Abe Lincoln Must Die!

Infobox VG
title = Sam & Max: Abe Lincoln Must Die!


caption = The GameTap title card for "Abe Lincoln Must Die!"
developer = Telltale Games
publisher = Telltale Games GameTap
distributor =
designer = Brendan Q. Ferguson David Grossman Chuck Jordan Steve Purcell
engine =
version =
released = Vgrelease|USA|February 22, 2007 (GameTap) March 9, 2007 (Online)
genre = Adventure
modes = Single player
ratings = ESRB: Teen
platforms = Microsoft Windows
media = Download
requirements = 800 MHz processor, 256 MB of RAM, 3D card with 32MB of RAM.
input = Keyboard, mouse

"Abe Lincoln Must Die!" is the fourth episode of season one of the Sam & Max computer game series, and was released as a freeware.

ynopsis

The President's lost it. Federally mandated group hugs, a pudding embargo... what's next, gun control? Sam & Max are off to Washington to take care of this bozo, but the political climate will only get stormier... and a new power will rise...

Infiltration on the White House

The game opens as the Commissioner sends Sam & Max on a trip to the White House to deal with the President, who's gone insane. After gaining access, they are mistaken by the President for interpreters. They talk to the President, and discover he has been hypnotized. Shortly thereafter they are kicked out, but on re-entry, find Whizzer there, ready to talk to the President about soda abuse. But the President is so stupid, he needs an interpreter even though Whizzer is speaking English. Sam & Max successfully trick Whizzer into drinking a soda (he'd gone without for a month, as a result of his stand on soda abuse), and he needs to go to the bathroom. He is tricked into being sent to the War Room, which is forbidden to enter. So he is taken outside by the Secret Service, leaving the President unguarded. They attempt to knock him out to bring him out of his hypnosis, only to discover he was a puppet designed to hypnotize people, rather than be hypnotized. Chuckles, the secret service agent, "rolls the timeline forward."

Max for President

What this means is that to replace the dead "President", a statue of Abraham Lincoln is running for office. After another call from the Commissioner, it is determined that Max must run for office against him. By tricking the statue of Abe into making unpopular statements, and faking a love scandal involving Sybil Pandemik, Max manages to become President of the United States. Upon hearing this, the statue of Abe goes insane, and starts rampaging around Washington. It is now the job of Sam and Max to stop Abraham Lincoln at all costs.

War against Abe

They return to Sybil's office to discover that she has been financially ruined, and her only hope is to run a carbon dating service by means of an automatic carbon-dating gun. She gets a reading on a tiki in her office, determining that it is 2000 years old. As such, it gets placed on the national register of historic places. Max, as president, then allocates 100 million dollars in grant money to her. Returning to her office, they take the gun and use it on Bosco's hot dogs. They too seem to be ancient, and after allocating him grant money as well, they buy his truth serum (actually a bottle of vodka).

Back in the White House, they become embroiled in an argument with the Three Soda Poppers, who each managed to become a governor. One of South Dakota, one of North Dakota, and one of West Dakota (newly formed). They get in a huge argument, however, about who gets claim to Mount Rushmore. By manipulating Whizzer into drinking the truth serum, they end up starting a war between the Dakotas. This prompts Agent Superball (or another Secret Service agent as they seem to look alike) to perform a cabaret-style dance routine about the beauty of war.

But in the War Room, they discover that although they can easily annihilate everything with ICBMs (the Washington Monument is actually an ICBM), they need a homing beacon. They take one from Bosco's Inconvenience and stick it to the rampaging Abraham Lincoln. Using a ICBM on him, they save the day. But ominously, as the camera fades, we discover that Chuckles is reporting to a power even higher yet...

Awards

It tied with "" for "Game of the Month" at Game Tunnel's "March Indie Game roundup". Also won a Gold Award. [http://www.gametunnel.com/articles.php?id=595]

Cultural references

*At the start of the episode, Sam comments that "here we are, standing in an open field west of the White House", which is a reference to the opening sentence of "Zork". A mailbox is present, and if clicked, Max will say, "There is a small mailbox here", another classic "Zork" reference.
*The president during the first part of the episode bears a resemblance to George W. Bush (and also, Howdy Doody). In the episode's commentary tracks, the designers reveal that he was intended to be a combination of many modern U.S. presidents, specifically mentioning Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Jimmy Carter.
*One of the cue cards in the Oval Office has a line on it that anyone familiar with the Bill Clinton scandal will recognize. This allusion is later repeated when Abe exclaims, "I did not arrange a date with that woman!" Also featured is George H.W. Bush's 1000 Points of Light
*In the War Room, one of the places you can launch a missile at is Krypton, which is the home planet of Superman. Unfortunately though, since Krypton is roughly 26 million light years away from Earth in the comics, the targeting computer says that the missile will arrive in 26 million years.
*In the newsstand next to Bosco's, there is a headline that reads "Purcell attacked by two headed monkey", which may be a reference to the three-headed monkey joke from "Monkey Island" by LucasArts (who made "Sam & Max Hit the Road"), or the two headed squirrel seen in another LucasArts game, "Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders" and Purcell himself who is the creator of "Sam & Max".
*One of the soda poppers / governors says "Of course you realize that mean war!" which is the famous catch phrase of Bugs Bunny.
*When completing the game, a link to http://www.maxforpresident.org can be found at the end of the credits.

External links

* [http://www.telltalegames.com/samandmax Telltale's "Sam & Max" website]
*moby game|id=/sam-max-episode-4-abe-lincoln-must-die