Sam and Max: This Time It’s Virtual! Review VR

A throwback to a classic franchise with exciting VR twists

 Amanda BlainPosted:July 8, 2021
Updated: August 12, 2022

Let’s get started on this Sam and Max: This Time It’s Virtual! Review.

What is Sam and Max: This Time It’s Virtual!?

Sam and Max: This Time It’s Virtual! Is an Action-Adventure VR game. You will join Sam and Max as their newest police cadet, and solve classic adventure, point and click puzzles(but in 1st person VR), and play carnival-style mini-games utilizing VR to its fullest potential.

Who Makes Sam and Max: This Time It’s Virtual!?

Sam and Max: This Time It’s Virtual! is developed by HappyGiant. They have a history of various AR games like Hologrid Monster Battle.

This Dog and “Hyperkinetic Rabbity Thing” police duo has a long history in video games and comics going all the way back to 1987. They were made into the classic video game, Sam & Max Hit the Road, by Lucas Arts in 1993 and various Telltale games starting in 2006. With Sam and Max coming to VR, much like Puzzle Bobble VR, this is a franchise that has a many-generation video game history.

Which VR Headsets are Sam and Max: This Time It’s Virtual! Available On?

Sam and Max: This Time It’s Virtual! is initially launching on Oculus Quest 2. It will later be available on Steam VR, Viveport, PlayStationVR.

Sam and Max VR Gameplay Review

Sam and Max VR is a blast from the past. These guys have been around a long time and seeing them come to VR when they started with the likes of Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island is really something else. Although to be fair, they did spoof VR in Sam and Max Hit the Road in 1993. 😀

Sam & Max VR is played entirely from a first-person perspective.  You live and breathe this cartoon world universe and really feel like you are a character in the actual story.

The entire experience is pretty much exactly like an old-school point-and-click adventure game except, there is no inventory system. You will use your controller hands to pick up objects. At times, Sam and Max feels very similar to Job Simulator, but you move around. You solve puzzles by doing things in a certain order, with the objects in the area you are in.

There is a fair share of shooting targets in this game as well. With rocket launchers, water guns, and lasers of course. Most importantly, the game does not end there.

There are also many different mini games.  These range from the typical carnival Strongman game (where you hit the bell up to the top) to various types of obstacle courses that require you to climb across monkey bars, shoot balloons with darts, scale rock walls, or play basketball with hand grenades. I mean this is Sam and Max after all so things are going to be a little weird.

In between the sections of mini-games, you will be tasked with the main storyline and puzzle-solving. These puzzles generally won’t be too difficult but (as any Adventure Game Fan knows) will require you to walk around to determine exactly where the limited objects you can interact with fit into the puzzles in front of you.

The voice acting is great. The dialog is witty, well done, and had me regularly laughing out loud at things. They brought in the creators of the original comic and members of LucasArts to create a world that very much feels like a time long passed. Very well done. 

Sam and Max VR Settings

When you start the game they give you a few choices for settings including teleportation movement, snap turning and walking, and playing sitting or standing.  There is also a subtitle option. You can also choose the color of your hands which is cute.

I played the majority of this game in the seated position, with analog movement and although I normally play games with subtitles on I felt they were very distracting in this one and kept them off. This brings me to the next very important point…

Some Bugs and Glitches

Sam & Max VR in its current state(pre-release) has a lot of bugs, some of which are game-breaking, and some are just annoying.

Game breaking bug

At one point you will make it into an escape room and you will need to figure out how to escape with the objects in the room. On my first playthrough, I spent a good amount of time in this room and was unable to get any further so I called it a night. The game doesn’t require any saving you just restart the most recent chapter you are in.

The next day when I reloaded the game as I entered the room this time things looked different.  There was a toolbox and a lunch box that previously were not visible in the last room.  They just didn’t spawn there the first time I played. This time, no problem, they were on the shelf.

You need the objects to get out of the escape room, but you won’t even know they are missing. Without these items being visible you cannot proceed any further in the game so that’s pretty disappointing.  A reload fixed it for me but will others know the items are missing?

Some Annoying Bugs

As mentioned, I was playing with the seated option. Climbing up a ladder is nearly impossible once you get to the top when playing seated. The game does not allow you to climb over the top part of the ladder to get to the next flat surface so you have to kind of grab and reach and stretch and unfortunately, more than likely you will fall down.

This is pretty annoying when you just climbed up 50 rungs of a ladder to get to the top only to fall because the game won’t allow you to stand on the next platform.  Eventually, in frustration, I tried climbing with the standing option, and then the top of the ladders was no problem.

I played with the analog walking movement for most of the game.  It wasn’t until one of the final chapters where there are floating platforms that it became clear that walking movement was not the preferred choice for the game designers. There was one floating island level you could use to get to higher areas but teleportation onto the tiered levels was a significantly easier option as there is no jump button.  I also got behind a portal while walking and couldn’t get out without teleportation.  Mix in the ladders in this area and again it was another pretty frustrating part of the game.

The final chapter also randomly had subtitles reappear that I couldn’t turn off.

I did find all this a little bleh as walking, sitting and subtitles were core options built into the front of the game but it was pretty clear on playing that some of these methods were not fully playtested. I hope they release a patch soon.