Som den handarbetesnörd jag är kan jag inte annat än bli ruskigt imponerad av den här Sam & Max-korsstygnstavlan jag snubblade över på Sprite Stitch-forumet. Användaren Servotron har valt ut vad som kan vara en av spelseriens bästa dialoger och förevigat med garn. Fantastiskt fint, tycker ni inte?

För att göra det hela ännu fräsigare finns det en work-in-progress-gif som visar hela processen. Jag kan tänka mig att det ligger några timmar bakom. Phew! Själv saknar jag nog tyvärr tålamodet att ta mig an något så där stort, jag håller mig till dekorplast och örhängen ett tag till.

Das Computermagazin CHIP Online hat eine Liste von Spielen zusammen gestellt, die man völlig legal und kostenlos herunterladen und zocken kann. Der Haken? Die Spiele sind zwischen 3 und 25 Jahre alt, dafür sind aber teilweise wahre Klassiker dabei. Im Einzelnen sind das:

1. Sam & Max – Abe Lincoln must die!
2. Beneath a steel sky
3. Command & Conquer – Tiberiumkonflikt
4. Command & Conquer – Alarmstufe Rot
5. The Elder Scrolls – Arena
6. The Elder Scrolls II – Daggerfall
7. Elite & Elite +
8. Enemy Nations
9. F.E.A.R. Combat
10. Full Spectrum Warrior
11. Grand Theft Auto
12. Grand Theft Auto 2
13. Ground Control
14. Hidden & Dangerous Deluxe
15. Rise & Fall – Civilizations at War
16. Sim City
17. Starsiege – Tribes
18. S.W.I.N.E.
19. Tyrian

Neste sábado (19 de setembro) se celebra mais um novo feriado oriundo da internet, o dia internacional de falar como pirata ou Talk Like a Pirate Day, dedicado a passar o dia todo falando desse jeito. Em virtude desta tão nobre data a Lucasarts vai colocar a partir da meia noite o primeiro capítulo de Tales of Monkey Island para download totalmente de grátis. Passe por aqui depois desse horário e clique na foto para ir até o site oficial e baixar o jogo, é no melhor estilo point & click de Sam & Max que já foi visto aqui anteriormente. Enquanto o sábado não começa, prepare-se para o feriado com o vídeo abaixo e aprenda a falar com todo o estilo:

Sellist mängu nagu “Sam & Max Hit the Road” mäletate? Noh, igatahes oli selline vinge point-and-click mäng kunagi ammu. Ja Max on sealt eriti hullu attitudega jänes. Igatahes, üks inimene nüüd toda tegelast omale tahtis ja suurima rõõmuga ma selle talle ka tegin.
Nõel: 7round liner
Tint: K

Remember “Sam & Max Hit the Road”? Well, anyway, it was a cool point-and-click game once upon a time. And Max is a, I quote – “a short and aggressive hyperkinetic rabbity thing”. And now one person wanted this “rabbity thing” and I was more than happy to make it.
Needle: 7round liner
Ink: K

Je vais pas te bluffer, Sam & Max saison 1, c’est pas le jeu idéal pour le critique. Ca se boit comme du petit lait, le sourire aux lèvres, un ou deux épisodes par soirée selon l’envie, ça croque sous la dent, mais c’est pas évident à décortiquer. Je pourrais me contenter d’écrire que ça se trouve pour dix euros en version DVD, et que pour ce prix, difficile de te tromper pour peu que tu aies un peu de temps à perdre et envie de te marrer. Mais ce serait un peu court. Alors je peux commencer par t’indiquer que ce jeu épisodique, développé en 2006-2007 par Telltale, reprend le classique des studios Lucas sorti en 1993, lui-même adapté d’un comics créé en 1987 par Steven Purcell. Sam le chien en costard et Max le lapin psychopathe sont des policiers freelance qui vivent des aventures surréalistes dans un univers jazzy peuplé de crétins hallucinés, semant le souk à coup de tatane, le tout en balançant des vannes cyniques. Bref de sympathiques affreux jojos, que tu connais sans doute depuis longtemps si tu as trouvé le chemin de ce blog.

