Part 1: The Labyrinth Era (1986)
LucasArts, then known as Lucasfilm Games, entered the adventure gaming market with an adaptation of the Jim Henson film, Labyrinth. In a Wizard of Oz move, the game begins strictly as a text-based game but when the main character enters the labyrinth it becomes a graphical adventure.

Part 2: The SCUMM Era (1987-1997)
This era makes up most of LucasArts' adventuring career. SCUMM was the name of a very flexible game engine that allowed for other engines: audio, graphical, text, etc. to be inserted. LucasArts would use this engine for a decade. This era comprised a few short series and several stand-alone games.  It began with Maniac Mansion and was soon followed by Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders.  These games established the LucasArts style of using quirky characters and cheesy (bad?) humor.  Mansion was followed years later by Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle.  Sam and Max Hit the Road, based on the comic of the same name by LucasArts artist Steve Purcell, continued in this vein in the early 90s.

LucasArts made more serious games, as well, starting with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, a very well-received game that closely follows the plot of the movie.  A few years later it was followed by Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.  An original game, Loom, used an apocalyptic, fantasy setting and used music for all of its commands.  In the mid-90s, The Dig feature a pan-planetary sci-fi adventure.  Full Throttle featured MOTORCYCLEZ.

In 1990, the company released their biggest hit and the beginning of their only long-running adventure series with The Secret of Monkey Island, followed only a year later by Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge.  Several years later, the SCUMM engine was retired with the 3rd game, The Curse of Monkey Island.

Part 3: The GrimE Era (1998-2000)
In 1998, LucasArts decided to modernize and created a brand new, 3D engine, debuting with Grim Fandango, which has gone on to become perhaps the most critically acclaimed adventure game from LucasArts.  It featured the "humor" they were best known for and dealth with themes of the AFTERLIFE.  The imagery is heavily inspired by the Mexican Day of the Dead.  The entire adventuring journey came to an end with the release of Escape From Monkey Island.  After that LucasArts began a new Sam and Max game but eventually cancelled it and fired all their employees and took a bath in Star Wars money.

Part 4: Legacy
Several LucasArts adventure developers eventually started a new company, Telltale Games. They have had surprising success, utilizing online distribution. Unfortunately, all of their games have used licenses, a couple of which are HORRIBLE licenses. For example, they have made two CSI games and have an upcoming Strongbad game in the works.  Thankfully, they've also worked with a genuinely cool license: Jeff Smith's Bone.  They made games based on the first two books but have decided their current focus is on "episodic" content, which Bone is apparently not compatible with.  In other words, they're sellouts.  Yes, I hope someone searches in Google for "Telltale are sellouts" or "Telltale Games are sellouts" so they can see this and cry over the horrid truth.  Telltale is best known for their current revival of the Sam and Max series, which is released in "episodes".  Jeez.

LucasArts stalwart Tim Schaeffer went on to create the lauded and beloved platformer Psychonauts and he has a very cool-looking new game in the works featuring bikers and roadies, much like the LucasArts game Full Throttle.

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Since the release of the first game on the PC, I've always wanted more Sam & Max. I didn’t even know that there was a comic book or a cartoon TV series. Eventually, I found out about all this stuff, and the collected edition of the comics that was released around 1995. I really wanted to get my hands on this sucker but the book was just too hard to find, not to mention ridiculously expensive. Then came Telltale with "Sam & Max Season One" - an episodic series of adventure games. After the successful and acclaimed return, they compiled and re-released the previously sold out TPB, adding a few more new pages and some extra color.

The book is about a cop dog and a rabbit who fight crime in an unorthodox way. The humor is hit and miss; if you played the game and didn’t like it, don’t even bother with the comic - it’s not on par with it. I’m not saying that it’s bad - it’s still wacky, sarcastic and funny, but it's just not on the same level as the game. Also included are some cartoons that where made to promote LucasArts games: Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Full Throttle. The pinup gallery is a great extra, too.

I know there is more material to add to this book (especially new stuff), but for some reason it wasn’t added. I'd love to have some kind of bimonthly Sam & Max comic, but who knows if that'll ever happen. Like Sam says: You crack me up, little buddy. (Grade: B)

-Daniel Yanez

Sam & Max were a big part of my adolescence. I got The LucasArts Archives vol. 1 at age 10 or 11, after hearing my brother's friends swap jokes from Sam & Max Hit the Road. I played Hit the Road for months and months, back during the Golden Age of Entertainment,* when I had the patience to do things like that.

A Max-head was the first avatar/icon I ever used on the internet. I still do, in certain places.

Somehow I got a copy of the comic collection, Surfin' the Highway, and read it so much I internalized the damn thing. As the years went by, it disappeared -- probably loaned to some miscreant friend, never to be seen again. A year or two ago, it was so out of print that copies were going for a hundred bucks on eBay.

So it's great news that the Freelance Police are back. After years of aborted revival attempts at LucasArts, Steve Purcell was finally freed from his contract and signed with disgruntled ex-LucasArts programmers Telltale Games. Telltale (the folks who brought you the Bone games**) has been exploring new formats for videogames -- releasing short games as "episodes" in a longer "season" or "series" -- which I applaud even though I haven't been motivated to plunk down the cash to try any of them. Diversity's always a good thing, and I do have a soft spot for episodic fiction.

