Sam and Max 201: Ice Station Santa Demo

There are plenty of memorable characters in video games, but most of them achieved immortality in the minds of the gamers through heroic acts and incredible displays of power, which kind of makes it difficult for someone not to respect them. The heroes from the Sam & Max franchise are different, though, since they certainly do not play by the rules and nothing about what they do is noble, or even necessary for that matter.

Sam and Max 201: Ice Station Santa opens up the second season of the highly-acclaimed point-and-click adventure game developed by Telltale, which continues the adventures of the two unstable detectives. There are no major changes this time around either when it comes to gameplay, since everything worked just right until now and there was no need for improvement.

In this installment, Sam and his psychopathic white rabbit friend Max are just minding their own demented business around their apartment, when a giant robot comes out of nowhere, intending to kill them both. After managing to disable it, they find out that it was sent by none other than Santa Claus himself, who’s apparently upset with the two detectives for whatever reason. Naturally, they go to the North Pole in order to sort the business with Santa, only to make a mess of the entire situation as usual.

In order to stay in tune with the rest of the franchise, this new episode features just as much dark humor and disturbing references as until now, although there are no actual swear words involved. Hence, while the ingenious jokes might make an adult laugh and maybe even a little embarrassed, children shouldn’t be able to understand the finer references, so they can enjoy it as well.

One aspect that has changed a bit is the graphics engine, in the sense that the characters and the environments are much more detailed now, thanks to the new technology involved. It doesn’t look that much better, but you are at least allowed to change the resolution now and get it as high as your monitor allows it, which is certainly good news for those who are familiar with the previous season.

All things considered, Sam and Max 201: Ice Station Santa does everything right and you can feel that the developers gave it their best for this episode, in order to assure the fans that they did not abandon the series. Hence, if you played through the first season, then this should definitely be on your list as well.