It's not just the individual difficulty of the puzzles. It's that in S1-2, the latter especially, one got the feeling that more of them were going on at the same time; that's mostly what I mean when I talk about complexity. We were usually exposed to elements (hotspots, inventory items, visual and spoken clues) of multiple puzzles in ways that didn't telescope their eventual use.
I wrote up a long response to this the other night that got lost in the Telltale Zone, as I think the boards were doing their nightly maintenance.
I see what you mean, especially with the last couple of episodes of S2. Towards the end of S2E5 you had a glorious amount of items in your inventory worthy of prime Sierra. However, I still think that you were largely funneled into a linear [1 intro puzzle -> 3 puzzles -> 2 puzzles -> 1 ending puzzle] (or whatever) type progression. The episodes were still nowhere close to something like Leisure Suit Larry 6 (not that an episodic series could be, but you get the drift). The difference between the S3 complexity and S2 complexity, in my opinion, is not big enough to overcome the significantly better presentation in S3.
Full disclosure - after my most recent ride on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, I became fascinated with that Rod Serling narration style. So who knows how much that is influencing me.
Where is it written that the game is intended for consoles foremost? When I sit down to play a game, long dialogue sequences and dull cinematics are just as intolerable to me regardless of where I'm actually sitting.
I actually did see it written somewhere recently, but it just seems obvious because of the direct control.
Yea usually an excess of cinematics still pisses me off even on consoles (Metal Gear Solid and Eternal Sonata come to mind), but for whatever reason I've been mostly okay with S3. However, I'm 45% of the way through S3E5 and so far it's mediocre. Unlike you though, I feel like it's an episode from S1 or S2, and that's not really a good thing.
Here are my top 4, just because I feel like a rebel.
Culture Shock - So many characters introduced, but with the exception of Bosco, I didn't really like many of them.
Reality 2.0 - At first, I was finding it hilarious, but the game jokes grew old after a while. I guess it's just hard to effectively make jokes about video games in a video game.
The Penal Zone - For the first episode of Season 3, I was not very impressed, personally. I didn't really like Skunkape that much, and I was expecting to see The Office and Bosco. Plus, the Future Vision power ruined quite a few of the puzzles for me.
Moai Better Blues - I hated this episode so much. I hated the theme, and the baby characters did not bring laughs. I'm glad they made Baby Amelia Earhart a billion times funnier in 302, she ended up being one of my favorite characters in the season because of it.
That being said, I did enjoy every single episode, very much. These are just the ones I enjoyed least.
1. Reality 2.0 - It was a good concept but I found myself very bored and using a walkthrough to get through it. Someone already stated in a different thread that Sam and Max seems to exist in an 80's-90's universe and the internet theme felt a little out of place.
2. Moai Better Blues - I love tropical themes. The graphics in this episode were colorful, and refreshing. It really looked great. There were some parts I liked about this episode, but overall it just wasn't up to par with other episodes.
3. The Tomb of SammunMak - I'm about 3/4 through this episode right now and fighting the urge to use a walkthrough to just get through it. The movie them to this is actually really cool but I'm getting to the point where I feel like it's starting to drag.
On a side note, it's always cool to read other people's opinions. Sometimes if I dislike something and read how much someone else likes it, it'll make me reconsider my own position. I'm surprised to see so many people disliked Culture Shock and Situation Comedy, those were two of my favorites! Come on, who didn't enjoy putting together that reality show about the cow?
I finally finished The Tomb of Sammunmak, and boy...by the end that was getting painful. Even with a walkthrough it was overly tedious. There were a few confusing puzzles on the train. Particularly the parts where you had to leave the area then come back to talk to a character.
I loved the turn of the century feel of this episode, and the switching film reels was an awesome touch. However, the puzzles just didn't work well. Ultimately it felt like a chore.
My bottom 3
1. Moai Better Blues
The only episode of Season 2 I hate. The only episode I intentionally skipped during my second playthrough. The new characters are bland, the puzzles are tedious.
2. The Mole, The Mob and The Meatball
The game is a total drag untill halfway through the game and the only memorable characters are Harry Moleman and Leonard.
3. They Stole Max's Brain
The game is very slow after you complete the questionings the game's pace screeches to a halt, it doesn't get interesting untill the gladiator fights, at least the graphics, sound and humour was good.
I should note that the alpha copy of Moai better blues that I had the privilege to play by accident while it was on gametap actually goes down by far as one of my FAVORITE episodes to date.
Didn't you save it???
Anyways, my lowest 3;
1. Maoi Better Blues.
2. The City that Dares Not Sleep
3. They Stole Max's Brain
Still, 302 and 304 by itself still made Season 3 pretty good. Better than 1, a little under 2.
I'm going to pick my least favorites from the three seasons and just post those.