Après le classique de 1993 (dont tu retiendras l’humour plutôt que des énigmes à s’arracher les cheveux), la licence traînait dans l’enfer du développement, d’un projet annulé à l’autre. Le studio Telltale  Games est fondé en 2004 par des anciens de LucasArts dégoûtés de voir Sam & Max : Freelance Police annulé en cours de développement. S’appuyant sur des jeux commercialement porteurs (un simulateur de poker, la licence Les Experts…), Telltale code un moteur de jeu maison, et décide de creuser un modèle économique souvent testé, mais rarement stabilisé : le jeu épisodique, facilité par la distribution dématérialisée. Ainsi, la première saison de Sam & Max comporte six épisodes, sortis à quelques mois d’intervalle. Ce modèle a l’avantage de permettre de recycler les décors et les personnages, tout en donnant à chaque épisode un rythme et un aspect qui lui est propre. Si cette forme n’est pas sans intérêt, les auteurs se reposent un peu trop sur le comique de répétition. La nature absurde du monde crée par Steven Purcell interdit aux personnages de réellement évoluer, si bien que les caractères récurrents, aussi sympathiquement cinglés soient-ils, finissent par se répéter : Bosco l’épicier paranoïaque a beau changer de déguisement, Sybil se trouver une nouvelle profession à chaque épisode, rien de bien nouveau. La réutilisation constante de la rue où logent nos deux policiers freelance, qui constitue souvent plus de la moitié du décor d’un épisode donné, a de quoi lasser.  En fait, ce qui peut attrister, c’est de constater que le jeu d’aventure est passé d’une production de première classe (selon les standards des années 90), à la série B. Si la direction musicale est tout ce qu’il y a de plus réjouissante, les graphismes en 3D manquent de charme, trop lisses pour être honnêtes. Les héros sont minutieusement animés, notamment Max, véritable boule de nerfs bondissante (le genre dont l’animation idle est de péter avec les aisselles), mais les personnages secondaires et certains décors sont modélisés un peu à l’arrache.

Hit the Road, l’original, 1993 : 2 D, AAA, cracra

Version 2006, 3 D, série B un peu lisse

Pour le reste, rien n’a changé ou presque. Ludiquement, le jeu d’aventure est toujours aussi mort qu’avant, ou du moins Telltale ne cherche absolument pas à innover. Il s’agit toujours de combiner de manière parfaitement linéaire des objets et de s’orienter dans des dialogues arborescents. Pour lutter contre la frustration qui infestait le genre à son heure de gloire, les développeurs ont choisi de rendre la plupart des énigmes d’une simplicité enfantine, notamment en supprimant les verbes d’action : tout se joue en deux clics au maximum. Pour tout dire, ton serviteur, qui en général ne se lance jamais dans un jeu d’aventure sans soluce à portée de clic, a réussi à finir la saison dans son intégralité sans recourir plus de deux ou trois fois à Gamefaqs. Il faut dire que la durée réduite des épisodes rend plus aisé le bon vieux passage en force : quand on n’a qu’une poignée d’objets dans l’inventaire, il est toujours possible de tous les essayer. Au moins faut-il reconnaître que dans l’ensemble, un peu de bon sens et de logique suffit à voir le bout des épisodes. Après tout, il faut bien le dire, ce n’est pas à proprement parler pour le gameplay qu’on pratique ce genre de jeux. Sam & Max tient presque exclusivement par son écriture.

Bosco, l’épicier de quartier… dans un drôle de quartier

De ce point de vue, l’objectif est atteint. Il faut dire que la présence au générique de Steve Purcell ainsi que de nombreux vétérans de l’âge d’or du studio LucasArts (David Grossman notamment) rassure les amateurs. Avec des hauts et des bas (le troisième épisode notamment), Sam et Max délivrent des one-liners assassins, les séquences de slapstick se multiplient, les réparties cyniques succèdent aux dialogues dadaïstes. Nos deux policiers à poil long sont toujours aussi politiquement incorrects, ennemis des animaux, amis des flingues, de la bouffe grasse et de la pollution. De parfaits américains moyens, la politesse de rigueur en moins. On pourra reprocher à la satire sa relative inocuité, puisque les bornes de la décence n’étant jamais  franchies, Sam & Max ne dérangent pas vraiment. On peut se contenter de cette innocence poil-à-gratter, qui évite les lourdeurs d’un discours à thèse, et se contente de jouer des clichés. D’un autre côté, un épisode comme Abe Lincoln must die !, le quatrième de la saison, qui  se déroule à la Maison Blanche (et qui se télécharge gratuitement chez Telltale) passe si près du but, qu’on en vient à pester contre cette fichue réticence qui caractérise les développeurs dès qu’ils se confrontent à la politique… Malin, peut-être même brillant (attendez de faire votre entrée en chanson dans la War room), mais définitivement trop potache pour constituer une satire réellement efficace de la démagogie politique ou des années Bush, qui sont visées mais pas franchement abattues. A vrai dire, Grossman & co travaillent un peu trop for the lulz, si bien que la mécanique bien huilée ne laisse pas de place aux aspérités d’une critique virulente.

