Time is an interesting thing. Episode 2: The Tomb of Sammun-Mak leaves begins immediately with the cliffhanger ending of Episode 1: The Penal Zone, but to me it feels like a month has gone by.
Anyways, at the end of the first episode of Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse, Max discovered one of the Toys of Power: The Eyes of Yog-Soggoth (aka a View-Master), which allowed Max to gaze into the future of people and objects alike. However, Max's prophecies of an intergalactic fugitive and space gorilla, General Skun-ka'pe, rampaging through the city hell bent on finding the remaining Toys of Power came true only moments after their foretelling. After the discovery of The Devil's Toybox, a source of great Toys of Power, General Skunkape was foiled by Sam and Max and was sent back to the intergalactic prison known as The Penal Zone. However, the moment of triumph was short lived as Sam and Max made a gruesome discovery: Two skeletons in their building's basement: One dog and one rabbity-thing.
Sorry, but I love Max's expression over finding his skeletonized corpse in his own basement.
I didn't worry about the SPOILERS tag because, honestly, learning about the story doesn't take anything away from the humor of a Sam and Max game. In fact Sam and Max games are a lot like a really good music track: You don't listen to it just to hear the ending, you enjoy the entire song as a whole.
Story
Perplexed by the horrific discovery of finding their own skeletons bricked up within a wall in their office building's basement, Sam and Max discover a projector and four reels of film located conveniently close by. The two fire up the menacing projector, called the Astral Projector, and watch a random reel of film. On the film are the great grandfathers of Sam and Max, Sameth and Maximus. The reels of footage retell their great grandfathers' adventure in the Tomb of Sammun-Mak.
Reel 1 begins with Sameth and Maximus sneaking into the theater. While ducking the usher, they watch a performance by the eccentric Mr. Anton Papierwaite, who is offering a challenge to anyone who can enter the faithfully recreated Tomb of the Pharaoh, Sammun-Mak. If they succeed in entering the recreated tomb, they win an all expense trip to the real Tomb of Sammun-Mak in Egypt and can retrieve the fabled Devil's Toybox. Their adventure then continues in the slums of New Arctic Circle, populated by the Elfen immigrants exploited by toy baron and cookie fanatic, Nicholas St. Kringle, who wants the Devil's Toybox to further his toy empire.
Reel 2 continues with Sameth and Maximus aboard the Disorient Express train to Egypt (so it should come to you as no surprise that they managed to complete Anton Papierwaite's challenge). On board, they stumble across the pint-sized stowaway and rabid feminist Baby Amelia Earhart. After reaching Egypt and ditching Baby Amelia Earhart with a group of murderous nomadic tribesmen, the duo must solve the riddles of the real Tomb of Sammun-Mak and claim the Devil's Toybox from the Molemen priests who guard it.
Reel 3 begins with Sameth and Maximus heading home on the Disorient Express with the Devil's Toybox safe in tow. However, several parties are also aboard the train, including Nicholas St. Kringle and his freaky little elves (who still want the Devil's Toybox for the next big toy idea), the Molemen (who want to move to America because guarding the Toybox sucked), Baby Amelia Earhart (who is too busy napping), and the prissy German, Jurgen (who is in the cult of Yog-Soggoth and also wants to steal the Toybox). Sameth and Maximus soon realize that the toybox has been stolen, and it must have been stolen by a passenger on the train!
In the fourth and final reel of film... Nah, I'll make you play it to find out what happens.
Characters
Sameth
The great grandfather of Sam. Except for the mustache, Sameth's character and gameplay style is identical to that of Sam in Episode 1: The Penal Zone.
Maximus
The great grandfather of Max. Because he doesn't have a mustache, Maximus's character and gameplay style is identical to that of Max in Episode 1: The Penal Zone. Maximus has Max's psychic powers, though exactly how the great grandfather of Max could have his powers is never adequately explained, nor does it really need to be.
Anton Papierwaite
Papierwaite has re-created an exact replica of the entrance to the Tomb of Sammun-Mak with hopes that someday he may find the one person who can enter the tomb and retrieve The Devil's Toybox.
Christopher St. Kringle
Nicholas St. Kringle is an obvious parody of Santa Claus. He looks and sounds much the same, also employs elves, enjoys milk and cookies and is known as a philanthropist. However, there is little benevolence in Kringle, who is obsessed with profit even at the expense of his exploited immigrant workforce, the Elves.
Elves
The elves are almost nightmarish parodies of the classic Christmas Rudolph and Santa Clause specials, as they look as equally proportionate, but have bald heads, and freakishly long, pointed ears, noses, and teeth. To be honest, they look closer to Charles Schulz's version of Nosferatu than the classic holiday elves you see every Christmas on public television. They are also extremely rude and crude because of the living conditions in New Arctic Circle slums. They did, however, gain ground for worker's rights in Kringle's toy factories by fighting to have the barbs removed from the whips and they now one whole bathroom break every nine months.
