The reason why Telltale Games exists, even if it wasn’t their first game to come out. The story goes that a team at LucasArts was handling follow-ups for Full Throttle and Sam & Max Hit the Road, but the projects got cancelled over concerns that there wasn’t a market for adventure games anymore. Key personnel still very much interested in making adventure games bailed on LucasArts and formed Telltale. The goal was always to make an episodic Sam & Max title, but Telltale worked their way up to it, first producing a small tech demo (Telltale Texas Hold ‘Em), then earn capital through a couple easy-to-obtain licenses (Jeff Smith’s Bone, CSI). With money in their pockets and Steve Purchell’s blessing, Telltale took their big swing and produced what is probably Sam & Max’s biggest, best-known incarnation.

…and before we go any further, let us stop to admire the significance of all this. Please, indulge me for a couple paragraphs.

Sam & Max are essentially underground comix characters, created by Steve Purchell…’s brother. When they were kids, Purchell’s kid brother Dave drew these comics of a rabbit and dog detective, and Steve drew over-the-top parodies of them to mess with his brother. Dave gave Steve the rights to these dorkuses as a birthday present one year, and Steve developed them into the verbose, satirical, gleefully insane Freelance Police we know and love today.

The characters debuted in a series of comics, which Purchell published as a side hustle to his day job. Eventually, that day job was to be an animator and illustrator for LucasArts (we have Purchell to thank for the fabulous coverart for titles like Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken). LucasArts put out a quarterly periodical, to which Purchell started contributing Sam & Max comics… really because he could. The fine folks at LucasArts loved the Freelance Police so much that they started hiding them into games (this is jumping ahead a little bit, but my go-to example is Max inexplicably showing up as a friendly NPC in Jedi Knight). Eventually, someone at LucasArts realized they technically had full rights to the characters, so with Purchell on-board, the studio put out Sam & Max Hit the Road. Then there was the TV show, and more comics, and…

…well, not to put too fine a point on it - an entire game studio, one that has won countless awards for producing several of the most important games of its era, was founded with the express purpose of producing a new Sam & Max video game. Two studios, if we count the later Skunkape Games. All this from a kid messing with his little brother. You gotta love that.

With all this established, and knowing the house Sam & Max built out of Telltale, I’ve always found it striking how unconfident Telltale’s run of Sam & Max starts. It’s never bad, but it takes until “The Mole, the Mob, and the Meatball” - the third episode - before you really feel like Telltale gets what they want to do with these characters and this world. Before then, you have “Culture Shock”, which frankly feels so aimless and inconsequential within the scope of Season One that I can’t think of it as anything but a pilot episode. The main villain of the season doesn’t even show up! “Situation: Comedy” is a good high concept and feels like a better introduction to the characters, but it’s wanting for a big capstone or highlight moment to sell the whole thing (though I can’t hate Mr. Featherly, and there are lots of good throwaway lines during the ‘Cooking Without Looking’ segment).

But “The Mole, the Mob, and the Meatball” is where it starts to pick up. ‘Ted E. Bear’s Mafia-Free Playland and Casino’ is the joke that finally sold me on Sam & Max. And then ‘Just You And Me (And Ted E. Bear)’ really sold me on it. I think a decent amount of the first two episodes feel like they’re just extreme examples of adventure game silliness, and it isn’t until you hit that third episode and the change of scenery that you finally get, “oh, no, this just happens to be the heightened reality these characters exist in; adventure game silliness is part of the joke here”.

(as a quick aside - I’ll comment on changes made overall in the remake if I ever get around to playing that version, but I’m a little bummed that they changed the explanation for the ‘skinbodies’, since that was a favorite line as well. Definitely get why they made that change though)

The rest of the season is hit after hit. “Abe Lincoln Must Die!” has a ton of great dadaist political commentary and introduces one of the all-time greatest Sam & Max side characters in Agent Superball (plus, West Dakota). “Reality 2.0” is a fun send-up of internet and video game culture, with a decent amount of the jokes still holding up. “Bright Side of the Moon” is probably a step down from its predecessors, but there are still plenty of classic moments, like the complete lack of an explanation for how Sam & Max can drive to the moon, the payoff for Bosco’s Inconvenience, and the final confrontation.

I honestly think “Save the World” remains my favorite set of Sam & Max’s video game outings? “Hit the Road” is probably stronger overall, but I don’t think the series has given me anything as nakedly funny as a lot of this season’s highlights. Later Telltale seasons have their moments - “The Devil’s Playhouse” comes pretty close at times - but this is my easy pick for the one to play to get you into Sam & Max. Just… stick with it for a couple episodes.

I gotta give Running with Scissors mad props. They are some evil, evil geniuses. This is the perfect, sarcastic middle-finger response to the backlash they received for the first Postal. All that violence media outlets and parents alike got so worked up over? Entirely optional here. The devs do give you the tools to be a mass slaughtering, public urinating menace to society, but in no way force you to use them. Meaning you can go through each of the 5 days' to-do lists of ordinary life tasks completely law-abidingly. That's brilliant, because it essentially turns anybody taking this seriously enough to get offended into the big underlying joke. You can't legitimately blame the game for whatever twisted actions you catch someone performing onscreen in this case, since the amount of freedom and lack direction given in regards to how the mundane goals can be tackled make it totally the product of their own sick little minds.