Réalité 2.0, internet quoi

Gentiment trashs, les animaux policiers ne font pas de mal à une mouche. C’est qu’en gentils garçons qu’ils sont, les développeurs ont la philanthropie chevillée au corps : de bout en bout, l’expérience doit être fun, caresser le joueur, le divertir sans interruption. Au moins une fois par épisode, tu seras surpris par un trait de fantaisie, par une situation inattechangé dendue, ou plus souvent par une chanson. Le compositeur Jared Emerson-Johnson a fait du beau boulot, non seulement sur les mélodies jazzy qui pulsent tout au long du jeu, mais aussi sur les interludes chantés souvent complètement barrés, tel l’hymne des ordinateurs croulants, délicieusement chiptunesque. Sam & Max saison 1 est un cartoon ou un comics interactif, régressif en diable, diablement jouissif. Il ne faudra pas lui demander plus. Mais il fait le métier avec application et professionnalisme. Clique sur un objet, valide une option de dialogue, explore des lieux absurdes : où que tu ailles, quoi que tu touches, le jeu te renverra un gag, une pitrerie, un mime. Et te voilà comme un enfant devant un centre d’activité, à manipuler, agiter, retourner avec curiosité tout se qui se présente face à toi : tu vérifies qu’il y a bien un nouveau message bouffon sur le répondeur, que Max a une remarque acerbe à faire à propos d’une babiole, que le renard empaillé de la voisine a changé de chapeau… Sois rassuré, où que tu le tripotes, le jeu de Telltale te chatouillera les zygomatiques. Il ne fera guère plus, mais à tout prendre, c’est déjà pas si mal.

If it hasn’t been obvious, I’ve been pretty obsessed with adventure games for the bulk of the summer. Between Phoenix Wright (essentially an adventure game in text form) and Monkey Island 1 & 2 (classic point and click), I’ve been gobbling up adventure games non-stop. I decided to check out the demo for Sam & Max Save the World - an episodic adventure series by Telltale featuring a deadpan dog (Sam) and a partially insane and violent rabbit (Max), two freelance cops who go about….saving the world.

The demo encompasses the bulk of the 1st episode (there are 6 total), and ends at a pretty exciting point. I almost bought the game right then and there but held off since I’ll be out of town. I judge adventure games by two things and two things only: humor and the difficulty of the puzzles.

As for humor, Sam and Max are decently funny, although the voice acting left something to be desired. There are definitely some funny lines, especially if you click on every single thing you see. The puzzles seemed relatively easy, I never had that many items so it just became a quick trial and error, although some of the puzzle solutions did lead to a few amusing sequences. Overall I thought the 1st episode was pretty serviceable, not as good as Monkey Island but pretty solid gameplay in its own right. There was, however, a driving sequence that seemed kind of unnecessary and some frame hiccups mar the experience a bit as well.

This demo was my first taste of Sam and Max, and I can see why they are so popular. They definitely have a lot of character and the game doesn’t take itself very seriously, so I think there’s a lot of fun to be had in the 6 unique episodes that make up Sam and Max Save the World. At 1600 MS points ($20), that’s a pretty good deal considering you’ll probably get 12-15 hours of gameplay out of it. I’m not totally sold at this point, but that’s more a function of having other things to play right now and not indicative of the quality of the game. One night when I’m really bored I will probably end up paying for the full version. If you’re looking for more adventure gaming on the 360 or PC, go ahead and check out the demo, you’ll probably like what you see.

