Ep 4, much better.

Amphetamine

Just finished it and I would say it's much better than the previous 2 episodes. The puzzles are more difficult, and the episode itself seems to be longer. However I still don't think the puzzles are quite twisted enough yet to be up to true S&M standards, a lot of them were still quite straightforward and required little though to solve.

Oh, this was by far the funniest episode yet, had me laughing all the way. Disapointed that Max wouldn't say the Red Square line again though. You guys couldn't come up with anything for April 13th? Thought there would have been a gag hiding in there somwhere....

Anyway, if you keep the comedy at that level and factor the difficulty up by that much again then Ep 5 should be a great release!

genuineparts

Well I love EP. 1-3 but full ack. EP. 4 is the best so far. I nearly died laugthing.
And some of the Puzzles are not that easy. But on the downside is imho that TT did some of the episodes length with the permanent location change.

eg.

When you have to give first Sybil the Money and than bosco to get the truth serum. You Drive five times to the White House and back

But i can live with that. Great work!

Hero1

I am loving episode 4.. I've been in tears throughout from laughing so much.. the lines are superb and the guy who is voicing Max..his delivery is brilliant! I also love how all the puzzles are not so telegraphed.. that forces you to think more about what you have to do, and makes for a better game.

Fellow Lagomorph

Only three (well, mainly two) new locations and yet it was a much fuller game. A fine achievement.

ONE THING THOUGH: Bosco assumed the persona of a communist in order to avoid the attention of the US government. Am I the only one who sees the serious difficulty in this? A serious dip in verisimilitude!

numble

He also forgot to remove his Bosco nametag!

Dangerzone

numble wrote: »

He also forgot to remove his Bosco nametag!

that is one of the parts that makes this joke funny

P.S. for a game based on a comedic cartoon, some of you take this game way too seriously............. maybe you could use some "truth serum" to lighten your mood

numble

Dangerzone wrote: »

that is one of the parts that makes this joke funny

P.S. for a game based on a comedic cartoon, some of you take this game way too seriously............. maybe you could use some "truth serum" to lighten your mood

http://telltalegames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=21787

Dangerzone

i was joking as well.................i should have included the fact the boscos name is also plastered up on a big sign in front of the store, and the fact that he never moves out of that cage. personally i think he is stuck in there, and cannot get out even if he wanted to................ or maybe some is holding him captive!

numble

Just saying, the exclamation marks at the end of "A serious dip in verisimilitude!" and "He also forgot to remove his Bosco nametag!" means that these statements are obviously tongue-in-cheek remarks, no need to think that we are taking the game too seriously and need to lighten our moods.

Dangerzone

well in my case............. when i use quote marks i am joking, when i use parenthsis i am being serious, when i use random garbage i am either tired or bored, and when i use an exclimantion point it means that i am typing with one hand and i am unable (or too lazy) to hold the shift key while typing because my other hand us usually doing something other than typing...................

like eating, (what did you think i was joing to say, get your mind out of the damn gutter)

but usually you cannot take anything i say seriously

isnt everyone else the same?

Harald B

I have to say, as far as the difficulty and length are concerned there's just one way of putting it; to paraphrase an old review: you nailed it. Episode two and three seemed over almost before they got started, leaving me to wonder if I'd breezed through them too hastily. This time around, there was enough of an "in-there" feel in the midgame that when the ending started to loom on the horizon it felt appropriate rather than giving me that scary "oh no, it's going to be over already" feel.
I got stumped at least twice, each time long enough to force some actual thinking but not long enough to make me quit playing in the meantime. This is quite good. There being a number of plausible red herrings is also nice, and it's good to know we no longer have to be afraid of spoiling ourselves in talking to Max.
All in all, you adressed the main shortcomings while retaining all the good things. By now I can't think of any downside that rises above the level of a nitpick. Excellent work!

marsan

I just have one thing to say. The voice of the president and the voice of that door guard was excelent choices. It sounded really natural, and I have to say you have done a really good job finding people with good voices for the new characters.

Also, is it just me, or is the voice of sam & max getting better with each episode? in the beginning, I was having a bit of a problem buying max as max. Especially since I have only played hit the road before, and don't really have any emotional relationship to any other voices for max. Of course, sam was easy to buy as sam. Anyway, I think the voices just sound better and better in each episode. Everything from the pace to how things are put sounds more and more like how I remember sam & max in hit the road. Just the way they say something is enough to make me laugh.

