#oh what is it good for | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

popculturebuffet · 2 years ago

Text

Sam and Max Save the World Retrospective Part 4: Abe Lincoln Must Die! (Patreon Review for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to my sam and max telltale retrospective extravaganza! We're onto part 4 and it's time to get presdietnal as a dark horrifying power rises … no not that one.. no not that one either… this one's more rabit shaped. And he's OSTENSIBLY the lesser of two evils as for our heroes must stop a giant lincoln backed by a shadowy conspiracy. it's going to take mudslinging, soda torture, deciet, jaunty musical numbers, misproration of goverment funds and a good old fashioned musical number to win the day ! Can our heroes do it? Well yeah i'm playing them, but go under the cut for the how, the why and the hairpulling of Abe Lincoln Must Die!

Abe Lincoln Must Die.. is a mixed chapter. The writing is easily the best so far, somehow topping the already great mob the moll and the meatball with lots of great political jokes, regular jokes and one of the most delightfully bonkers scenarios i've seen in a game or anywhere: a sociopath rabbit thing going up against the lincoln memorial for president, with TONS of humor from both parties. It's never not intresting, full of funny and has a kickass musical number.

So then why is it mixed? Well it's simple.. the writing is at it's best and ends great, setting up the next chapter well… but the actual gameplay is

I had to rely on the guide a LOT with this one, sometimes due to impatience.. but a lot of it being that the solutions were just really vauge. There is a LOT to do and a lot of places to go, with the white house and i'ts lawn being pretty expansive, and it being kind of a pain to get back in the desoto for this one as the driver's side's obscured so it takes a while to have sam walk to it and there is a LOT of going back and forth between there and the office. It gets overwhelming fast. It's not helped that this chapter is more linear: you THINK it would but the more open ended nature of the previous two meant their even bigger environments weren't an issue and you were encouraged to just explore. Here your stuck between two environments that take forever to get out of as you have to click on the door and have sam walk all the way to it. Even with a guide it slows it way down. The settings here aren't bad but by not giving the player as much flexibility it makes them frustrating and repttive rather than fun.

It's not TERRIBLE, the humor, the dialouge options, and the sheer variety help, but it's certainly the weakest chapter so far. I thought the game giving you at on of options was a problem.. but it turns out it's way worse when it gives you those BUT a narrow goal to acomplish with them. It's why this chapter's so frustrating: it should be excellent but drawbacks they shoudl've been ready to acomidate for are there and really hold this one back. So with the actual analysis as a game out of the way, let's look at the story

The opening.. is a thing of beauty. The Bug returns, with Sam and Max using his vast powers exactly how you'd expect: for prank calls. It's only when the Chief calls does the fun stops: the president is passsing a bunch of irrational laws and generally loosing it so our heroes need to go put a stop to it. Insert your own joke about you know who here, though this president is more bush than trump flavored, which for the record are nacho cheese covered mild slim jim for the former and pralines and dick for the later.

Our heroes head to the white house, where they have to get past the MVP of this episode, Agent Superball. Superball is a taciturn, unfun dude.. who also happens to listen in on stage whispers and asides as part of his job, only gets federal holidays off and is in general a delight. Thankfully one of his many, MANY, duties is answering the payphone, so a simple call to it using the bug distracts him long enough to get in.

The Oval Office itself.. isn't any more helpeful. The duo , given the last three adventures, figure four's a charm and the president has been hypnotized, but naturally it's a bit hard to just wack the leader of the free world upside the head to fix that. Not helping is Agent Cuddles, who was one of the mafia bears last time.. and was the one in the omnious stinger, now taking position as this episode's big bad and our heroes general poking around is suspcious and gets them thrown out

This is something I really like about the white house setting: it's the rare time when their freelance police credintials mean nothing that isn't either for comedy's sake (the stage manager refusing to let them past) or simply one of the villians of the peace not respecting thier authoratah. I mean granted if it did this series chapters would be way shorter and way less funny, but it's still one of the few times their really out of options for a moment… if only a moment because our heroes are saved by walking pee joke and dollar store squeaky voiced teen, Whizzer, and for once. .i'm actually HAPPY he's here

Yeah i'm as suprised as you, but after the suffering of having to hear him sing and the hours spent getting my ears counseling from the experience, we get payback as you serve as his translator since the President can't heart at frequencies that high. or i'ts just funny and makes for the series best gag since "Cookin without Lookin'. As a result you basically get to troll the voice that makes dogs run in terror who don't have hats with build in sound baffling for occasions such as this or max playing the sousaphone at 2am with various blatantly wrong and offensive answers , from picking a fight outright to declaring war, it's all good stuff and the actual solution is great. Whizzer is there as a former soda addict, so simply get him a drink, and he acts like this soda is

