In an industry full of cheap tie-in games that leech off big brand names, Sam & Max -- a parody of hard-boiled detective stories that stars a homicidal rabbit and a floppy-eared dog -- has accomplished the opposite: The quality of the game has revived interest in the long-dead original comics.
Steve Purcell's characters, with their "convoluted, tortured dialogue," first were published in a comic strip in his college newspaper in 1980. Sam & Max quickly grew into a graphic novel, a successful LucasArts videogame -- 1993's Sam & Max Hit the Road is considered one of the all-time classics of the adventure genre -- and a short-lived animated TV series on Fox Kids.
Now, in a revival that bucks the trend of high-budget blockbuster titles like Halo 3, a new line of simple-but-addictive Sam & Max PC games delivered in a unique way is winning fans and sparking fresh interest in the comics that spawned the franchise. And the game's success is catching: The graphic novel is being reprinted and the TV show is headed for DVD.
From Xfire: "Bunnies are often depicted in media and popular culture as small, fluffy, adorable little buck-toothed bundles of cuteness, so far as deifying a rabbit and incorporating it into Easter traditions, somehow associating the mammal with colourful eggs and the consumption of unhealthy quantities of chocolate effigies made in its image. However, not all lagomorphs are love and cuddles - as Australia would be happy to tell you - and in video games, more often than not rabbits will be psychopathic murderers.
Since the brief season in which the ritualistic worship of a paranormal rabbit is socially acceptable is upon us, let's take a look, in no particular order, at the best and baddest hares in video games who could send the Easter Bunny packing."
How is Fran from Final Fantasy XII missing? ;-) She is the most badass Rabbit ever been in a video game!
I would add a couple honorable mentions. Vibri from Vib Ribbon and Robbit from Jumping Flash.
Bucky O'Hare says hello even though he only had one game.
On this week's episode of Second Opinion, HPP's I Coleman says that Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse is better than Grim Fandango. He says some other stuff, too, but that's all anybody's gonna remember.
Player 2 looks at some left of field movies that would make perfect video game translations in the right hands.
