Sam and Max are tone deaf
games Graphic adventure games live and die on the written word. That’s it. The games can be ugly. They can be janky. They can feature some of the more annoying controls in gaming (GRIM FANDANGO!!!) but as long as they are written wonderfully and have excellent stories, they can get by with a whole heck of a lot.
During my break from updating this website, I went and played some adventure games. Specifically, I played for the first time Sam and Max Seasons 2 and 3, The Dig, and I went and replayed Monkey Island 2 and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Here are some micro-reviews along with what I learned about the genre overall.
Let’s begin with the goods. Monkey Island 2 is an undisputed masterpiece (at least, undisputed by non-idiots). It’s funny, charming, and features clever puzzles without the need of any frustration. Now that Dom Armato has gone and recorded voice for the new special editions, much of the jokes come alive due to the talkie aspect of these re-imaginations. I still maintain that the correct order of Monkey Island games remains 3>2>1>Tales>$, but the fact is that the gap between 3 and 2 is much shorter now that we have vocalized acting on all the characters (even though I don’t think Wally is voiced correctly, but whatever).
Sam and Max Season 2 is also great. The first season was clunky as hell to control, the puzzles simple and lame, and the written dialogue and story forgettable at best, obnoxious at worst. Season 2 is a wonderful refinement, fixing the graphic/control/setting issues and increasing the pace of the story, the jokes, and the characters. Sequels should only exist if they improve, not continue, a story. Sam and Max Season 2 probably inches past the original 1993 classic Sam and Max Hit the Road for the best entry in the series.
Lastly, I wrote earlier in another blog entry about Fate of Atlantis, so I won’t go much more into it except to say that I understand, replaying it, that the issues people have with the voice dialogue are more valid than I previously gave credence to; yes, some of the voice actors are plain bad, and the sound quality fluctuates greatly at time.
Now, let us examine the bad (or, rather the “not as good”). The Dig was envisioned by Steven Spielberg as a game because the movie budget would be too great. They got homophobe asshole Orson Scott Card (his books aren’t that good, people) to write much of the dialogue, and veteran Loom designer Brian Moriarty to head production. Well, things aren’t that simple, and after many tonal changes, along with complete rewritings and the eventual departure of Moriarty, the game was released in a bastardized form. Perhaps this is the problem with the game. As a LucasArts graphical adventure, it just isn’t that good. The main issue is the tone. The game takes itself too seriously (which happens to be my major trepidation regarding the new Tron movie and The Expendables). If the game wants to be serious, that’s fine, but it damn well better have a good story, good dialogue, and a good scenario. None of these things exist in the finished product. A major character dies (and gets resurected), and I don’t care about either situations because the writing is flat, emotionally bankrupt, and dead (deader than the character). I guess there is a reason I never played this LA game, and why I probably never will again. To think, this came out after the great, but short, Full Throttle.
Then, there’s Sam and Max Season 3. I guess I should write that I haven’t finished the 5th part because it hasn’t been released yet, but my faults with the season lay outside of this minor technicality. To begin, the tone is all over the map. Graphic Adventure games don’t need to be only funny or only serious. However, when you mix the two poorly, it’s a travesty. This is the problem with the last 2 chapters of the Tales of Monkey Island game. You cannot simply go “LOOK AT ME, I AM SERIOUS! THIS IS SERIOUS AND IMPORTANT!” and shoehorn in a serious plot development. Killing Morgan LeFlay was dumb, not just for a story plot device, but because it tried unsuccessfully to manipulate the player into feeling sad and caring for an already beloved character. Well, the idiots behind that decision decided to do the same in Season 3 of Sam and Max. This time, they kill Max (briefly) in Episode 3. Filled with anger, Sam goes on a rampage smacking and beating characters. While it is sort of sweet that you see the extent of how Sam loved his partner Max, that relationship was already established, and underlining it and highlighting with with the brightest magic marker available by killing off Max doesn’t make it any better, and in fact makes it worse. It’s clumsy, and amateur. Whoever keeps doing these things should stop, watch a movie where no one dies, and realize that it’s okay to establish emotional connections with characters through good writing and not death or troubled situations. Even the joke of having Sam recite “Noir” dialogue (an actual choice in the game) is ruined because he’s suddenly punching and slapping people, which is out of his character. It’s a mess.
It’s a sticky situation. LA created a world where Adventure Games were full of whimsy and comedy. Then, they tried to undue this with The Dig and, to a lesser extent, Full Throttle. We, as a creative society, think that “serious” material is better and more deserving of praise than anything which we deem “light”. Heavy Rain isn’t a good story just because it is serious. The Dig isn’t better than Monkey Island because it is serious, created by a brilliant filmmaker, and written by an author. Tales of Monkey Island, and Season 3 of Sam and Max, get drugged down because they are striving to be taken seriously. Well, stop striving for that.
Plus, the forced “episodic” nature of Season 3 and Tales of Monkey Island are annoying, but I’ll write about that more in detail later.