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Last Screenshots of Sam & Max 2 Online
DasJan writes "German website Adventure-Treff.de got hold of the last available screenshots of Sam & Max 2, the recently cancelled adventure game. The last 10 images in this gallery are the screens that LucasArts gave out to print magazines around the world to accompany their previews. Some of them are completely new, others were only available in blurry scans. They are probably the last thing we ever see of our beloved duo." Seems like an awful lot of work to scrap. I wouldn't be surprised if the game is resurrected in another form someday, but for now, these images are all we have.
You now owe Darl your allegience, $690, and a straight face when he makes press releases saying silly things about IBM and Groklaw.
~Darl
Durn it. I often find a DVD director's commentary every bit as interesting as a movie, itself. I wish Lucasarts would release what they had, along with a postmortem/commentary. Aside from being a fan of the original, I'd like to see where the sequel production went "wrong," and try to pick the thing apart.
Hell, I'm probably in the minority, but I'd be willing to pay for such a thing.
We're indie. We're working on our 14th game.
Would have bought this no questions asked. It also would have been a great game to introduce my gf to pc gaming. Going to have to dig out the old ones instead.
Ive been a long time fan of adventure games, and I was saddened to hear sam and max 2 was cancelled. It was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.
I sent an email to pr@lucasarts.com questioning their motives, explaining my past fandom, and informing them that I will never be buying a lucasarts game again. Ever.
Ive done it already. Ive experienced the trench run and blown up the death star, Ive saved the Emperor from rebel scum. Ive blasted my way through scores of imperial storm troopers. No more. Its done and boring.
Sam and Max 2 looked fun, unique, and a revival of my 2nd favorite gaming genre. But no. I got spat on. Forget it lucasarts, Im tired of your games. Youve got enough competition making enough quality games that I simply do not have a need for you any longer. Congradulations, youve killed my starwars fandom through repetative mediocrity and baseless consumerism. (Not to mention shoddy writing)
Now, if youll excuse me, Im going to go play Monkey Island 2 again, its been a few years. Yay ScummVM.
Anyone have any good links for NEW adventure games?
no
If the marketing folks really didn't think the game was viable anymore, why not release the game in its current form through their web site???
I mean, if it is so close to completion, they should be able to do a little last-minute debugging (a couple of weeks at most), put it up for sale through mail and state clearly that the game is unfinished and no future patches are planned.
It's interesting to note that LucasArts also recently canceled Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels...another game that was clearly close to completion...
The real question should be, why is LucasArts canceling projects so close to their completion dates???
Those concept sketches look a helluva lot more intriguing than those sloppy 3D-renders. Why can't the gaming-industry take a hint from the movie-industry here? Not everything is better with 3D.
"I tend to think of OS X as Linux with QA and Taste", James Gosling, creator of Java
I asked this very question in the last article we had about this cancellation, with nearly the same bitch-and-moan you have. Now that I'm all growed up with a job, I can afford to buy adventure games by the dozen. But they just aren't there. My girlfriend bemoans her selling of her Kings' Quest and Hero's Quest collections-- she said "I never thought those would be the last Adventure games made."
So, for everybody out there, here's a list of what I've found to keep me amused so far:
1. Everything ScummVM plays. You've probably played a good number of these, but I'm sure it's not all of them. Broken Sword I and II are good, and I haven't made my way around to Beneath a Steel Sky or Flight of the Amazon Queen yet, both released as freeware by their original authors to the ScummVM team. Buy the ones still being sold new, like Broken Sword and Simon the Sorcerer 1 & 2 to encourage "good behavior" from game companies.
2. Sequels to ScummVM games that ScummVM can't run yet-- things like Broken Sword III, Monkey Island 4, and Grim Fandango.
3. New things you've never heard of, but are still being sold new-- this is the best bet. Runaways: a Road Adventure (available new), Wyrmkeep's remade Inherit the Earth (may be in a future scummvm version, from peeking in CVS), Gilbert Goodmate for the PocketPC, Syberia 1 and 2, etc... Check out justadventure.com for news.
4. Stuff you haven't heard of but isn't still for sale-- this can be tricky, finding things on ebay or abandonware sites. A friend clued me into one he'd played when younger, now available as abandonware: Amazon: Guardians of Eden. I've heard good things about I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream, but don't have a copy yet. I've also turned up websites about a couple of Discworld adventure games that sound excellent, and the first two also seem to be available as abandonware. There is a third that is still for sale, so if you download the other two BUY THE ONE THAT'S STILL BEING SOLD.
Remember-- if you don't buy the ones that are for sale, companies will keep right on assuming the market doesn't exist for these games.
For old DOS games that don't work with ScummVM, NAGI, FreeSCI, or the like, there's always DOSBox, which does an excellent job of making your shiny new PC pretend that it's old and crappy to make the games run.
Anyway, that's what I know. Anybody got anything else?
Those that don't are part of the problem. If you don't support the great adventure games from smaller publishers, you'll show big publishers exactly why they shouldn't release an adventure game.
Actually, the story on this one is well known - Mario 2 was two different games. The first game was a literal sequel to Mario 1. A hard, nasty, continuation of Super Mario 1 that had the same graphics and most of the same gameplay (except for a handful of very clever ideas).
Nintendo of America found that unacceptable. They wanted it to be something big, not just an expansion pack. So they had them convert another, in development game into Mario II. IMHO, it was a good idea - the new Mario 2 was an excellent game, and the original mario 2 game was incredibly difficult and really aimed at hardcore mario players.
The original Mario 2 was released in the west in the Super Mario Allstars set as Super Mario: The Lost Levels for the SNES. If you want an impossibly hard Mario 1 fix, look into it.