After almost a year of teasing gamers around the world, it seems that the fan support has clearly paid off since Telltale Games has at long last confirmed that it will be bringing its immensely popular Sam & Max: Season One to Wii later in 2008.

Despite Telltale Games talking several times about how it prefers to go down the route of episodic content, as illustrated with its Sam & Max games released on the PC so far, obviously the strong performance of recent release ‘CSI: Hard Evidence’ from Ubisoft has given the company the nudge required to turn out its adventure series on Wii as a full retail release instead.

All the comments from the developer have pointed to Sam & Max eventually coming to Wii at some point, but it is only now that Gamespot has been allowed to break the official story. However, JoWood Productions actually released a Press Release piece a month or so ago confirming the project, so we all knew about its existence in Europe at least, anyway.

As Gamespot states:

“Telltale Games is hoping to stoke the Sam and Max resurgence even further. Today, the developer confirmed for GameSpot long-standing rumours that it would be bringing its episodic series to consoles, and specifically to the Nintendo Wii. The canine-lagomorph combo’s début on Nintendo’s console will come in the form of a port of the PC first-season compilation, from pilot episode “Culture Shock” through to “Bright Side of the Moon.” Telltale representatives said the game’s release on the Wii is due in large part to fan demand, in particular an e-mail campaign launched prior to the début of the Sam & Max episodic series on the PC. Rumours and speculation of a Wii port helped spark publisher interest in bringing the series to Nintendo’s platform.”

It seems that as part of a continuing effort to extend episodic gaming to new audiences and platforms, Telltale is officially announcing that Sam & Max Season One to Wii. This collection of the first six Sam & Max episodes will introduce a brand new audience to the popular and critically-acclaimed game series. Sam & Max’s journey to the Wii console has been fuelled by fan excitement. Continuous rumors and rampant speculation online is what led to developer and publisher enthusiasm for the title. With Telltale now focusing on console development in addition to PC, the company can finally bring Sam & Max to Wii in response to this overwhelming demand, thankfully! The Sam & Max episodes let players guide the Freelance Police through a series of bizarre—and often sidesplitting—mysteries. Sam & Max Season One has already experienced enormous success, both as an episodic series available for download through Telltale’s website and other services, as well as at retail. Honors include Adventure Game of the Year from GameSpy and IGN, and inclusion on Games for Windows’ list of Top 10 Games in 2007.

It is quite apparent from other point and click games like Capcom’s Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure that the Wii console is a perfect fit for the Sam & Max games. The series’ story-driven gameplay and episodic structure has often been favourably compared to TV sitcoms. The new Wii version will present Sam & Max in a format that can be enjoyed from the comfort of the living room, either alone or with a group of friends—a setting perfectly suited for this kind of experience. The game’s easy-to-use interface is ideal for a broad consumer audience.

Sam & Max: Season One is due to be published over in North America by Dreamcatcher and The Adventure Company, just as with Agatha Christie’s And Then There None on Wii, whilst over in Europe it is none other than JoWood Productions, as per the original Press Release for a couple of months back. For Europe there will be added French and German voice-overs, as well as Italian and Spanish subtitles. Gamers can expect to get their hands on this tasty Wii project in the Autumn time in both territories.

“Sam & Max first hit the indie comic scene in 1987, courtesy of franchise creator Steve Purcell. In the twenty years since, they have appeared in an animated TV series, an Eisner-winning webcomic, and numerous video games. The success of the Sam & Max episodic series has fuelled a renaissance for the franchise. Telltale recently released a special 20th Anniversary Edition of the complete Sam & Max comic collection, Surfin’ the Highway, after nearly a decade out of print, and a DVD box set of the 1997 animated series has just been published by Shout Factory. Both are available in Telltale’s online store, along with other Sam & Max merchandise.”

For those unaware of the details surrounding Season One, below is a synopsis of the storyline and information on the characters themselves, courtesy of Wikipedia and the official Press Release:

“Sam is a six-foot dog in a baggy suit sporting a trombone-sized .44 hand-cannon. Max is a three foot “rabbity thing” with a saw blade grin and the impulsive nature of the average piranha. Together they patrol the sticky streets of a fantastical New York City, righting wrongs, pummeling perps, and ridding the urban landscape of the shifty legions of “self-propelled gutter trash” that litter their streets. Sam & Max have appeared in comics, video games, an animated TV series coming soon to DVD, and an Eisner award-winning webcomic.

“The overarching theme of this season is hypnosis. In Culture Shock, Brady Culture is hypnotising the Soda Poppers. In Situation: Comedy, Myra has been hypnotised by the villains of episode 3, the Toy Mafia. And in episode 4, it seems that the Toy Mafia was merely one piece of an overarching plot by someone who has infiltrated the U.S. Government. This “person” is revealed in episode 5 to be The Internet itself who, it seems, was only a puppet of the true mastermind - Hugh Bliss, who has been attempting to hypnotise the entire world into becoming followers of the Prismatology cult. The cult itself being a parody of Scientology, with Prismatology primary theology based on Emetics a parody of Dianetics. In episode 6, the last episode of Season One, Sam and Max confront Hugh Bliss himself, who happens to actually be a colony of bacteria that feeds on “true bliss”.”

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