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Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse: Episode 3, They Stole Max's Brain!
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Graphics & Sound:
Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse: Episode 3, They Stole Max's Brain! takes the series in a slightly different direction, especially since Max himself isn't in the game too much... on account of his brain being removed and all.
While the game generally looks and feels the same as the rest of the season, there is a darker tone to everything. I think a lot of that has to do with Sam's noir nature really coming out, especially during the first act - a lengthy interrogation sequence. This change is really brought on by a lot of subtle differences. Not only is the lighting in the game a lot dimmer than normal, but little elements like Sam running around without his suit jacket on, and having his shoulder holster out for everyone to see, adds to this feel.
Audio is, like always, top notch. I especially liked the new characters like the giant cockroach security guard, Stan, and the revived pharaoh who will become your partner for most of this episode. Of course, characters like General Skun-ka'pe and Papier Waite make a return this episode, so their comedic supervillainy lines return as well.
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Gameplay:
Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse: Episode 3, They Stole Max's Brain! starts off right where The Tomb of Sammun-Mak ended, with Sam walking up to a brainless-Max. When our hero walks up to the shelled-out body, he goes into a fury and kicks off a new mechanic for the series, interrogation.
The entire first act of the game has Sam driving between three people positioned across the city trying to get just the right information out of them. These interrogations involve interrupting the suspect's statements at just the right time with either a threat (usually Sam's gun), another question or simply calling him a liar. While this new mechanic was a complete surprise to me, it was really done well. Basically, Act I is a massive dialogue between you and three or four other characters. There is no point where you can save the game, and you are forced to go through it all at once. At first, I was a little put off by not being able to stop the game while Sam was driving between the locations, but in the end, this detail really helped the feel of the act as it made the need to find the culprit much more urgent and dire.
The game then takes you into a museum where you know Max's brain has been brought. When Sam carries his buddy's body into the "Museum of Mostly Natural History," the game really kicks off. While Max won't be at Sam's side, our freelance police officer quickly finds another brain to control Max's body, and lucky for Sam, this new character has "The Gift" as well, so just because Max is down for the count, doesn't mean you won't have the same psychic powers you did before.
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Difficulty:
I found Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse: Episode 3, They Stole Max's Brain! to be much more straightforward and fluid than the previous title. While Sammun-Mak required a lot of back-and-forth time between the different film reels, They Stole Max's Brain! presented its puzzles pretty clearly, and the solutions were never too far away. Another good point is that I never really felt like I didn't know what I was supposed to do next since standard adventure gaming procedures, like clicking on everything and going through all of the dialogue options, seemed to always present just the right direction to move.
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Game Mechanics:
Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse: Episode 3, They Stole Max's Brain!'s new feature, interrogations, is well worth going into more detail about.
As I mentioned above, this is where you will run between different characters in an attempt to catch them in their lies. The three characters you will pump for information are Frankie the Rat, one of General Skun-ka'pe's goons, and a tourist who seems to be trying to find a museum. This sequence starts off by you going to one of the characters and squeezing a bit of information out of them. From there, you go to another character and use that information to get him to talk. Invariably, this requires you go talk to the third character. The whole sequence will take a few trips between the three locations since one slipping up reveals another's lie. The trick is learning which characters slip up based on which stimulus (threats, interruptions or simply being called out on a lie) and exactly when you should interrupt them. In the end, you learn of a back-alley fight over Max's brain that leads you to the museum. This was really a fun mechanic, and Sam's aggressive nature really comes out as he is hell-bent on finding the person that robbed his buddy of his brain.
While I enjoyed the first two games of the season a lot, Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse: Episode 3, They Stole Max's Brain! surpasses them both. Even though you do get a bit of a recap by the game's narrator at the beginning of the episode, it is best to have played the rest of the season before starting They Stole Max's Brain!, mainly to understand why Skun-ka'pe and Papier Waite dislike the freelance police so much.
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-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer |
Minimum System Requirements:
Windows XP/Vista/7, 2.0 GHz Processor, 1 GB RAM, DirectX 8.1 Sound Card, 128MB DirectX 8.1 compliant video card, DirectX 9.0c or better |
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Test System:
Windows 7 Ultimate, Intel i7 X980 3.33GHz, 12 GB RAM, Radeon HD 5870 Graphics Card, DirectX 9.0c |
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