Back at it like a psychopathic bad habit, Sam and Max are this time skipping the road and heading for time… and space! Check out our Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space review!

 

Join the Freelance Police on a bizarre adventure from the North Pole to the Fountain of Youth, from outer space to Hell and back.

Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space is a remastered version of Telltale’s second season of episodic Sam & Max games, lovingly updated by a small team of the original developers. Sam is a six-foot canine detective with a nose for justice. Max is a hyperkinetic rabbity-thing with a taste for mayhem. Together, they’re the Freelance Police—an irreverent comedy duo whose esoteric crime-fighting style has been entertaining comic book and video game fans for more than thirty years.

In this five-episode collection of interconnected cases, Sam & Max are back on the crime beat in a showdown with Santa Claus, a race to subdue a giant volcano, and a faceoff with a Eurotrash vampire. And then things get even weirder.

Is paranoid shopkeeper Bosco on to something with his talk of a grand conspiracy? Is diner proprietress Stinky hiding the truth about what happened to her grandfather (also named Stinky)? Will flaky neighbor Sybil Pandemik ever find true love? Did someone say… BIRTHDAY?!

Hop into the DeSoto for a hilarious outing that won IGN’s Adventure Game of the Year award the first time around and now looks and sounds better than ever, with gorgeous HD graphics, overhauled lighting and lip-sync, finessed cinematography, remastered audio, and eight all-new musical tracks featuring live jazz musicians.

Zombies will dance. Mariachis will sing. A giant battle robot will trash the streets. And when their friends’ lives are on the line, Sam and Max will risk their very souls to set things right

 

I’m a long-time fan of point-and-click adventures, having fond memories of games such as Sam and Max Hit the Road. I was delighted when Telltale picked up the license and started releasing new episodic games. And let me tell you, they were great! Unfortunately, with Telltale’s demise, these games have fallen by the wayside… until Skunkape Games decided to preserve and improve on them!

In late 2020 they dropped a remastered version of Sam & Max Save the World, which was great. It looked just like I remember, not actually what it was. Remember the originals dropped during the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii era. They also featured some quality of life improvements. Of the Telltale trilogy, Beyond Time and Space so I was definitely looking forward to playing it on Nintendo Switch.

 

Now, if you have played the original versions, you know what you are getting. This is a pure homage to the original Lucas Arts formula, presenting a point and click game as you navigate through each location, picking up items, talking to people, and figuring out how to use the items and knowledge learned to proceed in some sort of wonderfully obtuse manner. This is the grind with old-school adventure games, and if you love it as much as I do, you’re going to get a kick out of Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space on Nintendo’s console.

Let’s talk about the improvements for this remaster. As I mentioned, the game looks better. Before diving into this review, I checked some videos of the original version to refresh my memory, and it’s just amazing how much more polished Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space looks on Nintendo Switch when compared to the original release. Sam and Max look great, with everything smoothed out, recolored, and with improved lighting, making it all look so alive, like the cartoon character characters I remember. The varied environments look great as well, and this is especially true for Beyond Time and Space, thanks to the crazy venues you’ll visit. The game looks great on the TV screen, with everything being so vibrant and beautiful, with a consistent frame rate during the journey.

All of the voice work and audio had been redone as well, giving it a much crisper sound. With the game having a ton of dialogue, the revamped voice work makes a big difference. In terms of the writing, Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space is great. The game does a great job of capturing that Sam and Max humor I remember from the cartoon and the previous season. Sam has a serious but sarcastic humor, while Max is just as psychopathic and murder-crazy at his best. The two play off each other so well, making them one of my favorite duos in gaming. Beyond that, the entire cast is given great personalities, but I wouldn’t expect any less.

 

If you haven’t played an old-school point and click adventure game before, you might find this is one to be a bit obtuse. Puzzles and solutions don’t make sense unless you’ve played these types of games, as it doesn’t make sense, so your brain doesn’t go there. Once you have played a few, your brain just wraps around the solutions. There is a hint system you can customize, but I really don’t know how useful it is since I didn’t need it for this new run. Since I played the original version, a lot of the puzzle solutions came back to me, so I didn’t need them a lot.

Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space is a great remaster of an old classic. It enhances the audio and visuals while keeping what works intact. Touch screen implementation is great on the Nintendo Switch when playing in Portable or Tabletop Mode since point and click adventure games really lend themselves to this type of control. If you are a fan of the series, this is definitely worth picking up. And if you are curious about what this wacky duo is up to, you should definitely give it a shot. This is a great game for you to get your feet wet in the adventure game genre.

Disclaimer
This Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Skunkape Games.