What's allowed this satire of GWB era America to stand the test of time as a sort of pseudo-classic that people still play, replay, thoroughly enjoy, and talk about nearly 21 years later as of this writing isn't its ability to appeal to immature teenagers while simultaneously causing their authority figures to look pretty foolish for complaining about it, however. It's the absolute playground for childish mischief it provides. The vulgar/heinous acts you can commit and politically incorrect world they take place in are presented in a cartoonish, clearly tongue-in-cheek manner akin to something like South Park. What feelings of repulsion one could have in regards to the havoc they create is offset by the knowledge that every NPC around you is just as big of a sociopathic maniac. A fact that only becomes more evident as the scenarios you find yourself in steadily grow increasingly outlandish, absurd, deranged, and unhinged as the in-game week goes on.

Not to mention, its approach to the open-world setting may be dated by modern standards, yet there's a retro charm to that simplicity and barrenness which solely serves to pull you in further. I noticed myself exploring the map, not because I had to find X number of doodads to turn into some umpteenth quest-giver or was chasing down another icon/marker, but rather due to genuine curiosity and pure enjoyment in doing so. I had a blast ignoring my main objectives and getting lost for hours in the various locations along the way, always being rewarded in the form of stuff such as amusingly silly visual gags, ridiculous Easter egg secrets, or new weapons that are hidden in every corner in very 'Murican fashion.

The best part is that they're basically giving this away these days. I picked up a Steam key from RWS’s own website for $2, and that version comes with a variety of expansions and quality of life improving mods already pre-installed that you can toggle on or off at your discretion. As a result, I can't help but recommend this, even if just to say you have had the Postal 2 experience for yourself. You really should too. Though the entertainment it offers is undeniably juvenile and highly inappropriate, the weird trash masterpiece status and strong cult following this has managed to achieve regardless (and continues to seemingly somehow grow) elevates it to being worthy of trying despite its fairly tasteless nature. Who knows? You may end up discovering a not-so-guilty pleasure in the process like I did.

9/10

Pros: More, more, more, more of everything. Taking concepts and elements, and entire characters from Harvest Moon 64, and then throwing them all together, mixing them into something somewhat recognizable but also new...

This is the first Harvest Moon game to not release on a Nintendo console, instead releasing on the Playstation, where it found a ton of success. and there's a ton in this game too. A hefty amount more vegetables to grow, more in-depth relationships with the villagers in the new village of Mineral Town, you can make mayonnaise and cheese with eggs and milk, and yarn out of wool from sheep! You can even make meals and dishes in the kitchen with recipes that you've collected, which is a big first for the series too! You can also hire the Harvest Sprites as workers on your farm, give them flour and they'll scurry about the farm and you can set chores for them, it's fun! Also, the villagers walk around the town on a schedule, you can actually see them go about their day doing different tasks in different locations, actively. Some pretty neat additions to the series here!

Cons: UGH, I did not care for how they straight up copy pasted characters from Harvest Moon 64 and brought them into this brand new town, mixing up their family trees, changing their personalities and sometimes even their names... It just all felt... disrespectful, especially considering how very intentional the Harvest Moon 64 characters were designed based on their family lineage from Harvest Moon SNES... it just, man, it all felt wrong here. It really is the sour patch for me with this game, which is otherwise pretty decent, despite some hiccups here and there like loading times, reverting back to four directions of movement after Harvest Moon 64 introduced eight (and this actually makes it even worse for four directions in an isometric viewpoint, like, when I press up on the controller, does my character move up-left or up-right? It's that sort of annoyance), and, here's a big nitpick for me, but the sound effects made when your character walks, it's a constant suction cup popping sound, and I find it rather infuriating, heh... Oh, and also, unlike HM SNES and HM 64, this game has a ton of menus and charts and such, just totally gamifying things and taking the series into a less simplified direction that I was not a fan of.

What it means to me: This game is the first Playstation game I ever purchased, as the other Playstation games I had played belonged to my older step brothers... But Harvest Moon was the series near and dear to me and my younger brother, so we just had to get this one, check it out. And so we did... and, I'm sorry, we just couldn't get into it as much as we did HM SNES and HM64, hell, even the Game Boy games were more charming and inviting for us. I will say though, this game did later receive a remake for the GBA that did improve some things a bit, and even later got another remake on Switch (I still need to play that one...). So, it did get better anyhow.

Pros: The direct sequel to Harvest Moon on SNES, including several additions and improvements, but maintains the simplistic charm filled cozy farm life of the original. It also features a sense of mystery and unknown to make the experience even more captivating and immersive!