ANZ Top Arcade Games by Purchases

1. Magic: The Gathering
2. Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
3. Castle Crashers
4. Worms
5. Hasbro Family Game Night
6. Garou: Mark of the Wolves
7. Sam & Max Save the World
8. Bankshot Billiards 2
9. Dash of Destruction
10. Sonic the Hedgehog 3

GLOBAL Top Arcade Games by Purchases

1. Magic: The Gathering
2. Hasbro Family Game Night
3. Garou: Mark of the Wolves
4. Castle Crashers
5. Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
6. Dash of Destruction
7. Aegis Wing
8. UNO
9. Worms
10. Sonic the Hedgehog 3

Aegis Wing? Really? No idea why this would have jumped up into the list, but I guess we’re guilty of Bankshot Billiards 2, which I also have no idea about since we haven’t done any major promotion around it recently, but that’s the top 10! Also, we seem to have kept Sam & Max in the top 10 over global’s choice of UNO. No complaints there! After all, UNO has been around for a while.

Bonus Round!

We know the top 10 arcade games by purchases, but what are you guys actually playing?

ANZ Top Played Arcade Games

1. Magic: The Gathering
2. UNO
3. Castle Crashers
4. Garou: Mark of the Wolves
5. Hexic HD
6. Worms
7. Peggle
8. Rocket Riot
9. Sam & Max Save the World
10. Feeding Frenzy

GLOBAL Top Played Arcade Games

1. Magic: The Gathering
2. Castle Crashers
3. UNO
4. Garou: Mark of the Wolves
5. Hasbro Family Game Night
6. Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
7. Hexic HD
8. Worms
9. Peggle
10. Rocket Riot

A couple differences here but nothing major. Magic makes sense. UNO’s continuing popularity warms my heart and makes me wish I were better at it. I guess we don’t get into the Family Game Night stuff as much? I’m originally American so forgive my ignorance, but I’m curious if the same boardgames–Boggle, Sorry!, Yahtzee, Connect4, Battleship–are popular here or if they’re just a quaint American thing. Any boardgame enthusiasts want to educate me?

- jinx

Seems you guys liked the top 10 retail game stats so I figured I’d share out a few more.

These are the top 10 LIVE Arcade games for the week, by purchases.

Good to see I have lots of company picking up Magic: The Gathering. I gave up bolding the placement differences because #1 and #3 would be the only ones NOT bolded, so instead I just bolded the ones that don’t appear at all on the other list.  I’d make a joke about how we care less about killing stuff, but with Duke Nukem on our list I really can’t. Sidenote that MBU is #12 worldwide, which I guess means we’re just batting above our weight, or however that expression goes.

- jinx

Format: PC Genre: Point-and-Click Adventure Released: 1993 Developer: Lucasarts

Believe it or not, I didn’t actually own a PC until 2007 (which is why there are precious few PC games on this list), although during my teenage years I would often nip over to my PC-owning friend’s house to rattle through the latest point-and-click adventure. Day Of The Tentacle was a definite highlight of this time, but my favourite was Sam & Max Hit The Road.

Point-and-click adventures, particularly the Lucasarts ones, are perfect for playing with two people: you can collaborate on solving tricky puzzles and neither one of you feels left out if you’re not in control of the game (after all, you’re just pointing and clicking, not taking down helicopter gunships with your bare hands). Most importantly, the jokes always seem funnier when there’s someone else there laughing along with you; and Sam & Max was very funny indeed.

The game follows the adventures of the self-styled ‘Freelance Police’, a duo that consists of Sam, an anthropomorphic dog, and Max, a psychotic rabbit. At the beginning of the game they’re called upon to investigate the disappearance of a frozen bigfoot from a carnival freakshow, and it just gets weirder and weirder from then on in. The pair’s investigation soon takes them to all sorts of random tourist attractions and bizarre slices of Americana, such as ‘The Mystery Vortex’ and my personal favourite, ‘The World’s Largest Ball of Twine’ (complete with a restaurant on top), and the humour never lets up along the way.

A sardonic quip, wry aside or visual gag is inserted at every opportunity, and some there are some cracking lines, such as:

Sam: “Where should I put this thing so that it doesn’t hurt anyone we know
     or care about?”
Max: “Out the window, Sam.  There’s nobody but strangers out there.”

Or:

Sam: “Now what are you doing?”
Max: “I was just waving at some toddlers in the next car. They’re crying now.”

Or:

Sam: “Don’t you just love stopping for breakfast when you’re on the road?  I
do… and so does my hairy little friend. And Max does, too.”

