As I have said many times before, I love point & click adventures, and I was a huge fan of the original Sam & Max from the 1990s. Naturally, I was thrilled when I got to spend some time over at Telltale today and play the upcoming Wii port of Sam and Max: Season One. After all, the Wii was made for a revival of the point-and-click genre, with the remote making a perfect cursor. So, was it everything I expected it to be? In a word: yes.

I would have gladly played through the episodic Sam and Max revival when it first launched, but didn’t have a PC on which to do so. This makes the Wii release even more exciting for me, even if it is just basically a straight port. I played through some of the first episode of Season One, and my immediate impression was how much the opening gameplay was reminiscent of Sam and Max Hit the Road. The messy little office, the TV with the wire coat hanger antenna, and even the dartboard made for instant nostalgia. The voice-acting is as good as ever, with humorous dialogue and quirky actions making up the game.

The interface could not be more simple: it literally is only pointing and clicking. If you’ve never been a fan of point-and-click games, there’s nothing here to draw you in, but if you enjoy unraveling a good story through conversation, riddles, and problem-solving, then this is probably a good game for you. It’s been so long since I’ve played through an original point-and-click adventure that I almost forgot how silly some of the actions can be, and yet within the realms of the game, they make perfect sense.

I couldn’t get a solid release date out of the nice people at Telltale, although they did tentatively say October or November, which would be about on par with what we reported earlier this week. I can’t wait to see more from Telltale in the future, and I love that they’re helping to bring back one of the most beloved genres in gaming. 

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