Anyway, I hadn't realized this, but Telltale is not only producing a new line of S&M games (Season Two currently underway) and a weird, partially-animated webcomic... They're also releasing a new edition of the original comics! Completely remastered and redesigned, the book looks great. I spotted the paperback edition last week at Cosmic Monkey Comics, but I just might hold out for the super sexy signed hardcover edition!

Telltale's Emily Morganti has a neat blog post up explaining the process involved in creating the book. Like many reprint projects, it involved scanning the original film to a digital archive, plus touch-up work and reconstruction from second-generation copies when originals weren't available. I was surprised to see a game publisher (a direct-download game publisher, at that) tackle a print project like this, and again surprised to see them pull it off so well. Hats off, and I hope they sell a million.

*Golden Age of Entertainment:

**Speaking of tapping into my childhood. Bone (via Disney Adventures) and Sam & Max are two of the reasons I work in comics today -- and, I realize, two of the reasons why the division between "mainstream" and "indie" comics has never made sense to me.

Certes, les inspecteurs de police freelance créés par Steve Purcell (leurs premières aventures sont parues sous forme de comics, regroupés en TPB sous le titre Surfin' the Highway) constituent, à la base, un matériau de premier choix. Pourtant, entre la décision de passer le tout à la moulinette 3D, la réalisation sous forme d'épisodes et le traitement opéré par d'autres développeurs sur une franchise elle aussi culte (Leisure Suit Larry, bien parti pour être une nouvelle fois massacré avec l'itération en cours de production), il y avait de quoi avoir légèrement les pétoches. A tort, au regard de la montée en puissance qui caractérise la première saison et de la cohérence qu'elle affiche dans son ensemble.

Premier bon point : les graphismes. Comme c'était déjà le cas il y a deux ans, on peut regretter la bonne vieille 2D, toujours efficace lorsqu'elle est bien maniée (Runaway) et trouver un peu cheap le rendu en trois dimensions choisi par Telltale. Ce serait oublier que le minimalisme technique sied parfaitement aux péripéties cartoony du duo et que, du design inspiré à la palette de couleurs, l'équipe a pondu quelque chose de franchement mignon à défaut de donner un coup de fouet au marché de la carte graphique. Marché dont je me contrefous tant l'ivresse m'importe plus que le flacon, cela va sans dire, surtout quand je me fais un devoir de ne pas (trop) courber l'échine en ce qui concerne la mise à jour de ma configuration.

Viennent ensuite les énigmes, essentielles à tout bon jeu d'aventure qui se respecte. Dans Sam & Max, celles-ci sont plutôt bien équilibrées. En dépit de quelques allers-retours lourdingues et d'une infime poignée de raisonnements tordus, difficile en effet de se retrouver aussi coincé qu'un poisson rouge dans un coquillage décoratif. Une belle performance au regard de l'absurdité de l'univers dans lequel Sam & Max mènent leurs six enquêtes. Des enquêtes reliées par un même fil conducteur, celui de l'hypnose, et par quelques personnages récurrents qu'il faudra satisfaire pour pouvoir progresser : Sybil, la psychologue-tatoueuse-journaliste à scandales... qui change de métier comme de string, et Bosco, l'épicier parano qui se dote régulièrement d'un nouveau déguisement, d'un accent correspondant (français, russe...) et d'une invention farfelue qu'il vous cèdera si vous y mettez le prix. Ce ne sont pas les seuls protagonistes (tarés) dignes d'intérêt, les créateurs ayant effectué un boulot formidable au niveau des doublages, des dialogues aux bons morceaux de répartie assassine, de cynisme et de n'importe quoi, de la variété des environnements et des petits détails qui changent tout (affiches qui se renouvellent, Sam qui met une über-baffe à Max quand il est sur son chemin, placard où s'accumulent vos trophées, messages sur le répondeur...).

Ainsi, du casino de la Toy Mafia à des studios de télévision en passant par la Maison Blanche et le repaire lunaire du grand méchant, il vous faudra mettre fin aux méfaits d'une statue géante d'Abraham Lincoln ou de mafieux affublés d'une tête de Teddy Bear aux yeux exorbités. De fait, entre les passages obliges pour progresser et les vastes possibilité de dialogues ou de commentaires, on se retrouve rapidement à cliquer partout où l'on peut le faire et exploiter la moindre réplique pour découvrir les tonnes d'easter eggs planqués par les auteurs. Du coup, la durée de vie de l'ensemble de cette saison en devient tout à fait satisfaisante, surtout au prix auquel on peut se la procurer (le premier pas vers l'achat immodéré de goodies). Alors oui, Sam & Max - Season One pêche un peu par sa facilité, l'histoire primant sur les mécanismes, comme le prouvent la présence de mini-jeux anecdotiques. Mais au regard de la qualité de la finition de cette première livraison (les musiques jazzy sont elles aussi excellentes), de la verve critique qui sommeille sous les couches de loufoquerie (les émissions débilitantes auxquelles il faut prendre part, le président des USA représenté en une marionnette stupide et inculte...) et de l'exercice prodigué aux zygomatiques, je ne ferai pas le journaliste faussement intègre en sabrant d'un point le verdict du Père Siffleur.

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Sam & Max - Season One (Telltale Games) - 2006-2007