Season One- Situation: Comedy. I know that Telltale was only getting started with major adventure games, but this episode just seemed LAZY. The puzzles were boring, getting to be a TV star wasn't as fun as I thought it would be, and the entire episode seemed to be based around exposition and PADDING. I HATE padding. This is the only episode of Sam and Max that I legitimately did not enjoy.
Season Two- Moai Better Blues. While not a TERRIBLE episode, this episode was the least enjoyable of the season. Part of my dissapointment with this episode was that the portal physics weren't as fun as I thought they would be, along with the fact that the fountain of youth scenes provided absolutely little to no entertainment value. The entire episode had so much promise, only to crush so much hope... Well, at least I got to
redirect a lava stream directly onto the Soda Popper's heads.
That alone is worth the price of admission.
Season Three- They Stole Max's Brain. This is actually my favorite of my least favorite episodes. I enjoyed the noir stylings of the opening, and the interrogations were pure comedic gold. The only problem is that these interrogations don't last as long as they could have. I'm also thankful that this episode introduced me toSal. Sal's a nice guy. However, I was dissappointed by the introduction of the boy pharoah Sammun-Mak. Mainly because his voice just didn't seem to match the character. No offense to Telltale's voice caster or the voice actress, but a Male character tends to work better with a MALE VOICE. Plus, the execution and eventual fall of the Egyptian!New York City was another example of lazy distractions and padding of the plot. At this point, Telltale really should have known better. Ultimately, though, I did enjoy the episode, if only for Noir Sam, Sal, The Introduction of Doctor Norrington, and the ending. Oh, the ending. So awesome.
So, there's my two cents. Not that anyone gives a flying dick.
To be honest I thought most of the characters in Season 1 were boring. Not a lot that I thought were really necessary in further seasons. Yeah, maybe Bosco. Moleman but only really because that's sort of a Sam and Max theme. The rat, he was cool. Lincoln was funny but limited later. But really of all these the only one I thought should come back was Bosco.
Although the chicken at the finale of S3 was amazing.
1. Moai Better Blues - It had its moments, but I just didn't really enjoy playing it all that much, partly because of the long pieces of dialogue with the baby characters, who I didn't especially like.
2. Culture Shock - The first game I played and it seemed fantastic at that point, but the games have come so far it just doesn't seem all that good anymore by comparison.
3. The Mole, The Mob and The Meatball - Meh, it was okay. But nothing especially stood out as great for me. I'm even ashamed to say that I wasn't especially fond of Max's death speech
Do not know why some people do not seem like reality, 2.0 and Sammun, wheat tomb, because they are one of my favorite programs and three seasons, respectively.
Moai Better Blues is the only episode I completely outright despise. I'm really strongly not fond of the second half of They Stole Max's Brain either, but since that's not the entire episode, I don't know if it really counts. I actually love the first half (though it definitely needed more Noir Sam).
Culture Shock and Situation: Comedy I wouldn't exactly say are exactly bad, more just kind of boring, like the season really hadn't gotten going yet. Season 1 starts to pick up for me at The Mole, The Mob and The Meatball.
What's with all the hate for Reality 2.0? I love that episode. 8( Maybe it's because I'm like the only person in the world who actually likes the C.O.P.S., ahaha...
I can't really stand to make a list of the Sam and Max episodes that I don't like, but I would agree that Situation: Comedy isn't the best. Season 1 as a whole pales in comparison to the greatness achieved in 2 and 3. What's with the hate for Reality 2.0, I kinda liked it. Especially the text adventure game segment.
I haven't spent a lot of time with Season 3 unfortunately so I don't have much of an opinion on that. As far as Season 1 and 2 (my favorite season) go...
Season 1: Situation: Comedy. While I found a lot of the jokes funny ("Nah, I don't watch horror movies." "Die! Why won't you die!") and the introduction of Hugh Bliss *ding* always freaks my friends out, the puzzles weren't particularly clever. Culture Shock wasn't bad for the first episode, plus I enjoyed it my first time through otherwise that would be on here as well. I liked the C.O.P.S. a lot and thought they were hilarious! But some parts of Reality 2.0 were annoying, the text-based portion was genius though!
Season 2: Maoi Better Blues. Again, I liked the comedy. Max freaking out over Baby Jimmy Hoffa was painfully adorable, but the overall 'plot' of the episode and the puzzles were very shallow and pretty lame compared to the rest in the season.
1.abe linkon must die
it felt like a pointless episode
2.moai better blues
i felt the story was stupid and alot of the time i thought WTF
3.they stole maxes brain
i like the introduction of sammun-mac, but it was random story change after story change
1. 104
Too much running back and forth, feels like they tried to pad it out a lot.
2. 202
Generally uninteresting episode.
