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_Sam & Max: Freelance Police _
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Introduction
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'Sam & Max: Freelance Police' was a graphic adventure video
game developed by LucasArts from 2002 until its cancellation in
2004, and the final game in the company's adventure game era.
'Freelance Police' was originally intended for release for Windows
in early 2004 as a sequel to the 1993 title 'Sam & Max Hit the
Road'. The game was based on the characters Sam & Max: an
anthropomorphic dog and "hyperkinetic rabbity thing" who debuted in
a 1987 comic book series created by Steve Purcell. 'Freelance
Police' was announced in August 2002, and showcased at the
Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in 2003. Like its predecessor,
'Freelance Police' was designed as a point-and-click adventure
game, but used a 3D game engine in place of the SCUMM and GrimE
engines used in older LucasArts adventure games. The project's
development was led by Michael Stemmle, one of the original
designers for 'Sam & Max Hit the Road', while Steve Purcell
assisted in developing the game's plot and providing artistic
direction.
Although the game's development appeared to be proceeding towards
completion without difficulty, LucasArts abruptly canceled
production of 'Freelance Police' in March 2004, citing economic and
market conditions. The game's cancellation, which was the second
'Sam & Max' project cancelled after 'Plunge Through Space', was
received poorly by fans of the series, Steve Purcell, and the video
game industry media. Many journalists viewed this move as a
culmination of the decline of the adventure game genre. LucasArts
later terminated its adventure game development, and many of the
'Freelance Police' design team left to create Telltale Games and
continue development of such adventure games. Steve Purcell moved
the 'Sam & Max' franchise to Telltale Games in 2005, prompting
a revival of 'Sam & Max' video games.
Overview
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'Sam & Max: Freelance Police' was designed by LucasArts as a
graphic adventure game and sequel to the 1993 title 'Sam & Max
Hit the Road'. The game was to feature 3D computer graphics
rendered in real-time. The game engine contained elements from
other LucasArts games, including those from 'Gladius', 'RTX Red
Rock', 'Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels' and 'Star Wars: Obi-Wan'.
Graphical features such as shaders, bump maps and lightmaps were
used to give a 3D effect to 2D textures in the game. Little was
revealed of the gameplay, other than that 'Freelance Police' would
not follow the same control scheme used in 3D LucasArts adventures
'Grim Fandango' and 'Escape from Monkey Island', but would return
to point-and-click mechanics used in the 2D LucasArts games. As in
'Sam & Max Hit the Road', 'Freelance Police' would contain a
mixture of optional and compulsory minigames, 19 in total. The game
was designed so that the player character could not die or reach a
dead end.
Few details were revealed about the game's plot. In a January 2004
interview, lead designer Michael Stemmle provided a rough outline:
the game's story was "really six stories, loosely held together by
a thrilling über-plot". Each individual story contained a separate
case for the Freelance Police, taking place in a variety of
environments, including a space station and a neopagan bacchanal,
and featuring "freakish bad guys". Stemmle stated that the
intention was to keep the "über-plot" concealed for a while, but
noted that it contained "all the barely plausible grandeur that
fans have come to expect from 'Sam and Max'". Steve Purcell, the
creator of 'Sam & Max', assisted in the development of both the
plot and the artistic direction, producing concept art of various
characters and locales. Besides the return of the title characters,
only one other character, Flint Paper, was confirmed for the game.
Described by Stemmle as "the Freelance Police's rough 'n' tumble
private detective neighbour", Paper is briefly featured in 'Sam
& Max' comics and makes an offstage appearance in 'Sam &
Max Hit the Road'. Stemmle had Paper planned for a "critical role"
in the game's plot.
Due to the nature of the story, LucasArts considered releasing the
game in episodic fashion and using digital distribution, an option
favored by the development team but opposed by the management
division, who preferred the more traditional methods of retail
distribution. Post-release bonus content was also considered;
Stemmle remarked that such content would include new power-ups,
minigames and "maybe even entirely new interactive 'Sam & Max'
cases [the player] can download".