"Well, it all started the day before today. I remember it just like it was yesterday."
--Moleman from Sam & Max Hit The Road

marlow

Wow. Ep4 is the best one yet! The

War Song

and the joke on not inhaling. 'Nuff said. Also, it's a great example of how much you can get out of a really limited number of locations - while it's not larger than that in Ep3, the feeling is completely different. What was disappointing there, does not irritate here at all.

maximmortal

Just finished playing Episode 4 and I loved it! I thought the puzzles were just about at the right level for me and overall, the episode seemed longer.

By the way, I love

http://www.maxforpresident.org/

. Funny stuff.

marsan

Do you guys at Telltalegames have as much fun making these games as we have playing them?

genuineparts

I assume yes. This games are so great that you can clearly see that everybody is working with theyr hearts. Great stuff

RhodanV5500

funny as hell, just as long as it should be and some impressive new locations...

i really enjoyed this one. the best episode so far

the only thing i still have to complain about is the bad voice-compression. i hope the guys (and gals ^^) at TT keep their promise and ship the season 1 dvd with high-quality audio-files

spyrochaete

I must agree, best episode so far and that's saying a lot! The balancing is superb, the voice acting is outstanding, I loved the level design (especially the White House exterior), and I'm very impressed with the quality of the music throughout the series.

Plus the week-early release made me feel special as a subscriber. Thanks Telltale!

BarfHappy

Best episode for me, by a long mile, and i ve not even completed it yet :P

Plan3

Haha, remember to

watch the tv in the office after Max gets president

=p

schuubars

I liked all Episodes so far, but yes Ep. 4 has some Advantages over the first 3.

(i love especially the graphical style of each episode in the whole)

Btw TTG.

Hehe nice, that with the Swiss Poster, but i have to say:
It's a Fact that only the Best cheese gets exported, the "minder quality" Product stays here in our National Food Shops.(does not mean he is bad) *g*

But yep i had a little laugh after that i heard what max said.


Oh and TTG, and Please could you say me what the third line means? And the first Word of the second line, i can't read it clearly, because...you know Texture Sizes.(uhm they have always to fit.)


bte sry. for my bad english.

JK1985

This episode was great! The best so far! Thx Telltale! I was a little disappointed after episode 3 (to short ) but this one was perfect! Looking forward for episode 5!

The war song was really good! And the cliffhanger... woho

ThomasMink

I really enjoyed playing through this episode.. making fun of US politics always makes me laugh when it's done right.. and this was done right. Laying eyes on the president for the first time instantly made this game pure gold with the joke made by just his appearance alone. The difficulty was also spot on for me.. took me about twice as long to finish this one when compared to the last three.

You've really outdone yourselves with 'Abe Lincoln Must Die!'... it'll be a tough cookie to top, but I can't wait to see what's in store for 'Reality 2.0'.

Hero1

Yeah having finished the game now I thought it was awesome..

writing.. best yet! i laughed and laughed and laughed
music.. still brilliant how how jared merged presidential themes with jazz music and made it sound cool was genius
voice acting.. sensational.. the guy doing max did his best work
art style.. dave bogan did an awesome job of putting the whitehouse in this new sam and max world..the new locations looked great
difficulty.. great improvement..I had to think my way through the game and loved every minute of it
length.. it must have taken me about 5 hours..big improvement over episode 3
animation.. the big animiations with the villain looked great..max's expressions seemed greatly improved
storyline.. really hit a fine note..with some sam and max absurdity

great episode can't wait for number 5

Tale

This is the first episode that had me in tears a couple of times. It hurt.

Bruno83

this game just keeps getting better and better!!
Best episode so far!!

Yohmi

It's not original but I find it's the best episode too ^^ I thought it was longer, even if it took me about three hours to finish it. But it's exactly what I was expecting of the episodic game lenghth. I think I found it longer because there was a lot more puzzles, harder than before, no big spoilers inside dialogs, very detailed and beautiful backgrounds, with multiple actions to do with lot of useless backround objects... I prefer episode 3 because of the ambiance, but episode 4 is the best of the season in Adventure Gaming style. I'm very very happy of it, I hope next will be equal (or of course getting better and better ^^) but for me, it was just what I want. Not less, not more, beautiful, fun, and enough challenging for my little mind ^^

Thank you, again

pheeph

I have to say this episode is the best so far!
The length was decent this time, it's more difficult than Culture Shock, and random political references

Col_Shaggy

Awesome job on Epi 4!
The puzzles weren't as straight forward as 2 & 3, both a blessing and curse:D , and the money puzzles went back to what I liked so much about HTR puzzles, and having Max as President is a particularly funny nightmare.
Can't wait for 5, particularly if it continues to build and improve like 4 has.

dloeke

What is there left to say? Well, I salute thee, hard-working, fastidious creators of Sam & Max. In my honest opinion, the fourth episode was even better than "Hit the Road", believe it or not. I was constantly laughing, and the writing was top-notch. Good thing I don't have a bad heart, because I would have died laughing.

