XBLA gets Sam & Max and Axel & Pixel

Downloadable game service gets adventurous with second season of Telltale's freelance police and Silver Wish Games' artistic point-and-clicker.

The spirit of adventure is alive and well. After years of neglect, the adventure genre has been showing plentiful signs of life, from LucasArts' revamp and rerelease of the Secret of Monkey Island to next year's hotly anticipated PlayStation 3-exclusive Heavy Rain.

As evidenced by the Torture Me Elmer doll here, Sam & Max has an "off kilter" sense of humor.

The genre is getting an extra boost with this week's Xbox Live Arcade updates, as both of the new titles on Microsoft's downloadable game service--Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space and Axel & Pixel--are traditional adventure games.

Axel & Pixel marks 2K Play's first foray onto the Xbox Live Marketplace. The game follows a painter and his dog as they try to escape from a surreal, hand-drawn dreamworld. Silver Wish's previous work includes the 2004 PC and Xbox flight combat game Wings of War. Axel & Pixel is now available for 800 Microsoft points ($10).

As the other featured Live Arcade release of the week, Beyond Time and Space compiles the second season of Telltale's episodic adventure series featuring the canine-lagomorph detective duo. Over the course of the game's five separate cases, players journey from the North Pole to outer space to hell and back, wacky antics ensuing at every turn. Beyond Time and Space is available for 1,600 Microsoft points ($20). For more on the game, check out GameSpot's review of Sam & Max: Season Two.

8 Comments

  • Rottenwood

    Posted Oct 15, 2009 10:59 am PT

    Sam and Max Season 2 is a no-brainer if you enjoy well-written adventure games with a warped sensibility. After dealing with the rudimentary scripts of most modern video games, a round of Sam and Max is like an oasis in a desert.

  • TheArcade

    Posted Oct 15, 2009 8:16 am PT

    Lionhart_basic wrote:

    Wish MS would release more xbox originals and release some Dreamcast & Saturn games for XBLA. That would be awesome.

    I think you can still buy those systems on Ebay/Amazon. I'd prefer Microsoft port Arcade games that are harder to get. Like the Simpsons, Final Fight, X-Men, Battletoads and the original version of Turtles In Time. Now buying cabintes for THOSE are out of the question. Unless you're rich, which is why I wish MS would just port atleast one of those to XBLA. They did Turtles In Time but it was a remake, I prefer the 2D game.

  • magicalclick

    Posted Oct 14, 2009 8:11 pm PT

    Hope they have special package to all current season down the road. I am a cheapskate hehe. Love Max, he looks strangely cute.

  • 10below

    Posted Oct 14, 2009 5:21 pm PT

    looks kinda cool.

  • brian_13un

    Posted Oct 14, 2009 5:12 pm PT

    That's Great ^_^

  • frogiggy323

    Posted Oct 14, 2009 3:42 pm PT

    The 2nd season of Sam and Max is so much better than the first, which coincidentally still rocked... You just can't lose with these guys!!!

  • Lionhart_basic

    Posted Oct 14, 2009 3:26 pm PT

    Wish MS would release more xbox originals and release some Dreamcast & Saturn games for XBLA. That would be awesome.

  • Ashmasaki

    Posted Oct 14, 2009 2:37 pm PT

    Sweet! Totally gonna get the second season of Sam & Max. Gonna have to wait till I get some more cash though. Between Brutal Legend, Borderlands, and other games to come this year I'm already pretty much broke.

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