One of this game’s greatest innovations was the method of conversation – rather than selecting a line of text from a conversation tree (the method featured in previous Lucasarts games such as The Secret Of Monkey Island), the player clicks on an icon that represents a topic of conversation, which then generates a line of dialogue from Sam. This has the bonus of keeping the dialogue hidden until it’s read out, as in the words of developer Michael Stemmle, ”nothing would kill a joke worse than reading it before you hear it”*. The CD version of Sam & Max was also one of the first point-and-click games to use actual voice actors rather than written dialogue, and, unlike the dodgy CD-i interactive movies that debuted at around the same time, the acting throughout was generally excellent.

As I remarked in my Beneath a Steel Sky post, it’s good to see that point-and-clickers are making a bit of a mini-comeback, and I recently found out that Sam & Max: Season One is now available on the Wii (does this mean that point-and-click adventures are now mainstream again?). Hopefully, this marks the beginning of a trend: I’d love to see games like Full Throttle and Grim Fandango (or even sequels to them) making it onto the Wii, and I was particularly encouraged by the announcement of a Secret Of Monkey Island remake for X-box Live Arcade.

Long live the point-and-click adventure!

Lewis

*’The Making of: Sam & Max Hit the Road’, Retro Gamer March 2006

(Screenshots from www.mobygames.com)

At the moment, I’m following episodic games from two developers: From  Telltale Games (TTG) it’s Sam&Max, Wallace & Gromit and soon Monkey Island (Yay!)(I have also bought SBCG4AP, but I’m not enjoying it). From Hothead, it’s Penny Arcade Adventures, based off a Cthulhu-noir version of the fictional versions of the two creators of the webcomic/blog Penny Arcade.

But while both make great games, it would seem that there is a fundamental principle of episodic games that Telltale has understood, while Hothead hasn’t.

Where the Telltale hearts are

Episodic gaming as a viable format (as opposed to a genre) was, more or less, invented by Telltale. True, there may have been attempts before exiled geniouses from LucasArts released the first game based off the comic Bone. But it wasn’t until Telltale started releasing their episodic games that the format could be taken seriously as a finansially sound way of delivering games to consumers.

To be quite honest, Bone isn’t even a true episodic game – at least not yet. Only two episodes have been released, and even though I haven’t heard TTG declare it officially “dead,” they seem to have moved on to other projects.

Rather, the true birth of the episodic format was Sam&Max – Episode 1 (they tried rebranding it as one game with the title “Save the world,” but I couldn’t even find that name on their own site). The first of the six episodes was released in October 2006, then the rest of the episodes were released with approximately monthly intervals until April 2007.

Since then, TTG have released three-and-a-half seasons of episodic games: Sam&Max season 1 and 2, Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People (SBCG4AP) and Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures (episode three of four will be out Tuesday). Common to all of them are:

1. All games are released with more or less a monthly interval
2. There is a lot of recycling of settings and characters, with some changes.
3. The stories within a season have a common structure. This is most evident (to the point where it was slightly annoying) in S&M:1 – in the other games, there has been more variation in the plot structures. Still, though…
4. Certain themes and storylines have run through every episode, while still giving each episode its own unique story – in other words, you can play any episode and enjoy it, even if you’ll get more out of playing them in order. In this way, the games are similar to a tv-series: you can watch one episode of “Buffy” or “Sex & The City” and enjoy it, even if the big picture is only revealed when you watch many episodes in order.
5. You can buy one game at a time, or all of them at once (in advance) and receive a discount.

These are of course very different in cause and effect. Number 2 and 3 are mostly done to ease production – making 3D characters and locations is a costly and time consuming affair, just as writing a complete script is easier if you have a mold to make them by. Many tv-series seem to do this as well. The fourth is the artistic one, the one that makes it feel like a season, instead of just a collection of very similar games. And number 5 is both a way of making sure the cash is rolling in, and a way of making it accessible to people – they don’t need to find their credit card once a month, but receive a link directly to the download.

The one I want to focus on here, is number one. I remember one of the Telltale developers saying, that they belived, an episodic game was only episodic if it had a very rapid rate of release. Once a month seems reasonable; more often seems suicidal, while more rarely will mean that people forget the last game, and lose the anticipatory drive that makes the game “live.” Besides, if you want people to pay in advance, you gotta make sure they can see the goal ahead.

