Sam & Max: Hit the Road

Moby ID: 745
DOS Specs
Buy on DOS
$87.48 used on eBay
Buy on Windows
$5.99 new on Steam
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Description official descriptions

Sam and Max - a canine shamus and a hyperkinetic rabbit - are the freelance police: private investigators who receive missions from and are answerable to "The Commissioner". Upon the completion of a rescue mission from the clutches of a mad scientist, the duo drives through the opening credits and immediately receives a new assignment: Bruno the Bigfoot is missing from the circus and seems to have kidnapped Trixie, the Giraffe-Neck Girl. Sam and Max are on the case and will follow the mystery all across the United States, even if it takes them to such locations as The World's Largest Ball of Twine and The Mount Rushmore Dinosaur Tarpit.

Sam & Max Hit the Road is a puzzle-solving point-and-click adventure game. The player directly controls Sam, though Max will usually follow closely behind and is even available to use directly as an item in the inventory. Sam is able to be directed anywhere on the screen, look at objects, try to use objects, try to speak to objects and use items from his inventory on objects. Sam and Max must unravel the mystery piece by piece in order to unlock new locations on their map. They can travel between these locations at any time by using the car keys on their police car.

During conversation, the player is able to make Sam ask questions of persons, speak non-sequitur exclamations, or ask about specific objects, people, and locations (which are also unlocked as clues are discovered). The verb interface from previous LucasArts adventure games has been modified to icon-based commands, allowing the entire screen to be used for the playing area, similarly to Sierra titles.

The game also features a variety of mini-games, which can be accessed at any time once found. These include Highway-Surfing: a game where the player must jump over exit signs on the interstate, Car Bomb: a variant of Battleship, a Sam & Max coloring book, a Sam & Max dress-up game, and a Whac-a-Mole variant entitled Wak-A-Rat. The CD version of the game includes voice-overs for all the conversations.

Spellings

  • סם ומקס מתגלגלים בדרכים - Hebrew spelling
  • 妙探闖通關 - Traditional Chinese spelling
  • 萨姆和马克斯 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (DOS version)

85 People (77 developers, 8 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 88% (based on 37 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 327 ratings with 16 reviews)

WARNING! NAKED BUNNY WITH ATTITUDE!!!

The Good
HAHAHAHA!!!! Ahem, sorry, I was just reliving some of the very funny moments in this game. You see, Sam & Max Hit The Road has to be one of the funniest, most oddball adventure games ever released on the PC platform. You play Sam AND Max on a roadtrip across America, stopping off at some of the weird roadside attractions such as the world's largest ball of twine attraction - you know the kind of thing on Route 66...well you do now!

The puzzles here are completely off the wall and the difficulty level is high. This will count as a 'con' as opposed to a 'pro' for some people but i like it - I love a challenge and this certainly provided one. The weird humour continues on into the puzzles themselves as well, so you have to tune yourself in or you'll not stand a chance here!

Graphically its looking a little on the dated side these days, very cartoonish though and cartoon graphics never really grow TOO old, but be aware its not top quality artwork boys and girls! you also need to ensure you find the CD-ROM version or you'll lose out on sound effect on te floppy disk version - which sucks.

Its difficult to say WHY you'd love this - you just WILL. Its a simply hilarious game, very irreverant and not afraid of poking fun at some icons along the way. A few of these are American 'celebrities' who other countries will have no clue about(trust me, I'm a Brit and they passed over my head until they were explained!), but they're still funny. To play this is to love it - 'nuff said(and its cheap ;o)

The Bad
Ermmm...I'll say it again - I LOVE THIS GAME! But in the interests of objectivity, here's some reasons why you might not:

Too tough: some of the puzzles are ridiculously obscure and some STILL make no sense to me once they have been solved. You will almost certainly find yourself stuck struggling to find a solution which is ultimately impossible by any other means than trial and error...an then still expect to be stuck! f you hate turning to walkthroughs or get frustrated easily then this is NOT the game for you.

Dated: As I said, its looking a little on the old side now, but I think the cartoon graphics mean its not going to age that greatly.