I mean I get it i'm also a soda junkie. I just dont announce my bathroom breaks. Sam makes him think the war room is a piss closet, he's escorted out and we get to wack the commander in chief upside the head only for him to be a ROBOT! Yeah while I knew going in he wasn't going to be the main antagonist, the title also helps, it's still a nice misdirect as you assume the episode will be saving the commander THEN a giant stone abe lincoln comes in. Instead the Commander was a cheap puppet, just like the real bush, and Cuddles is surprisingly unphased. Annoyed yes, but since plan A Failed i'ts time for plan B… and this being sam and max instead of "assume the presidency and pin the murder on the furries", it's "bring the lincoln memorial to life as a giant honest abe and have him run in the emergency election" And that is why this franchise rules and is the second best use of abe lincoln behind clone high ladies, gentleman and others. Why frame our heroes for murder and have a drawn out trial that involves Max threatening the judge with a turnip twaddler, when instead you can have our heroes forced to run for president against the lincoln memorial.

And Chief wants them to do just that. He may regret those vauge orders as since Sam got ot answer the phone (love me those phone gags), Max gets to run for president

But to beat the president, we're going to need some suplies so it's back home.

So it's time to check up on our recurring cast: Bosco has gone russian, trying to get the money for a satalite, charging you millions of dollars and being there as usual. So in other words not much has changed except he wears a neat hat now. Sybil however gets her best career yet: Dating Service. As a result we get to play a fun game filling out applications.. .and having the results for Sam and Max be each other. The two claim to never speak of this again because it was the 2000's and having a case of the not gays was considered a joke and not being in hardcore denial about who you two are. Seriously guys just get married.. again. You'll drop the pretense and get a neat tax break you can use to buy that Walrus with a rocket launcher grafted on it's back and chainsaws for flippers you've always wanted. They also find out Syb is desperate of ra date, so using the bug we set her up with Lincoln. We also get some handy signs from our good old friend Hugh Bliss, who is in this again and surely isn't plotting anything. What a nice fellow.

So it's time for a debate between a stone abe lincoln puppeted by a shadowy conspiracy and a lagomorph high on sugar, cocaine and sugar that looks like cocaine. This may be the finest presidetial debate ever witnessed and the only way I can even fathom it being even better was if the third party candidate was this guy

The key to beat abe is to switch his cue cards up, making his poll numbers dip hard dip fast now, and finish it off with a sex scandal… though why the LIncoln Memorial is beholden to his marriage to a mary todd whose long dead I dunno but hey this is sam and max. It works.

Sybil is left heartbroken, whcih is the second time in two episodes we've severely fucked with a close friend and ally for personal gain! Huzzah! The problem is Lincoln's decided to go all ronald regan on us and LINCOLN SMASH.. and since he has the stamina of a golem and not an 80 year old man, we're all in trouble.

The next bit is confusing, as there are a lot of things to manipulate but how isn't very clear: it's clear you need to get the warroom which superball is still keeping you from because goverment, and the national descrionary budget. We also have to deal with ALL THREE soda jerkers

Governeors of North, South and east Dakota. A parody on the oh so timeless trend of celebrities running for office.

The final pieces of this act play out like this: we first go to sybil finding out she's now a carbon dater because she bought a neat gun thingy and accidently thinks her tiki statue is years old. We give her the money for vacation, then swipe the gun, using it on bosco's to find out his hot dogs are paleolithic and thus switch the money ot him, getting the serum. Instead of Delcious Burbon, they get some vodka. Before we use it though I need to mention one thing I keep nearly leaving out: the trophy. After the disapointment from last time this episode MORE THAN MADE UP FOR IT, with LENOARD STEAKCHARMER. That's not a typo: he's still tied up and gagged and as an added bonus he's just shoved into the shelf in the closet. They just keep him there. It's fantastic.

So with our whitest of the white liquors in hand, we get the boys wasted, they declare war on each other and we get the best sequence in the entire series thus far, one i'm doubting will be topped. I'd seen this before getting to this chapter but boy oh boy was it just as good the second time.

youtube

It's good for you, it's good for me. Now we've showed the world we've got stones and carriers with fighter drones, we can now use a ribon from the three stooges at home to make superball a secretary of whatever we say he is, all the options are fucking gold, paticuarlly "Secretary of watching this door" (MAX NO), and get him to take a day off. Inside the war room we get a lot of great options including to BOMB THE RUSSIANS (like a boss) and destroy the planet krypton. We also get BOSCO'S as an option, a great gag about them REALLY being after him. Sam understandbly decides not to tell him and steals the beacon for that bomb. We throw it at lincoln in another car chase because they programmed the car stuff dammit, then go back and blow him up real good. Democrcy is saved, lincoln is left just a head and Agent Cuddles is beaten.. and his mysterious master is left destraught. Whose behind all this?