2. Sam & Max Save the World (Xbox 360) General hints and tips

Quick Plot

Sam and Max are 2 fictional characters, who are part of a Freelance Police group based in the USA. They were created by Steve Purcell, and were originally introduced in comic books back in 1987. However it wasn’t until a game called of Sam & Max: Hit The Road released in 1993, that helped them gain their fame and popularity.

Sam is a six foot dog who wears a Blue Suit & Fedora. Sam is a more relaxed member of the Freelance Police group, and he is usually the one who organizes "plan outs" and methods, which he can use to complete both his and Max’s crimes. Whilst he is enthusiastic and laid-back, Sam is the person you’ll want on your side, because he will find a way to get the job done, whether it looks easy or hard.

Max is a hyper-kinetic rabbit, who is the total opposite of Sam. He can be very aggressive and can easily lose his temper fast. He has a habit of shooting first, asking questions later. Despite these disadvantages though, Max will always find ways of making Sam & Max’s crimes easier and he will always go anywhere with his best friend and colleague, Sam.

In this season, you will be taking Sam & Max through 6 different Episodes. You will have to deal with a group of child stars that are hypnotized by a crazy villain, confront a talk show that has taken her audience members hostage, find a mole that has gone missing, become the President of the USA, destroy the Internet, and eventually… save the world from world domination!

This season package has been given mostly positive feedback. It has been praised due to its graphics, game-play, and humor. However it has been criticized because of its low difficulty, and simplistic puzzles which you need to complete in the game. It’s also been criticized because of its price to purchase on the marketplace. I think you’ll see why.

My Hints & Tips

Both Sam & Max games are developed by Telltale Games, famous for creating the Wallace & Gromit games and The Walking Dead. This means that it is a Point & Click game. A Point & Click game is when you have a mouse-like icon on the screen, and you just simply click anywhere, and you will move the character to that destination, or an item when it’s highlighted. Because of this the games are easy to complete, so you may find them a little boring if they don’t have much humor or action.

In both games, you mostly take control of Sam. Wherever you point and click, he will move and go. Max will mostly be walking around everywhere on the screen, minding his own business, but if he ever gets in your way, Sam will just whack him and he will go flying. You’ll see for yourself when you play the game. There are also areas you play in the game where you’ll play as someone else other than Sam, but I won’t go into detail as I’ll leave that for you to discover.

For each Episode you play in the game, you have the ability to save your progress. The game has an auto-save feature, and as you play through the Episode, your progress will get auto-saved time to time. However, you have the ability to manually save your progress as well. To do this simply press the button and select Load/Save. Here you can press the Button to save your game, and press the Button to reload a previous game within that Episode.

Tip: I recommend you save your game on a regular basis, and do not rely too much on the auto-save. You will have areas and achievements, where if you make a mistake, could make a difference, and the Loading/Saving slot will make a big difference.

Note: Every Episode in the game will store their saved data separately. This means that none of your Episodes saved data will get mixed up, allowing everything to be easier for you.

Note: If you are un-finished with an Episode and you exit it, you will need to reload the Episode to continue the case. To do this simply select the Episode the next time you play the game again, and you will be prompted to load your saved data/auto-save.

In some cases when you have a conversation with characters, you can switch so that the other character can talk to the person, instead of the character you are using. Keep that in mind when in conversations because in a couple of areas you will need to switch over in order to complete the case faster. Sometimes the game will swap you over automatically, so this isn’t a big worry.

Note: You can also skip dialogue in the game as well if you want to speed up the process. I do not recommend this, since you will not get the full experience of the game. I only recommend it if you missed an achievement or you need to retry the episode again.

You will notice as you play the game, that when you highlight certain items/icons, it may say “Get”, “Use”, or “Open”. This means that instead of your character just walking and looking at it, they will perform an action with that item/icon in the game. Obviously you now have an idea what the action could be, so I’m not going to explain that, since you’ll witness it in the game.

One last pointer in this game is that you don't have to do all 6 Episodes in the order they are provided in. You can do them in any order you fancy. To make more sense of the story though, I recommend you actually play them in order to make the experience more enjoyable.

Controls

The controls in this game are very easy to master, since you have the ability to use more than one button on your controller to perform one specific move.

The main parts of the controller that you need to use in the game are the for moving the mouse icon around, and the Button which allows you to move the character around the area you're based in. is also used for walking towards an icon/item in the game. You may also use the Button to click on the Brown Box which contains your Inventory. Here is where you can click the box and put the inventory away.

When you're using the Inventory, simply press the or or or to allow yourself to choose an item, then press to select it.

Tip: To speed up areas in the game, the button allows you to open your Inventory Box, and put it away and the Button allows you to cancel an item if you're holding it.

When you are in the Driving Mode, in most cases you can use your to move the car left or right, and then lastly the game will show icons and buttons on the left side of the screen, which will allow you to perform specific actions with the vehicle. I will not go into detail about this as I’ll let you see for yourself.

There are other buttons which you will need to use in the game as well, but these are the main pointers, so I’ll let you discover the rest of the controls which can be used in the game.