psychonauts, and that’s not praise I dish out lightly.
Trivia
- The title of this episode is a parody of the Night of the Living Dead film.
- The typewriter ribbon inventory item is a reference to the Resident Evil video games.
- Upon usncrewing the lightbulb from Stinky’s lamp, Max asks “Did you just get déjà vu?”, a reference to Hit the Road where Sam unscrews a bulb from the office cupboard.
- The driving minigame that the C.O.P.S. create is similiar to that of the Paperboy video game.
Further Reading
Blurb
Bosco’s vanished from the face of the Earth—literally! When Sam & Max manage to track him down, what they find is so mind boggling, you’ll have to see it to believe it. Can the Freelance Police set things right, or will life as they know it fall victim to the capricious whims of T-H-E-M?
Details
Release: March 13, 2008 (Gametap), March 14, 2008 (Telltale)
Bosco’s gone! Flint Paper has been tracking him, but he needs Sam & Max’s help. Bosco’s shop is empty, and there’s no sign of him in the bathroom either. Suddenly a spaceship flies over head and beams the pair on board the ship, assumed to be T.H.E.M. On landing they find Bosco, now half man and half cow. He explains that there is a time traveller elevator which he used to mess up his past.
Sam & Max go back to a 1936′s version of Bosco’s Inconvenience, run by his mother. She explains that she plans to make her a baby using her and a man from the White House’s saliva. However, Bosco’s mother falls for Max’s women hating attitude, which causes Bosco to never be born. Sam & Max go back in time to manipulate Max to be a womaniser, allowing Bosco to exit the paradox.
On returning to the ship, T.H.E.M turn out to be birthday Mariachi singers who travel through space and time, singing birthday songs and collecting and crushing souls as a part-time job. Bosco can’t cope with it anymore and dies of a heart attack, having his soul destroyed. Max accidently presses a button which sucks Bosco’s soul into the Bermuda Triangle, and thus causes the ship to begin to self destruct. Taking a quick exit, Sam & Max jump through the Triangle, taking Bosco’s body with them. The ship comes to the beginning of time and explodes, creating the universe.
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Critics
Adventure Gamers – This game, quite simply, sets new standards—with the diabolically hilarious script and numerous perfectly-scripted visual gags, with the fantastically balanced puzzle design, with the incredibly bizarre array of clever ideas that build on each other to form this demented plot, with its willingness to trounce on expectations and be an original adventure in a cookie-cutter setting, and with its perfect connections to the episodes before and after, Chariots of the Dogs has hit a grand slam for episodic adventures.
International House of Mojo – This is the most fun I’ve had with Sam & Max since, er, the last episode … The jokes are all spot on, the puzzles are all cunning yet solveable, and the story… Hmm. I think I’ve hit a snag there. This episode is more about having fun with the locations and characters with surprise after surprise, but very little of that is an actual plot. In this case however, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I was enjoying myself too much to notice a plot.
1UP – The jokes build brilliantly on past jokes, and the puzzles build smartly on past episodes’ puzzles. That’s the problem with parsing this 10th episode as its own thing: It’s a great few hours of entertainment — but it wouldn’t be without the nine pieces that preceded it. … Telltale’s tapped into the rhetoric of episodic gaming and made it real. Yes sirree, games really can be delivered, packaged, and enjoyed this way on a sustainable basis — and it’s hurting my brain like the mother of all temporal paradoxes.
Trivia
- The title Chariots of the Dogs is a parody on the book and movie Chariots of the Gods?.
- The chair that the future version of Sam is sitting in looks much like the one belonging to Davros in the TV sci-fi series Doctor Who.
- The numbers printed on the time cards are dates. The Embarrassing Idol time card has “2006.1221″, meaning 21 December 2006, the same day in which the episode Situation Comedy was released.
- Superball uses his sunglasses to erase Sam & Max’s memory on mention of time travel, a reference to the Neuralizers in the Men in Black films.
Further Reading
Blurb
Judgment day is at hand, and it’s time for a showdown with the guy downstairs to bargain for Bosco’s soul. But in the corporate wasteland known as Hell, not even the Freelance Police are safe from eternal damnation. Can Sam & Max fight free from Satan’s grasp, or have they reached the end of the line?
Details
Release: April 10, 2008 (Gametap), April 11, 2008 (Telltale)
Sam & Max discover themselves in an underground train station that leads to Hell. However, they can only travel on the train with a soul token. They head up a ladder and realise that this had been below The Street the whole time. They control the Maimtron 9000 to get a soul token from Bosco’s deceased mother, and they use it to ride the train and plan to get Bosco’s soul back.
Once there, they don’t receive much help so decide to snoop around. They discover a room which is holding many souls, including Bosco’s, Santa’s, Grandpa Stinky’s and the DeSoto. Sam & Max enter these ‘personal hell’ dioramas and free the people trapped inside. Satan makes Sam sign a contract, tricking him to replace the souls that he freed. Max rescues him, causing Satan to be displeased and concerned that management will be angry with him. It is revealed that Satan’s boss is the Soda Poppers and that they have been behind all of Sam & Max’s cases.
Using their detective skills, Sam & Max stop The Soda Poppers evil plans. The Soda Poppers cast them both into Hell, but the pair are rescued by their past selves on a sleigh (in Ice Station Santa). They fly up and trick the Soda Poppers into using their own banishing ritual against themselves, eventually killing them with lava pouring in through the Bermuda Triangle. The credits roll, and Abe and Sybil’s wedding can be seen infront of the White House.
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Critics
Adventure Gamers – It nearly collapses under its own comedic weight and the strain of throwing every bizarre scenario and creative re-use of supporting characters at the wall. Still, it is admirable how much of it actually sticks and the ending sequence is as rewarding as any to date. These games are so much fun to play … As a standalone game this would certainly not be my favorite in the series, but as a conclusion and a reward for loyalty it truly shines, and is a must-play for every fan of the series.
Destructoid – In the end, What’s New, Beelzebub is a solid episode in its own right, and a great end to the series…but it’s hard not to be a little disappointed coming right off Chariots of the Dogs … Either way, What’s New, Beelzebub? is a great way to wrap up the series, and it’s a damn fine bit of episodic gaming in its own right. Get it … All in all, What’s New, Beelzebub? is a sound installment of Sam & Max Season Two. It’s funny, its puzzles are satisfying and is a fine example of episodic gaming’s potential.
IGN – What’s New, Beelzebub? is definitely a great ending for a great season. While it has taken the writers and designers a while to find their comfort level with this version of Sam and Max, the last two episodes show that they’ve really firing on all cylinders. The overall corporate atmosphere of Hell and the characterization of Satan are hilarious and, better still, the actual content of the episode ties up the first two seasons very nicely.
Trivia
- The Maimtron 9000 speaks only in 80s and 90s song lyrics.
- Upon speaking to Sam & Max, Satan introduces himself by saying “Pleased to meet you. I hope you guessed my name”, a reference to the Rolling Stones song Sympathy for the Devil.
- The burial of MimeSweeper cartridges is a reference to what happened to the ET video game.
- Grandpa Stinky says “Stay awhile, and listen!”, a phrase spoken by Decard Cain in Diablo.
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I saw what you did. Keep the payments coming and nobody has to find out. Yeah, okay. Love you too, Mom. 