3. 303
Great start, but the theme change wasn't that great. And the animations were kinda sloppy.
Nevertheless I still enjoyed all of these episodes.
From what I've seen so far, I don't dislike any of the episodes. I did, however, feel that "Moai Better Blues" seemed a tad short compared to the other episodes in the season, didn't think it was bad.
Now, what bothered me most was those driving minigames in Season 2. I loved the premise, but gods were some of those unnecessarily hard. It didn't help that I had to redo bronze/silver in episode 2, and bronze in episode 3. Must've taken me forever to get the golden Zombies and Bagpipes ones. But that's mainly cause they, like the "games" in SBCG4AP, felt like they broke the pacing a bit too much. Most of the difficulty I experienced in the games typically came from those.
I should, however, point out that I enjoyed getting the decals and the car upgrades in general. I just felt some of the gold/silver requirements were ludicrously hard in episodes 2 and 3. Perhaps it was because I just couldn't get the timing down. I noticed episode 5's minigame was surprisingly easy by comparison. But then, I like them best as fun diversions and not actual mouse-tossing challenges.
TOP 3:
3. Moai Better Blues
2. Situation Comedy
(Watching that chicken eat moon pie was very disturbing)
3. Whats New Beelzebub?
(Puzzles felt too simple and didn't really feel very satisfying to complete...)
Comments
2. Night of the Raving Dead
3. Beyond the Alley of the Dolls
2. Night of the raving dead
3. Moai Better Blues
I wrote up a long response to this the other night that got lost in the Telltale Zone, as I think the boards were doing their nightly maintenance.
I see what you mean, especially with the last couple of episodes of S2. Towards the end of S2E5 you had a glorious amount of items in your inventory worthy of prime Sierra. However, I still think that you were largely funneled into a linear [1 intro puzzle -> 3 puzzles -> 2 puzzles -> 1 ending puzzle] (or whatever) type progression. The episodes were still nowhere close to something like Leisure Suit Larry 6 (not that an episodic series could be, but you get the drift). The difference between the S3 complexity and S2 complexity, in my opinion, is not big enough to overcome the significantly better presentation in S3.
Full disclosure - after my most recent ride on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, I became fascinated with that Rod Serling narration style. So who knows how much that is influencing me.
I actually did see it written somewhere recently, but it just seems obvious because of the direct control.
Yea usually an excess of cinematics still pisses me off even on consoles (Metal Gear Solid and Eternal Sonata come to mind), but for whatever reason I've been mostly okay with S3. However, I'm 45% of the way through S3E5 and so far it's mediocre. Unlike you though, I feel like it's an episode from S1 or S2, and that's not really a good thing.
Culture Shock - So many characters introduced, but with the exception of Bosco, I didn't really like many of them.
Reality 2.0 - At first, I was finding it hilarious, but the game jokes grew old after a while. I guess it's just hard to effectively make jokes about video games in a video game.
The Penal Zone - For the first episode of Season 3, I was not very impressed, personally. I didn't really like Skunkape that much, and I was expecting to see The Office and Bosco. Plus, the Future Vision power ruined quite a few of the puzzles for me.
Moai Better Blues - I hated this episode so much.
That being said, I did enjoy every single episode, very much. These are just the ones I enjoyed least.
2. Moai Better Blues - I love tropical themes. The graphics in this episode were colorful, and refreshing. It really looked great. There were some parts I liked about this episode, but overall it just wasn't up to par with other episodes.
3. The Tomb of SammunMak - I'm about 3/4 through this episode right now and fighting the urge to use a walkthrough to just get through it. The movie them to this is actually really cool but I'm getting to the point where I feel like it's starting to drag.
On a side note, it's always cool to read other people's opinions. Sometimes if I dislike something and read how much someone else likes it, it'll make me reconsider my own position. I'm surprised to see so many people disliked Culture Shock and Situation Comedy, those were two of my favorites! Come on, who didn't enjoy putting together that reality show about the cow?
I loved the turn of the century feel of this episode, and the switching film reels was an awesome touch. However, the puzzles just didn't work well. Ultimately it felt like a chore.
1. Moai Better Blues
The only episode of Season 2 I hate. The only episode I intentionally skipped during my second playthrough. The new characters are bland, the puzzles are tedious.
2. The Mole, The Mob and The Meatball
The game is a total drag untill halfway through the game and the only memorable characters are Harry Moleman and Leonard.
3. They Stole Max's Brain
The game is very slow after you complete the questionings the game's pace screeches to a halt, it doesn't get interesting untill the gladiator fights, at least the graphics, sound and humour was good.
What the...? Didn't you save it???
Anyways, my lowest 3;
1. Maoi Better Blues.
2. The City that Dares Not Sleep
3. They Stole Max's Brain
Still, 302 and 304 by itself still made Season 3 pretty good. Better than 1, a little under 2.
