Sam & Max Episode 1: Culture Shock review

The canine shamus and his psychotic rabbit sidekick are back again, but it's just for a few hours

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Culture Shock is also pretty short; this being episodic content, it doesn't last more than a few hours the first time through. Still, it's hard to beat the price tag: free with a GameTap subscription, or $9 when it goes on sale at Telltale's site on November 1. And if it somehow fails to get you jazzed for the next installment, Culture Shock is a self-contained story, so no lame "To be continued..." messages will prod you into buying whatever comes next.

The stuff packed into the short runtime is mostly entertaining, too. Aside from exploring the neighborhood and rescuing hapless shopkeepers from mind-control schemes, you'll play good-cop/bad-cop with a rat, explore Sam's surreal subconscious and get psychoanalyzed by a former tattoo artist. You'll also be able to hop into the duo's strangely rust-free DeSoto and harass other motorists by ramming into them, shooting out their taillights and pulling them over on trumped-up charges - like, say, having a broken taillight. Hey, you're freelance police. That means you get to make the rules, or at least ignore them when it suits you.

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GenreAdventure
DescriptionAn excellent - if short - adventure game that does justice to two of adventure gaming's most beloved icons.
Platform"PC"
US censor rating"Rating Pending"
UK censor rating""
Release date1 January 1970 (US), 1 January 1970 (UK)
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Mikel Reparaz
After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.