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Sam & Max: Freelance Police, a retrospective 04 May, 2011 / 16 comments

Remember how LucasArts teased us with Sam & Max: Freelance Police and rapidly made us go from ":-D" to ":-(" and then to ">:-("? Of course you do, and a crazy time it was.

With three seasons of Sam & Max now available from Telltale, it might be time to take a look at what could have been. Our ancient preview is once again available, as is our angry manifesto. The latter has been padded with some crazy hate-art from the gone but never (never!) forgotten Wibble-Wobble Hatstand.

One that might be a bit more obscure is our Freelance Police retrospective, now imaginatively (re-)titled " The Kinda, Sorta, But Not Really Secret History of Sam & Max: Freelance Police." In it we take a look at the history of the game, and show some of the test-animations from the game. Remember the Max butt-shave? If not, you should probably revisit it.

So yes, roll back in time, and think what could have been.

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16 Comments

  • Avatar
    ThunderPeel2001 on 25 Aug, 2011, 02:46…
    I think it's worth mentioning that over 40,000 people signed the petition, (which is more than the petition to get Seinfeld released on DVD had, if you want to put it into perspective). It was a big deal for a LOT of people.
  • Avatar
    syntheticgerbil on 25 May, 2011, 12:16…
    Great article! I like how well the timeline was laid out here. It would make an awesome addition to the Secret History stuff with more unreleased images and things embedded.

    Also, any chance on you guys getting interviews with some of the people who worked on this at some point? The interviews in the previous Secret History articles were all simply amazing. Is Freelance Police still sore for everyone or has left people afraid of LucasArts backlash for talking too much about it?
  • Avatar
    Diduz on 09 May, 2011, 17:58…
    Don't worry, I imagined that.
    Anyway, great story: I had missed two or three juicy screenshots.
  • Avatar
    Jason on 07 May, 2011, 01:03…

    Diduz

    I guess Brendan Ferguson isn't in Telltale staff any longer.



    He's gone, but now Derek Sakai is there!

    This retrospective is actually just the text for the old Freelance Police database entry, so there's definitely some outdated info in there. As the person who cobbled together the majority of this info, I don't know how well this really flows as an article, but it's still probably the most complete account of what was known about the game and makes for an interesting read. It's too bad the many hyperlinks were necessarily removed, since they mostly led to Mojo pages that no longer exsit. I think what we have of galleries for the game are definitely a necessary companion piece to this text: http://mixnmojo.com/media/gallerycategories/Sam-and-Max-Freelance-Police

    Also, if nothing else, re-reading this has made me want to play Armed and Dangerous again.
  • Avatar
    Remi on 06 May, 2011, 14:30…

    Jon N/A

    Finally! Thanks Zaarin! Thanks Gabez!
    (I'm the former Milkman08)



    No problem! -"Zaarin and Gabez" ¬
  • Avatar
    Diduz on 06 May, 2011, 13:33…
    I guess Brendan Ferguson isn't in Telltale staff any longer.
  • Avatar
    Jon N/A on 06 May, 2011, 10:54…
    Finally! Thanks Zaarin! Thanks Gabez!
    (I'm the former Milkman08)
  • Avatar
    Remi on 05 May, 2011, 16:39…
    All better now.
  • Avatar
    Kradath on 05 May, 2011, 07:33…
    Angry manefesto: Chatlog and another chatlog are the same :(
  • Avatar
    black_sheep on 04 May, 2011, 20:50…
    More on the story and some new unreleased screenshots and concept can be found here on unseen64

    Some of the new screenshots remind me of some scenes of the Devil's Playhouse

    Enjoy!
  • Avatar
    Remi on 04 May, 2011, 20:08…
    I don't think the dressing gown was the part that was too hot. ;
  • Avatar
    elTee on 04 May, 2011, 20:01…
    I see the picture of Remi in his dressing gown was too hot for the wayback machine :(
  • Avatar
    Gabez on 04 May, 2011, 19:01…
    Er... I have all of that on my hard drive on this computer right now. If I'd been asked I could have supplied them for the article. Maybe I'll upload the old WWHS some time. There was certainly a lot of hate art.
  • Avatar
    bgbennyboy on 04 May, 2011, 17:26…
    I have found some ;
    Back in the day I had an 'lec hate' easter egg in one of my launcher programs - typing in 'save sam and max' or something would change all the images to 'lec-hate' ones. Truly, I was sticking it to the man.

    I have ripped these from the old resource file. The gold-man goatse is now saved for posterity.
  • Avatar
    Zaarin on 04 May, 2011, 17:19…
    They were harvested from the WWHS mirror at The Wayback Machine. Unfortunately, several of the images weren't there. If anyone has a complete copy, it'd be a welcome addition. ;
  • Avatar
    bgbennyboy on 04 May, 2011, 17:16…
    Retro-tastic. I forgot about the LEC haiku, good old Gabez.

    I wonder if anyone still has any of the LEC hate-images? I certainly remember the gold-guy goatse one.

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