Development
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The development of a sequel to 'Sam & Max Hit the Road' was
announced by LucasArts in August 2002. In their press release,
LucasArts president Simon Jeffery stated that "the 'Sam & Max'
sequel, much like the recently announced 'Full Throttle II',
perfectly complements LucasArts' renowned adventure game legacy and
lends further support to the company's commitment to investing in
and developing more of our original properties". LucasArts revealed
no additional details at the time beyond a projected release in the
first quarter of 2004. The game was officially announced for
Windows at the Electronic Entertainment Expo convention in May
2003, where the full title 'Sam & Max: Freelance Police' was
revealed. LucasArts reaffirmed the projected early 2004 release
date at the convention. The game's trailer was also presented at
E3, reintroducing the characters and confirming that the original
voice actors for Sam and Max, Bill Farmer and Nick Jameson
respectively, were set to reprise their roles. Over the following
months, several minor media releases were made, revealing new
information regarding the game's developmental direction and
graphical style. The game's release was highly anticipated by
journalists in the video game industry, who published various
previews and interviews with the development team, particularly
with lead designer Michael Stemmle, one of the original designers
of 'Sam & Max Hit the Road'.
In August 2003, LucasArts halted production on the 'Full Throttle'
adventure game sequel 'Hell on Wheels', leading the magazine
'Hyper' to speculate that 'Freelance Police' might suffer a similar
fate. LucasArts reassured the media that 'Freelance Police' was
still in production and was nearing completion, reiterating that
the game would be released in 2004. Media coverage continued; for
example, 'PC Gamer' US ran an interview with Stemmle as a cover
story in February 2004. However, on March 3, LucasArts abruptly
announced the cancellation of 'Freelance Police'. In a short press
release, LucasArts' Acting General Manager, Mike Nelson, stated
that "after careful evaluation of current market place realities
and underlying economic considerations, we've decided that this was
not the appropriate time to launch a graphic adventure on the PC".
The reaction to the game's cancellation was overwhelmingly
negative. Commentators in the industry media felt that the decision
was representative of the diminishing relevance of adventure games,
with many concluding that LucasArts was moving to maintain its
position with low risk 'Star Wars'-themed titles instead of the
adventure games that had brought them success in earlier years.
'Freelance Police's' cancellation is often cited as the culmination
of the adventure genre's decline. The decision came so suddenly
that some magazines accidentally published favorable previews of
the game after LucasArts' announcement. A fan web site named "Save
Sam and Max" presented a petition of 32,000 signatures to LucasArts
conveying the fans' disappointment. Steve Purcell, the creator of
the 'Sam & Max' franchise, commented that he was disappointed
by LucasArts' decision:
Farmer, the voice of Sam, revealed in a 2014 interview that he and
Jameson were never told about the game's cancellation, and it was
only when Farmer himself looked it up online that he found out. He
expressed disappointment over the decision, claiming that 'Sam
& Max Hit the Road' had some of the best writing he had ever
performed. According to Stemmle, the cancellation decision was
prompted by the report of an external marketing analysis group
hired by LucasArts, which claimed that the European market for
adventure games "had simply disappeared. Not shrunk, not cratered,
just... disappeared". A newly established German company, Bad Brain
Entertainment, claimed to have entered negotiations with LucasArts
to acquire the game, although nothing resulted from these talks.
LucasArts subsequently dismissed many of the designers involved
with developing their adventure games, and in 2006 stated that they
did not intend to return to the adventure genre until the next
decade. Some of the former 'Freelance Police' development team
formed Telltale Games in June 2004 to continue developing the sort
of adventure games that LucasArts no longer wished to produce.
Telltale Games later unsuccessfully attempted to buy the rights to
'Freelance Police' from LucasArts, which would have enabled the
team to finish developing the game. When the LucasArts license
expired in mid-2005, Purcell took the franchise to Telltale Games,
where it was developed into an episodic series of games. Very
little of the work done on 'Freelance Police' was carried over by
the developers to Telltale Games; LucasArts still held on to the
game's assets and Telltale was wary about using similar design
patterns. The new series debuted in October 2006 with 'Sam &
Max Save the World'.
Although 'Freelance Police' was never released, Stemmle later
reused its plot summary in the Telltale's 'Poker Night 2', where it
is described as an off-screen adventure Sam and Max have during the
course of the game. Based on Sam's dialogue, the game would have
involved dealing with giant penguins from the land of Subarctica
(renamed "Zyzobia" in 'Poker Night 2') who worshipped Max as their
god. Bill Farmer revealed in a 2014 interview that one of the
game's plot points included Sam and Max switching brains, with him
and Jameson likewise doing impressions of each other's character.
External links
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*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20030602212639/http://www.lucasarts.com/products/freelancepolice/
Official 'Sam & Max: Freelance Police' website], retrieved from
archived version of August 6, 2003
License
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Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_&_Max:_Freelance_Police
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