Sam Suede in Undercover Exposure - PC Game Previews


	Platform PC, Next-Gen Consoles Genre Action Comedy Publisher iBase Entertainment Developer iBase Entertainment ETA 2007
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Sam Suede in Undercover Exposure

Some of the best nuggets to come out of E3 were ones that I was completely unaware of. During the show, I read AE’s news section to see that Al Lowe had (finally) come back to gaming with Sam Suede in Undercover Exposure. Could comedy be coming back to gaming? With the announcement of Sam Suede and a new Sam & Max around the corner, all indications point enthusiastically to “Maybe!”

iBase Entertainment and Al Lowe have placed Sam Suede in the “action comedy” genre. What that actually means is open to interpretation. When I think of a film labeled as an action comedy I usually think of Jackie Chan flipping, kicking, and generally putting himself in harms way for a laugh and shear entertainment. Sam Suede’s brand of action comedy seems to be of the wedgie variety – but that shouldn’t come as a surprise to fans of Al Lowe’s body of work. (Does anyone else remember the flatulent horses from Freddy Pharkus Frontier Pharmacist?)

Besides Winnie the Pooh and The Black Cauldron, Al Lowe may be best known for the sleazy, yet clueless Larry Laffer, better known as Leisure Suit Larry. As Larry it was always the goal to “get to know” a variety of pretty ladies in a cornucopia of exotic locations and in bawdy situations. The humor ranged from outright gross to subtle double-entendres, with some bodily functions thrown in for good measure. If you checked your brain at the door – or the silly age verification systems – Larry games could be enjoyed. (I am not counting the lackluster Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude, which Al Lowe goes to great length to explain on his website he had absolutely nothing to do with.)

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Though the action comedy is an untested genre, Al Lowe should be in his element. Not only does Undercover Exposure “takes place in a sunny, tropical vacation paradise populated by outrageous human beings” where detective wannabe, Sam Suede “learns new skills from beautiful women.” More than half of the Larry games involved a visit to a tropical island and more often than not the beautiful women provided some kind of vital inventory item so the story could progress.

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It should be noted that Undercover Exposure has no inventory system, which is actually a hard concept for me to wrap my head around. The game may not be an adventure game in the purest sense of the word, but even first-person shooters feature some kind of inventory.

I’m thinking that Undercover Exposure will be heavy on the conversation. As iBase indicates, “You must choose your conversation from a list of topics, single words, and short phrases.” Sight gags are always good for a chuckle, but the most powerful laughs have always been delivered by the spoken word. Take the Naked Gun or Airplane movies, though there’s plenty of sight gags, the funniest moments come from characters talking to each other or making side comments. That’s not to say there’s no place for sight gags – remember the inflatable autopilot in Airplane? – but a solid delivery on a spoken joke still scores more points in my book.

How well Undercover Exposure mixes humor, “action, stealth, puzzles, platforming, a little titillation” remains to be seen. Al Lowe may be an industry veteran but iBase is an untested company -- co-founder Ken Wegrzyn who has worked on many reference titles and scholastic-type programs -- and with a "less forgiving" gaming public that seems to shun innovation or anything even a little different, like Psychonauts, the odds are against Undercover Exposure gaining any kind of substantial audience. Even with that in mind I can honestly say I’m looking forward to seeing how Sam Suede in Undercover Exposure turns out when it ships sometime next year. I hope it's successful -- we all need a laugh.

More information when we have it.

- Omni

(July 13, 2006)