As many of you know, game company Infinite Machine, home of Jedi Knight designer Justin Chin, was making a Sam & Max game, presumably for XBox and maybe another console or two. As rumored on this site and in a couple other places (and eventually assumed to be true), Infinite Machine sadly folded sometime earlier this year. What happened to Sam & Max then? Well I’m a couple days late on the update due to my DSL and phone being dead, but…

SAM & MAX TO HIT THE ROAD (AND OTHERS) IN LONG AWAITED CLASSIC ADVENTURE SEQUEL FROM LUCASARTS
Popular Madcap Dog and Rabbity Thing to Return for More Hilariously Skewed Adventures First Quarter 2004 on Windows PC

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — August 27, 2002 — Sam & Max, interactive entertainment’s most beloved canine and rabbit combo, hit the road again first quarter 2004 in a long awaited adventure comedy sequel for Windows PC from LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC. The follow up to the critically acclaimed 1993 adventure classic Sam & Max Hit the Road¨ will dispatch the Freelance Police into a wild world of screwy and vaguely quixotic missions. Each one will be jam packed with nerve-jangling action, brain-busting puzzles, and the kind of easygoing banter one might expect from a talking dog and a naked, hyperkinetic bunny. [Catch the full press release here.]

And not a single person anywhere was surprised. A few notes about the sequel: First off, as far as anyone knows, it is not a continuation of Infinite Machine’s space adventure game. Second, from the way the press release describes “many adventures” and some rumors circulating about, this game may be more episodic/serial than the previous game, possibly playable in separate small parts. Third, despite the press release not mentioning the game coming to consoles at all, LucasArts’ recent console-mad history, the game’s appearance in Shacknews’ Late Nite Consoling series, and of course good old rumor mongering, indicate that one or more ports to next-gen consoles may lie in the game’s future.

And fourth, nobody has yet divulged how much work Steve Purcell is doing on the game. He wrote the story and worked on art and game design (read: he did quite a bit of work) on Hit The Road, but the sequel’s press release says the game is based on Purcell’s characters but directed by Mike Stemmle (the designer of LucasArts’ Afterlife sim game, and a co-designer of Hit The Road and Escape from Monkey Island).

The ship date of first quarter 2004 is a little sad, but that at least gives them time to make it good. Keep your eyes on the New Game section of this site, I’ll try and keep it updated with any writeups, info, or screenshots that get put up between now and the game’s release.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 29th, 2002 at 9:38 pm and is filed under Sam & Max News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.