That's Disgusting! : yes it is, sometimes, certainly irreverant most of the time, so if you are easily offended then this isn't for you. Its not bad enough to gain a certification, but if you're particularly protective of your young'uns then you might like to steer clear of this title

The Bottom Line
Simply the funniest game I've played(aside from the Monkey Island series) and well worth a purchase if you can find a copy...

DOS · by wampyrii (9) · 2002

Holy jumpin mother o' God!!! What a game this is!!!

The Good
Hot off the success of Day of the Tentacle, LucasArts crafted another bizarre cartoony adventure game, and this time they upped the ante and delivered the most whacked-out adventure game ever and one (if not the!) best adventure game ever. Seriously, Sam & Max stands firmly as one of the most fantastic adventure games ever even when faced against LucasArts legendary collection of adventure games.

The game puts you in the shoes of the dynamic duo of Sam & Max, the Frelance Police (Tm), who take on the case of finding a missing bigfoot from the local circus. From that point on the game develops into a deranged road trip across the United States filled with equally deranged characters and puzzles to solve in order to single out whoever got away with the circus freaks and put a stop to his obviously machiavellian schemes involving .... shudder Country music...!

Your main avatar in the game is Sam, who (as the most rational and collected of the pair) goes around asking questions and getting items. Max, being the most perfect cartoon incarnation of all that is irreverent and chaotic, goes around raising havoc in the best tradition of Bart Simpson only with far more twisted and dark motivations. He moves around freely, poking and touching things and adding sarcastic remarks or exchanges with Sam whenever you try something in the game thus providing the right ying to Sam's yang and creating some truly amusing situations. He's even available as an individual "action" pointer, but be careful whenever using Max... dire consequences await!

Keeping in tune with the characters, the gags in the game are tremendously bizarre, but also tremendously funny and range from sight gags, to sarcastic remarks and situations (love the Virtual Reality sequence) as well as scatology, jabs at pop culture icons and enough bad jokes to make you die of laughter. I cannot stress how good the comedy writing in this game is, in fact for me (perhaps because of my rather twisted sense of humor) this stands as the number 1 comedy adventure game ever. That's right pal, take your Monkey Island and shove it below the equator!

The locations are some of the most imaginative places ever created for a videogame, with the mistery vortex taking all awards home, and these locations are all lovingly drawn and presented in fullscreen glory thanks to the new interface that thankfully removes the traditional SCUMM-bar that took 30 or so percent of screen room.

Furthermore even if the script wasn't as thight and well-written as it was, the game has plenty of other diversions in the form of memorable characters, multiple mini-games, and loads of funny things to try out and discover! Ain't that enough for you??

The Bad
Can be too weird for some people, and too hard too!! Some of the puzzles here are waaay into advanced territory, especially because of the incredibly crazy leaps of logic you have to take some times...

The Bottom Line
Laugh-out funny, with a clever script and even more clever writing. With enough technology upgrades to be a standout in it's time, winner mini-games like "Car Bomb" and loads of funny extras, a psychotic bunny/wolverine crossbreed and enough wacky and challenging puzzles to spare, Sam & Max is the adventure game to take with if you are going to a deserted island. (that and a computer to play it on!).

Man.... Max is my hero!! I want to be like him when I grow up!!!...well, except for the whole "going around naked poking at things" thing... I already do that on my own thank you very much.

DOS · by Zovni (10504) · 2006

So funny I nearly blew my head off!

The Good
You thought that Day Of The Tentacle was good? Then check this out! Out of every LucasArts game every made, this is without a doubt the funniest game they've ever made! Max (the rabbit) says "Mind if I drive?" and Sam (the dog) replies "Not if you mind me clawing at the dashboard and shrieking like a cheerleader."! It's funny things like that that made "Sam and Max Hit The Road" such a big hit!

Thanks to the VERY twisted humour, the game has a lot of replay value. It's also worth coming back for the puzzles which, unlike most adventure games, are well balanced in terms of difficulty.

The interface is very original and easy to use. Although different to many other LucasArts games, it does allow you to see more of the action. You just continue right-clicking until the icon represents the action you wanna do, and then left click on a person, item etc and see what happens! Easy!

