Season Two of Sam & Max just keeps thundering on – the first episode was an absolute blast, the second was short disjointed and brilliant, and the laughs and crazy fun continue in the third episode. Sam & Max saved the world from destruction once again in the previous episode, so what is up this time? An evil villain bent on taking over the world, of course. In one of the most hilarious episodes yet, watch Sam & Max travel to uncharted territory as they face the Night of the Raving Dead!

Once again this season I will assume that if you are reading this review of Season Two of the Sam & Max series that you already have some passing knowledge of the episodes from the previous season. I still won’t pull a ‘Vader is Luke’s father’ moment that some people who hadn’t seen Empire before Jedi trailers started airing experienced (sorry if I just shocked you and welcome to 1980!), but I will likely drop some names and recurring themes and other minor references throughout. It won’t ruin the experience any more than my having said that Bosco would become a recurring character would have ruined the first episode for you. Please also forgive the repetition, which is necessary for getting readers who are new to the series up to speed – if you’ve read it all before then skip straight to the game quote further down!

For the full history of Sam & Max, check out our review of Season One: Episode 1 – but in a nutshell, the LucasArts game Sam & Max Hit the Road from 1993 was a great mixture of adventure and humor, and has become a deservedly classic milestone in gaming history. After a false start for a series revival by LucasArts and a passionate Internet campaign by the fans, TellTale Games (creators of the excellent Bone series) gained ownership of the license and got straight to work, crafting a series using their adventure builder to tell stories through a point-and-click adventure interface featuring full 3D animation. The move to episodic content was a concern, but true to their word TellTale continue to release new episodes on a regular basis, and in some ways it’s better to be forced to spread the experience out rather than wolf it down in one go.

The Sam & Max games use the TellTale tool that the company has developed and perfected over the years. Season Two looks very similar to the first season – perhaps a bit better as the artists have further refined their work processes, but everything looks quite familiar and you’ll immediately at home. The emphasis is on storytelling rather than delivering buzzword compliant technology, so expect loads of dialog and options, rather than the latest version of pixel shader models. This is actually a good thing, because so many games focus on delivering a great looking experience that they fail to deliver a great gaming experience. The TellTale Tool aims to do some of both – the game certainly is great looking, but in a 3D comic book style. This means that the world looks much like something out of Who Framed Roger Rabbit; everything looks real but exaggerated. The 3D styling makes everything look modern and the characters are all nicely animated, to the point where lip-syncing matched the dialog. The goal isn’t realism so much as believability – I mean, how real do you expect a detective dog and his psychotic lagomorph sidekick to be?! The realism is injected into the dialog – the voice acting is superb and gets better with each passing episode! The voice actors really bring a wonderful passion and humor to their characters that makes each of them leap out of the screen and adds tremendous depth to already great stories – and the timing and delivery of the humor is spot on throughout.

The storytelling is where things really shine – the interface just begs you to click things, talk to people and try all sorts of crazy things. Quite simply, this is one of the nicest interfaces I have ever used in an adventure game. Everything is easily accessible – options and game saves are quickly located in a screen-level drop down and the inventory system is an ever-present box in the lower corner of the screen. Little things help – saves are done nearly instantly, with each one providing a clear caption and image to illustrate exactly where you were when you saved. Interacting with items is equally easy; the mouse-capture range is adequate for discerning small objects close to each other and you simply click on things to interact. This allows you to talk, flip switches, pick up items and so on – and to use an item in your inventory on another item by simply choosing the item from the box and then clicking on the desired object to interact with. It is incredibly intuitive and friendly – and allows you to focus on laughing!

“Zombies are why we can’t have nice things”

Many fans of the Sam & Max games were somewhat disappointed by Moai Better Blues because it was short and had a limited set of scenes and situations. The humor and writing were excellent, but the disjointed nature of the plot only served to make it seem even shorter than it actually was. Episode 203: Night of the Raving Dead is not an episode that anyone will be complaining about: the plot is rich and feels quite long compared to some of the others in the series, the writing continues to be superb, and the jokes hit hard more often than not, making this episode one of the absolute best of the series.

Some of the situations you will encounter in this episode: a Emo Eurotrash vampire who is tragically misunderstood and wants to rule the world; Sybil is now looking for the man of her dreams after problems on Easter Island; you will meet up with Flint Paper again, as well as seeing Bosco and Agent Superball. There are zombies and German castles and bad performance art and more – as well as hilarious references to Young Frankenstein, Resident Evil, the old Sam & Max game, Al Gore, and countless others. The same familiar characters and places are there, but the developers have stretched out even more in this episode. Not only do they take you outside of the country and beyond the grave, but they plant ideas about some characters we already wondered about such as Stinky and Bosco. It is this ability to stretch the characters out even further and add more depth while also piling on the jokes that makes this series so much fun.

After nine episodes and nearly a year and a half, this stuff hasn’t begun to feel old or tired. Telltale demonstrated again and again that episodic gaming really is a concept that can work – and as a result they have delivered some of the best gaming experiences of the last two years. Technically the second season games feature some richer graphics and more interactive environments, at the cost of not always performing as well on lower-end systems. The series is far from being a resource hog, but if you could barely run Season One you might have troubles with Season Two. But give it a try – there are demos available for every episode so there is no excuse not to experience the best and funniest writing in all of gaming.

Score: 5 / 5 Stars

Tags: Game Reviews