What the Hothead didn’t consider

Just like Telltale, Hothead had a great starting point for their venture into episodic gaming: The Penny Arcade brand, along with Tycho and Gabe’s creative drive, which has proven to be considerable, including fruit-molesting robots, a demon-and-cat versing duo, a series of fictional (as in, not-existing) fantasy novels with a considerable, real, fan-core, and the Carboard Tube Samurai. And with great brands come great responsibilities – if they succeed, they can reap the benefits manyfold, but if they fail, they will go down hard.

And they have been nothing if not abitious. Where TTG made a conservative (but in their case, excellent) choice of making adventure games, based on their own engine, with only a few mini games thrown in, Hothead chose to make an action-adventure with a very innovative combat system, combining semi-turnbased combat with many little minigames, together making combat a delicious middle road between turn-based and button mashing.

They also made a great story with many different characters, and mostly new settings in each game. The story, on the other hand, is very connected, and we are clearly getting one chapter in a continuing saga each time. The story is, mind you, very well worked out, beutifully recreating Tycho and Gabe’s usual blend of “realness” and far out, surreal crazyness (the first game features a urinologist (urinology as in “the lore of urine”) beset by hoboes and a cult of mimes, worshipping a Cthuluesque mime god).

I loved the first two games in the series, but now, it’s annoying me. Why? Because I was told it was episodic, and now I find out, it’s not.

The first game was released in May last year. The second was released five months later, in October. That is a long game for an episodic game – but I accepted it because of the huge amount of new material, and the promise that one game would be released every six months.

That promise has not been delivered on – and it seems unlikely that the third episode will be out anytime soon. A Hothead representative wrote on the PA forum:

Last year we were pretty singularly focused on getting Episode One and Two out. This year sees a whole bunch more on our plate: we’re in full swing on DeathSpank and are working on getting Swarm off the ground as well. And we spent a bunch of time hiring a new boss!

In other words, they are not releasing the next episode, because they are too busy working on other games. Clearly, to Hothead, PA Adventures are a series of four connected games, to be developed and released independently.

The fall of the Arcade of Pennies

And thus, Hothead fell short. They didn’t deliver the episodic game they promised.

Telltale Games knew from the start that an episodic game has not been released until the last episode is out. Hothead, on the other hand, thought that “episodic” mean cutting the game into bite sized chunks, allowing you to cash in earlier, and to learn from the first episodes so that you may improve in the second. But while those things are true, it also means a release streaching out many months and a tight deadline with little room for testing and resting. Once you release the first episode, you gotta deliver – every month on the clock.

This doesn’t mean that I have decided not to get the last two episodes of  Penny Arcade adventures. What it does mean is that my enthusiasm for the game has diminished considerably, and thus, the amount of viral marketing I can deliver. And it means that I will be more sceptical towards other titles from Hothead.

On the other hand, Telltale can release almost anything, and I’ll try it. They have been loyal to me – now I’m loyal to them.

—-

For another take on episodic games, go watch Zero Punctuation’s review of The Orange Box.

Steam is, as always, running a crazy deal this weekend.  You can pick up Call of Duty: World at War for PC for 50% off in your Steam client or here.  In addition to the sale, it’s a double XP weekend for the games multi-player.

Steam’s deals just don’t stop there.  You can pick up Sam & Max Season 1, Season 2, or Strongbad’s Cool Game for Attractive People for 50% also.

Go forth and game for cheap PNG’ers!

Happy Birthday Telltale !

Just a short post to mention that Telltale is turning five. Telltale distributes the new Sam & Max Series as well as Wallace & Gromit or Strong Bad. Having played through the first series of Sam & Max (6 episodes, ~ 6h each), I encourage you to take a look. Demos are available on their website, you can go there to check out S01E01.

If you are interested in buying an episode, you can use the following code to get it for $5.

Coupon Code : L4H-F9B-WNE-P72 – The promotion ends on June 17, 2009

That being said, if you are considering to buy more than 3 or 4 episodes of a given Sam & Max Series, you’d be better off purchasing them through Steam. There are two separate deals that can get you a complete season for €15 roughly. But hurry up, the deal is on for 5 days, until May 17th.

5 days, 5 dollars… 5 years…

F5′ed!