Hunam

Episode 4 was fantastic, i have to admit, my interest was fleeting, but ALMD! is almost utterly perfect, kept me on my toes, the song near the end was hilarious and the plot was deliciously insane, and a good long afternoon was taken up by it! Long live sam and max!

Large

Ep 4 is the best for me also. Sam'n'Max game is getting almost as crazy as the orginial game

Sir Lemming

Definitely the best episode so far. I was stumped quite a few times, and aside from that, there was a lot to do. My only complaint is, as some others have mentioned, the constant back-and-forth between the White House and the office area in the latter portion of the episode. As usual, the one problem with these episodes is that they're hurtin' for locations.

But the difficulty was just right, the dialog was somehow even better than before (I might even say this episode has twice as many laughs as any other, it's just that funny), the voice acting exceeded expectations, and the

war song

was... completely unexpected. Speaking of unexpected, it was wise to change up the formula a bit for this one. It didn't start in the office, there were no definitive "three main puzzles", and the whole "buying a thing from Bosco's" process was less predictable.

Although it would've shortened the episode, I think they should've

kept Max in the oval office while he was president (which makes sense) and had a Day of the Tentacle-like gameplay system where you could switch between Sam & Max in their different locations, to cut down on the tedium of driving there and back just to do one thing.

It also would've added some variety to the gameplay, and helped to drive the plot along. One problem I sometimes have with these episodes is that you can sort of do anything at any time, even if the plot is supposed to be moving along. I think my suggestion may have helped to give the episode a different "feel" during that time to cement what was currently going on in the plot.

(The aforementioned is an issue with many plot-driven games, and designers will probably be wrestling with it for ages to come.)

AdamG

It's nearly unanamous! Episode 4 is the shizt!

Dangerzone

it think that the reason episode 4 seems longer, is because it is.........

in the first 3 episodes, they can be devided into 3 seperate acts
- the first is an into with one or two puzzles to you get into somewhere
- the second is a long middle or "3 tasks" act
- the final act is a short finale with one long puzzle to take down the villan


however episode 4 can be devided into 4 seperate acts, each containing 2 main puzzles (or just one big one as in the finale)

Act 1 - Get into the whitehouse, take care of the president
Act 2 - The election issues, and create a scandal
Act 3 - take are of superball again, provoke a war
Act 4 - war room finale, lincon takedown

Hero1

yeah it was a better formula this time.

OnCallDoc

I'm real pleased with what was done in episode 4 and hope telltale gets just as creative in future episodes. I loved all the eps, but this one blew me away. It was well balanced in terms of pacing, jokes and such. Oh and the early release was cool too.

numble

I was afraid that, instead of being happy with the episode, people would say "this is a good start" and that people would have been demanding "Even longer! Even harder! Even more backtracking!" after this episode, and I'm happy that many seem generally satisfied with how the episode went. (In hindsight, my fears were probably based on prior conversations with the very extreme guys though--the ones demanding a complete abandonment of the current formula, a higher price, the length/difficulty of a Myst age, 2-3 month release schedule, that Telltale is running a scam and people are being ripped off, etc)

Dangerzone

this episode is living up to our expictations for what we should get for the price............... the previous episodes just seemed a little too short and way too easy, but this one was almost perfect........... some good laughs, a new 4 act format, and harder puzzles. telltale *does* listen to us after all

and i am sure that episode 5 will continue to yeild improvments in the series ............... either that or everyone will start saying "episode 4 was better"

Hero1

Well in that podcast with Dan he said episode 4 and 5 were really good.. so I can't wait for episode 5.. to quote Brendan: does Telltale listen to their fans? Quite possibly

Dogen_D_Derrible

Well done for this cracking comeback Telltale! This is by far the best episode in the series and really made up for my worries about Ep's 2 and 3. I can't wait for part 5 now. Brilliant stuff!