The graphics are bright, crisp and colourful. The characters are well animated, and there's even some solid 3D graphics - A revolution back in 1993! The sound effects fit in with the action very well, and the music is also very cool and jazzy!

Without a doubt, the CD-ROM talkie version is the best version of the game. The in-game speech allows you to understand the characters better than the floppy version. The floppy version only had speech during the intro.

The Bad
The many mini-games included with this title are too simple to hold much interest. The highway game is a real bore, jumping over signs until the day you die!

The Bottom Line
If you ever have the opportunity to buy this game, then don't just stand there looking at it! Buy it! You can also run the game through this fantastic emulator (highly recommended!):

http://www.scummvm.org/

DOS · by pottyboy (68) · 2004

[ View all 16 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Sam & Max TV show on DVD? It can happen! Foxhack (32102) Jun 18, 2007

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Sam & Max Hit the Road appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Cancelled sequel

A sequel to Sam & Max Hit the Road, Sam & Max Freelance Police, was developed, but cancelled on March 3rd, 2004 because LucasArts thought it was "not the appropriate time to release a graphic adventure game on the PC." Despite many petitions and negative feedback about the cancellation, the game was not put back into production.

Sam & Max

During the time in which Steve Purcell worked at LucasArts, Sam & Max (or only Max) made cameos in many other games, including Monkey Island, Monkey Island 2, The Curse of Monkey Island, Day of The Tentacle, Rebel Assault II, Jedi Knight, Full Throttle or Shadows of the Empire.

Sam & Max franchise

Sam & Max were not invented for this game, but are part of a whole franchise by Steve Purcell. The media they appeared include the original comics and a cartoon which aired on FOX kids in 1997/98 (awarded with the 1998 Gemini Award for Best Animated Series). Purcell also made one-page Sam & Max spoofs of LucasArts games for The Adventurer, a periodical newspaper for LucasArts employees.

Soundtrack

The CDROM contains four Redbook audio tracks that have the "Sam & Max Theme", "Moleman Music", "King of the Creatures", and "Bigfoot Shuffle" music from the game.

References

  • The music that plays at the World of Fish locale sounds an awful lot like the song "Fishing Blues", which was originally written by blues musician Taj Majal.
  • When you go to Snuckey's, the man serving you is Bernard Bernoulli, a character from Day of the Tentacle.
  • There are multiple references to LucasFilm movies in the game. When Shuv-Oohl karmically links with the Yetis, he says "It's, like, several voices screaming out in terror... and then suddenly silenced.", a reference to a classic Star Wars quote. Using the droid manual on the security droid in Bumpusville results in the droid projecting a hologram of Princess Leia, like R2D2 did. Finally, using the Conroy Bumpus eggplant on the toupee in his bedroom results in a parody of a classic scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
  • When asked what he's reading, Lee-Harvey replies, "Dialenics, by Elrod Hubbel, It's changing my life." This is a reference to L. Rod Hubbard, who started a religion based on a novel he wrote.
  • During the conversation with the Cat outside the office building, Max comments "He looks cute Sam. Can I make a tennis racquet out of him?". This is in reference to the fact that the strings in tennis racquets used to be made from a natural fibre called Catgut, which is produced from the intestines of animals such as cows, horses, mules and donkeys. Despite the name, Catgut has never been produced using a cat's intestines.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #95 in the “150 Best Games of All Time” list
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) –#7 Funniest Computer Game
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #8 Most Memorable Game Heroes (Sam & Max)
    • February 2006 (Issue #259) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame
  • PC Gamer
    • April 2005 - # 45 in the "50 Best Games of All Time" list
  • PC Powerplay (Germany)
    • Issue 06/2005 - #5 Likeable Secondary Character (for Max)

Information also contributed by James1, John Wallace, Mitch Kocen, NatsFan, Paul Graves, PCGamer77, Satoshi Kunsai, shifter and Trixter

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Nathan Kovner.

Linux added by Sciere. Antstream added by lights out party. Windows added by Ben K. Macintosh added by Jason Savage.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Zack Green, Apogee IV, Sciere, Crawly, Zeppin, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack, El Bosso.

Game added January 13, 2000. Last modified March 23, 2024.