first Sam & Max game, Sam & Max Hit the Road, was one of the first games to feature a fully scored music soundtrack, written by LucasArts' composers Clint Bajakian, Michael Land and Peter McConnell. The music was incorporated into the game using Land and McConnell's iMUSE engine, which allowed for audio to be synchronized with the visuals. Although the full soundtrack was never released, audio renders of four of the game's MIDI tracks were included on the CD version of the game. For Sam & Max Save the World, Beyond Time and Space, and The Devil's Playhouse, Telltale Games contracted composer Jared Emerson-Johnson, a musician whose previous work included composition and sound editing for LucasArts, to write the scores. The soundtracks for the first two games were released in two disc sets after the release of the games themselves; the Season One Soundtrack was published in July 2007, whilst the Season Two Soundtrack was released in September 2008. Emerson-Johnson's scores use live performances as opposed to synthesized music often used elsewhere in the video game industry. Critics reacted positively to Emerson-Johnson's scores, IGN described Emerson-Johnson's work as a "breath of fresh air", while 1UP.com praised his work as "top-caliber" and Music4Games stated that the "whimsical nature of [the classical jazz approach] is well suited to the Sam & Max universe, which approaches American popular culture with a level of irreverence". Purcell later commented that Emerson-Johnson had seamlessly blended a "huge palette of genres and styles", whilst in September 2008, Brendan Q. Ferguson, one of the lead designers on Save the World and Beyond Time and Space, said that he believed that it was Emerson-Johnson's scores that created the vital atmosphere in the games, noting that prior to the implementation of the soundtracks, playing the games was an "unrelenting horror". Cultural impact and reception The Sam & Max franchise has been highly successful critically, and is considered an iconic and influential aspect of the video game industry in the 1990s and the adventure game genre. In 2007, Steve Purcell wrote that he was somewhat surprised at the success of his creation, noting that the series had gained a large fan gathering despite the small size of the franchise. As the series contains only a small amount of comics, video games and a short TV series, Purcell commented that there was "certainly not enough material to build that relentless traction of