Sam & Max "season premiere" Oct. 17 on GameTap
It's been thirteen years since Sam and Max hit the road in the case of the missing sasquatch and another four since we first caught wind of a sequel. After several failed attempts to return our favorite dog and rabbity-thing duo back to the world of crime-fighting video games, the fine folks at episodic game dev Telltale want the world to know that Sam & Max: Culture Shock is almost here.
The "season premiere" of their highly anticipated point n' click is coming to subscription-based gaming service GameTap on October 17th, with the worldwide release (read: no subscription necessary) some two weeks after that. Telltale is still mum on the cost of the direct download, but did say it would weight in at a svelte 75MB. Considering that Bone's 4-6 hours of gameplay goes for $13, we imagine Sam & Max's estimated 1.5 hours will go for considerably, but not proportionally, less.* The other option, of course, is signing up for GameTap's free two week trial. We imagine that, like any free trial, they're counting on enough people wanting Sam & Max two weeks early, that they'll trudge through the sign-up process, play the game, and then either decide the $10 monthly fee is entirely fair or just neglect to cancel it out of sheer laziness.
Depending on Telltale's S&M release schedule (designed to be shorter installments, released more frequently), the GameTap subscription may work out to being only marginally more expensive than downloading each episode individually. Add a couple more episodic series (Penny Arcade, anyone?) or some MMO content (Uru Live) and you've got yourselves a really compelling package; the HBO of the episodic gaming scene.
*We've just called our bookie, our money's on $7.