So many little details added to this entry that elevate it over its predecessor. The new pre-rendered isometric aesthetic is incredibly cute, very toy-like, as if you're playing with your plastic farm animal toys as a kid, there's so much personality in that alone, and it makes the world of Flowerbud Village and the woodsy mountain path come to life like never before. New additions like the rucksack make foraging and collecting objects so much more convenient and less monotonous too, but despite having inventory with those objects, the game still isn't bogged down by menus, stats, graphs, charts, etc, it gives you that one inventory screen to see what's in your bag, as well as the calendar and time of day, and that's essentially it! Everything else, it's all on you and your memory, or reading what's posted around town or what's said by villagers, the game does a great job of keeping you immersed in its world, and not taking you out by gamifying with percentage meters or what have you. It lets you discover and soak in the world at your own pace.

New crops, new animals (sheep!!), new marriage candidates, new festivals, better controls with eight directions of movement (watering crops at an angle is a lifesaver, heh) the game certainly adds plenty to make a revisit to this world worth doing, but what makes this world so much richer, is that it is literally the same world as HM SNES, but two generations later! The story is similar, you take over your grandfather's farm and try to build a life in this cozy little town by planting crops with new veggies like cabbage and eggplant (a fall crop!), and raising cattle, sheep, and chickens, as well as caring for your dog and horse (who now can participate in racing festivals!), go mining for gems and jewels in the cave, build up your ranch and construct new additions to your home like a kitchen and bathroom, or a greenhouse to plant crops all year round, get to know and befriend the townsfolk, and meet a special someone to eventually get married to, and start a family! Not too much different than before, right? Well, SPOILERS your grandfather in this game, just so happens to be, the protagonist of Harvest Moon on SNES!! And then you'll start to notice, several people in the town are descendants from characters in SNES as well, as you learn more and more about these characters, they reveal more of that rich history to you, and for those that put in several hours into the SNES original, it's extremely gratifying to make these discoveries! Each of the marriage candidates have key storylines and family members that connect to that original game, and one of those family members living in the town, is an elderly woman who just so happened to be a marriage candidate in HM SNES, Ellen! That discovery kind of blew my mind... Not only did it connect me to this world even more, but the storylines these characters go through deepen that connection... And especially Ellen, a character that, depending on how you play, passes away over the course of the game, and it... It hits deep. This was the woman who gave you your dog in the original game on SNES. And here she was an elderly woman who was so proud of her granddaughter, Ellie, who works at the bakery in this game, and is also one of the five marriage candidates here. To see that passage of time, in a game where you connect with these characters over several generations, for her to say goodbye, and allow us to say goodbye... And then go on to start the next generation, it's so bittersweet.

Harvest Moon was a game that took a farm simulation and brought heart to it by putting you in the shoes of a little skrunkly dude just trying to make it by in a brand new world. What turns from a farm strategy game now also becomes a 2nd life simulator, but based around a crafted world filled with people that you can interact with and make a difference in their lives, and as you affect them, they also affect you. And 64 strengthens that so much more, where now you can even befriend your male rivals to the marriage candidates in the town, where you can then set them up, bring them together and then they too can get married, and raise children with the female marriage candidates! So satisfying seeing a whole town of people grow, building new families, as you build yours, based entirely on your own choices. And as you get those and several other achievements, like winning festivals, or getting married, or having your first child, the game rewards you not with a percentage marker or meter in a menu or anything like that, no, you have a photo album by your bedside, and you can look through it, at the many memories you've created living in this humble and peaceful little village. It's the perfect way to chart your journey through the events of this game.

The sense of heart, and closeness you develop with the characters, the animals, your farm, what you've built, is so enriching, you feel a part of this world, and it's one of the most immersive games I've ever experienced as a result. Not to mention, it's a world that you can stay in as long as you desire, as there's nothing stopping you from playing indefinitely after the end credits roll... I absolutely love this game.

Cons: It is a bit rough around the edges, technically. Graphical errors here and there do occur (a major one being polygons of buildings and houses disappearing before they scroll beyond the screen...) and going into the menu every time you have to put an item into the rucksack can be a bit annoying, but still, far less annoying than in SNES where you had to run back and forth to the shipping bin or wherever you're going any time you grabbed an object! Also the music, while quite good in its own right, does start over every time you enter a new room... and that's too bad, SNES didn't have that issue. But these are relatively minor issues in the grand scheme of things, nothing stopped me from being fully immersed here.

What it means to me: After discovering HM SNES and getting the Game Boy game, this was a series my brother and I were then dedicated to play every new entry of. And this was the big one we were waiting for! And when it came out, we were ADDICTED, this game was and probably still is the most I've played of any game, ever. I sunk so many in-game years into this one. I even recall once we had a storm hit, and we got a power outage while I was playing... which, resulted in an erased save file. I was devastated, but I pulled myself up from my bootstraps and got to making a brand new life all over again, and again, I put many more in-game years into it! Hah! This was the game I would grab to rescue if ever I had a housefire, I was THAT into it! That farm I built in my own way, the family I created, the animals I raised, there was a lot of love and heart put into it, and it's hard to think of another game that meant as much to me as this one did.