Negative Gamer Review: Sam & Max Episode 301: The Penal Zone (PC)

Sam and Max have made a comeback that no one could’ve expected. Over the past years the duo have been part of two seasons of well-received episodic point-and-click adventuring. These games have helped create a resurgence of adventure-game goodness, with the Tales from Monkey Island series, the Wallace and Grommit games, and Strong Bad’s Cool Game For Attractive People, all made by Telltale Games. So you’d think I’d be excited about receiving a review copy from Telltale for their upcoming Sam and Max season, The Devil’s Playground.

I kinda sorta was excited. While I never had a PC in my formative years, and thus had no experiences with the earlier games, I did watch the Sam and Max cartoon show religiously. From that I had a desire to play the new Sam and Max adventures when they first came out, and have downloaded a few in the past. While not my cup of tea, I had a bit of fun with them. Now Telltale Games has released the first episode of Season 3, The Penal Zone, for PC and Mac, and I cannot wait until I get my hands on the next episode of this series.

On The Road Yet Again

Having little-to-no knowledge of the storyline before this game (except for bits and pieces picked up by playing two previous episodes), I came into this one cold. That wasn’t a problem at all, as the game immediately drops into the action. The game begins with our anthropomorphic detectives locked in a cage on General Skun’ka-pe’s alien craft while he’s destroying half of New York. He’s escaped from The Penal Zone, an intergalactic prison dimension, in order to regain mystical, psychic energy-infused toys to help him control the universe. These psychic elements are the basis of the game, in story and in gameplay.

Strangely, Max has gained the power to control these psychic-enhanced toys, like a plastic toy phone and a viewfinder, to teleport and predict the future (respectively). These two toys are the most important in this episode; the phone can warp Max (and, for some reason, Sam) to any location, as long as you know that location’s phone number. The viewfinder can be used on objects and people to see a short cutscene of that thing/person’s future. Along with your basic tools of the trade (Sam’s trusty revolver) and items you pick up around you (everything from jumper cables to an ancient computer scanner), these toys are your main sources for figuring out how to progress the story.

My favorite part of using these toys is that bringing them up puts you in the head of Max. In a first-person view, you see what Max sees, which gives you more insight into his insanity. All around you’ll catch glimpses of ethereal apparitions of chickens, toast, saws, forks, beach balls, and other random nonsense just floating around, even though it’s not actually there. Even stranger, the stage music becomes oddly distorted, speeding up and slowing down at random intervals. Almost like you’re looking through the eyes of an insane talking rabbit.

As can be expected, the writing in this game is pretty fantastic. This is one of the funnier games I’ve played in a while. The chemistry that Sam and Max have is magical; the way they play off each other is perfect. The guys even go as far as to make fun of themselves; at one point Sam asks Max how they’re going to get across an underground river, and Max responds ‘œI’m not sure, but knowing us it’ll be something clever yet overly-complicated.’ This isn’t even the best line in the game, but I don’t want to ruin them for you. Most of them are golden. Just learn to click on everything and take each dialogue path to hear some of the best writing in gaming today.

Speaking of dialogue, the way you go about conversations gets an enjoyable update. Conversations used to be straight, simple lines of dialogue chosen from a box. Now you continue a conversation via a Mass Effect-like dialogue ring. This adds a level of surprise to the dialogue, and doesn’t fill the screen with needless dialogue word clutter. Controlling character movement has also stepped up You can now control Sam and Max…with the arrow keys. This may not seem like such a big deal, but I absolutely hated the ‘œclick here to move here’ style of control these games used to have. This is a very nice and unexpected change.

Some people coming into this game before understanding anything about the Sam and Max mythos might be confused. It’s understandable if you don’t know why there’s a pudding mold of Abraham Lincoln’s head in the subway, or who Sybil is, or why the strange mole person has such bad luck. While there are many references to the past, the game still stands on its own; newcomers will fall in love, and veterans will find more of what they love.

Plus there aren’t as many characters in this episode as previous iterations. There aren’t nearly as many names to learn, or people to visit, which is nice. The earlier games tended to get bogged down with too many characters and story paths. This episode makes everything nice and succinct, and the story really shines for it.

A few other points worth mentioning:

• I played this on my two-year old crappy HP netbook, and while there was some frame rate problems whenever I went outdoors in-game, it was smooth sailing most of the time.

Sam and Max: The Penal Zone ends on a great cliffhanger that makes me really, truly want to see the next episode (entitled The Tomb of Sammun-Mak). If the next episode is anything like this one, it’ll be the best Sam and Max game yet. The Penal Zone has something for everyone: interesting puzzles, references to previous chapters, and more inventive dialogue than you can shake a stick at. Really, the only problem I have with it is that it’s not 30+ hours long. If you like adventure games, or have any inclination to try them out, you owe it to yourself to download this today. Do it or Max might get angry. You won’t like Max when he’s angry.

You might like this game if…

…you’re into absurd humor, adventure games, talking animals, and/or mole sweat.

Final Score:

Even though newcomers may not get some of the jokes, this is a great place to start your Sam and Max adventures, and an even better place to continue them.

(What does this score mean?)