Season One- Situation: Comedy. I know that Telltale was only getting started with major adventure games, but this episode just seemed LAZY. The puzzles were boring, getting to be a TV star wasn't as fun as I thought it would be, and the entire episode seemed to be based around exposition and PADDING. I HATE padding. This is the only episode of Sam and Max that I legitimately did not enjoy.
Season Two- Moai Better Blues. While not a TERRIBLE episode, this episode was the least enjoyable of the season. Part of my dissapointment with this episode was that the portal physics weren't as fun as I thought they would be, along with the fact that the fountain of youth scenes provided absolutely little to no entertainment value. The entire episode had so much promise, only to crush so much hope... Well, at least I got to
Season Three- They Stole Max's Brain. This is actually my favorite of my least favorite episodes. I enjoyed the noir stylings of the opening, and the interrogations were pure comedic gold. The only problem is that these interrogations don't last as long as they could have. I'm also thankful that this episode introduced me toSal. Sal's a nice guy. However, I was dissappointed by the introduction of the boy pharoah Sammun-Mak. Mainly because his voice just didn't seem to match the character. No offense to Telltale's voice caster or the voice actress, but a Male character tends to work better with a MALE VOICE. Plus, the execution and eventual fall of the Egyptian!New York City was another example of lazy distractions and padding of the plot. At this point, Telltale really should have known better. Ultimately, though, I did enjoy the episode, if only for Noir Sam, Sal, The Introduction of Doctor Norrington, and the ending. Oh, the ending. So awesome.
So, there's my two cents. Not that anyone gives a flying dick.
SammunMak had puzzles. Good ones in fact. Not really complex or frustratingly hard ones, but they were all enjoyable to solve.
Although the chicken at the finale of S3 was amazing.
2. Culture Shock - The first game I played and it seemed fantastic at that point, but the games have come so far it just doesn't seem all that good anymore by comparison.
3. The Mole, The Mob and The Meatball - Meh, it was okay. But nothing especially stood out as great for me. I'm even ashamed to say that I wasn't especially fond of Max's death speech
2. The Penal Zone
3. Abe Lincoln Must Die!
Culture Shock and Situation: Comedy I wouldn't exactly say are exactly bad, more just kind of boring, like the season really hadn't gotten going yet. Season 1 starts to pick up for me at The Mole, The Mob and The Meatball.
What's with all the hate for Reality 2.0? I love that episode. 8( Maybe it's because I'm like the only person in the world who actually likes the C.O.P.S., ahaha...
Season 1: Situation: Comedy. While I found a lot of the jokes funny ("Nah, I don't watch horror movies." "Die! Why won't you die!") and the introduction of Hugh Bliss *ding* always freaks my friends out, the puzzles weren't particularly clever. Culture Shock wasn't bad for the first episode, plus I enjoyed it my first time through otherwise that would be on here as well. I liked the C.O.P.S. a lot and thought they were hilarious! But some parts of Reality 2.0 were annoying, the text-based portion was genius though!
Season 2: Maoi Better Blues. Again, I liked the comedy. Max freaking out over Baby Jimmy Hoffa was painfully adorable, but the overall 'plot' of the episode and the puzzles were very shallow and pretty lame compared to the rest in the season.
it felt like a pointless episode
2.moai better blues
i felt the story was stupid and alot of the time i thought WTF
3.they stole maxes brain
i like the introduction of sammun-mac, but it was random story change after story change
Too much running back and forth, feels like they tried to pad it out a lot.
2. 202
Generally uninteresting episode.
3. 303
Great start, but the theme change wasn't that great. And the animations were kinda sloppy.
Nevertheless I still enjoyed all of these episodes.
Now, what bothered me most was those driving minigames in Season 2. I loved the premise, but gods were some of those unnecessarily hard. It didn't help that I had to redo bronze/silver in episode 2, and bronze in episode 3. Must've taken me forever to get the golden Zombies and Bagpipes ones. But that's mainly cause they, like the "games" in SBCG4AP, felt like they broke the pacing a bit too much. Most of the difficulty I experienced in the games typically came from those.
I should, however, point out that I enjoyed getting the decals and the car upgrades in general. I just felt some of the gold/silver requirements were ludicrously hard in episodes 2 and 3. Perhaps it was because I just couldn't get the timing down. I noticed episode 5's minigame was surprisingly easy by comparison. But then, I like them best as fun diversions and not actual mouse-tossing challenges.
3. Moai Better Blues
2. Situation Comedy
(Watching that chicken eat moon pie was very disturbing)
3. Whats New Beelzebub?
(Puzzles felt too simple and didn't really feel very satisfying to complete...)