Es ist mal wieder Zeit für einen Blick in den virtuellen Martplatz von Microsofts grünem Platzhirsch: Nachdem letzte Woche eine Reihe von Sega-Klassikern auf XBL Arcade veröffentlicht wurden, gab es diese Woche drei Spiele, die auf sympathische Weise vom typischen Mainstream-Markt abweichen, aber allesamt mehr als nur einen kurzen Blick wert sind: das Adventure Sam & Max – Save the World, die Umsetzung des Trading Card-Games Magic the Gathering sowie der Retro-Shooter Rocket Riot. Schauen wir uns die 3 Spiele mal der Reihe nach an.

1. Sam & Max – Save the World: Es gibt eigentlich nur einen Grund, warum man sich dieses Spiel nicht kaufen sollte: Man hat es schon auf PC oder Wii gespielt. Die beiden völlig durchgeknallten tierischen Mitglieder der Freelance Police waren in den 90er die Helden eines der letzten großen LucasArts-Adventures. Telltale Games, die Entwickler, die auch Monkey Island wiederbeleben werden, haben sich mit dem Episoden-basierten Adventure als würdige Erben von LucasArts erwiesen.Auf dem PC gibt es schon die 2. Season, auf der 360 erscheint jetzt erst mal die Erste, bestehend aus 6 brillanten Episoden. Der Wortwitz ist super (für Englischkundige),die Rätsel gewohnt abstrus, die Inside-Gags unzählbar und die Technik etwas besser als auf dem PC (bessere Texturen, kürzere Ladezeiten). Absoluter Tipp für jeden Videospiele-Fan ist übrigen: die Folge 5 – Virtuality 5.0, in der haufenweise Gaming- und Web-Klischees veräppelt werden – inklusive Tron-artiger virtueller Realität und Old School Text-Adventure. Die 6 Episoden kosten zwar knapp 20 Euro, haben aber zusammen auch fast die Länge eines Vollpreis-Adventures. Kaufen!!!

2. Magic the Gathering: MTG war das erste moderne Collectible Card Game, in dem man strategische Fantasy-Schlachten mit Sammelkarten spielte. Der Clou und die Gelddruckmaschine: Wie bei den guten alten Panini-Sammelbildern kaufte man die Karten in zufällig zusammengestellten Päckchen, ohne zu wissen, was drin war. Was bin ich froh, dass ich damals nicht auf den MTG-Hype aufgesprungen bin (Geld habe ich aber trotzdem nicht gespart, da ich stattdessen jedes halbwegs brauchbare Lizenz-CCG gekauft habe – aber nur selten gespielt ). Die Xbox Live Arcade-Umsetzung ist zwar nicht das erste Computer-Spiel zu MTG, aber mir scheint, es ist die bisher mit Abstand beste. Die Regeln werden anschaulich erklärt und das Spiel bringt das Kartenspiel-Feeling der Vorlage gut rüber, ohne einen mit überflüssigen Effekten zu verwirren bzw. dröge zu wirken. Und das beste: Es ist mit unter 10 Euro viel billiger als das Original-Starter-Paket.

3. Rocket Riot: Wem Adventure und Kartenspiele zu wenig Action bieten, der sollte zu THQs Shooter greifen.Das Spiel ist Retro pur: Die Grafik ist eine wunderschöne Hommage an pixelige 2D-Spiele mit einem Hauch von Pseudo-3D – irgendwo zwischen 80er Jahre-Plattform-Spielen und Lego. Klingt seltsam? Den Look von Rocket Riot muss man sich auch am besten live ansehen.

Der Rest steht dem Retro-Feeling in nichts nach: man schießt mit ballistisch fliegenden Raketen wie bei Worms in Echtzeit, lenkt seine Figur mit zwei Sticks wie bei Robotron und Konsorten und Bonus-Items erinnern an Bomberman, da es wie dort auch nachteilige Gegenstände gibt.  Meist ist es Ziel in den 80 Leveln, eine bestimmte Menge an knuffigen Gegnern zu töten. Zwischendurch gibt es aber auch Boss-Kämpfe, Rugby-Level und Zerstörungsaufgaben – auf Wunsch auch gegeneinander im Online-Multiplayer. Die Sounduntermalung piept und knarzt dabei wie in den 80ern und jede Explosion schleudert Hunderte von Pixeln durchs Bild. Also auf jeden Fall die schön umfangreiche Demo ausprobieren!