Jurgen
In 1901, Sam and Max's great-grandfathers, Sameth and Maximus, discover a still-living Jurgen inside the tomb of Sammun-Mak, trapped on a wall as a bas-relief by a moleman curse, where he claims to have been stuck for decades. He promises to help them reach the Devil's Toybox if they free him, but double-crosses them and flees when they are trapped as bas-reliefs themselves in the process. Jurgen is then cursed by the Molemen again, but this time with the Vampire Curse. Deathly afraid of becoming one of the undead, he holes himself up in his cabin on the Disorient Express, only ever leaving it to demand a cure to the curse from the neighboring Molemen.
In previous Sam and Max games (present setting), Jurgen IS a vampire and stereotypical emo/goth who owns a nightclub where the partygoers are killed by deathtraps and he sells their souls for unknown reasons.
Baby Amelia Earhart
A toddler with a sense for adventure, Baby Amelia Earhart is a missing person who has stowed away with Sameth and Maximus aboard the Disorient Express. Baby Amelia Earhart is over confident and fiercely independent, however Wagner's "Flight of the Valkyrie" puts her out like a light.
In a previous Sam and Max game, "Moai Better Blues", Baby Amelia Earhart is found on Easter Island with several other missing persons. Earhart drank too much of the Fountain of Youth and reverted back to becoming a baby (physically at least).
Overall, the majority of the characters in Sammun-Mak are throwbacks to earlier Sam and Max games, and for those who had actually played all of the previous episodes from Sam & Max Save the World and Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space it probably offers a lot of tongue-in-cheek nostalgia and some inside jokes that I probably completely missed. Much like Episode 1: The Penal Zone, character development relies on you already have past experiences with these characters and even though they do try to bring you quickly back up to speed, I'm feeling like I'm missing out on a lot of the humor. I mean, if your first impression was of Vampire Jurgen from the Episode 203: Night of the Raving Dead, then Jurgen's fear of becoming a vampire probably pays off 1000-fold. But for a newcomer to the series who has never known any other incarnation of Jurgen, I'm probably missing out on 90% of all of the Jurgen jokes.
Gameplay
The gameplay of The Tomb of Sammun-Mak is virtually identical to The Penal Zone, except for one very important difference: The astral projector. The concept of the gameplay is that you have four reels of footage (ie: four segments of a complete story) and you switch reels in order to progress in the game as a whole. The concept is confusing to explain (and even fucking harder to play) but you essentially bounce back and forth in time to learn information and use it earlier or later in the story in order to progress. It would be a lot like me going to the future to learn the lucky lotto numbers and then going back in time to get a lottery ticket so that I benefit in the present. Savvy?
No? Then think of it as being like Back the the Future, but Marty has to pop back and forth between the 50's and 80's to solve puzzles relating to past and future events.
My personal opinion of the Astral Projector is this: If you got frustrated with Episode 1's 'hunt and solve' game play, Episode 2 will rape you until your head implodes. It was hard enough to have to search through different locations to find objects or information that you needed to proceed, but now we have the added complexity of time travel to contend with. While the basic gist of the different 'times/reels' is not really that different from the multiple locations of Episode 1: The Penal Zone, it does require you to completely change your thinking to be more 4-Dimensional. Regardless of some frustrating parts, the time traveling elemnt makes the gameplay feel fresh.
You can also DIE in this Sam and Max game if you don't perform some required action. You can be: Thrown from a train, shot by Kringle, head cut in two, etc. (though all of them happen off screen). However, since this is a movie reel that the present-day Sam and Max are watching, they stop the movie and say that they don't like this ending, and you can choose another reel of film.
As Max's great grandfather, Maximus, you only get three of the Toys of Power in this go around:
The Astral Projector - Provides the gameplay ability described above.
The Can-O-Nuts - A small gag gift that allows Sameth and Maximus to be sucked inside the can in order to allow access into tight places, to avoid traps, and to hide from foes in order to spy on them.
Ventriloquist Dummy - The Ventriloquist Dummy looks like Howdy Doody's crack-addict brother, but Maximus can use it to literally put words in people's mouths. You can use this to make mummies talk, destroy the (really weird) love life of a Molegirl, and piss off Sameth. Using the Ventriloquist Dummy on every possible object or person in the game will also unlock a PSN Trophy, which is one of the trophies worth attempting because there are some really funny scenes to be unlocked with this Toy.
Graphics
The graphics are on par with Episode 1: The Penal Zone, with the notable exception that where The Penal Zone had a much more outdoor and open feel, Episode 2: The Tomb of Sammun-Mak feels much more constrained because of its locations: In a theater, on a train, in a tomb, and so on. While most of the environments are pretty bland in comparison to Episode 1: The Penal Zone (train, theater), the environment that stands out the most is New Arctic Circle because it is not only an outdoor environment, but within the open environment one can find much more character therein. A second notable location is the Tomb of Sammun-Mak itself, which is completed with hieroglyphics and a giant Cthulhu-like statue guarding the Devil's Toybox.
Yeah, that's right, H.P. Lovecraft references are aplenty in this new Sam and Max series. How cool is that?!
Sound
The epic musical cheese-factor returns with vengeance. While the music in Episode 1 had a fittingly cheesy science-fiction, Episode 2's music can be best attributed to a blend of 1920's phonogram tunes and the stock Hollywood Egyptian adventure film. The music fits you well into not only the appropriate time and location, but it also conveys the sense of offbeat humor.
The standout voice in The Tomb of Sammun-Mak is easily Jurgen, the pre-emo vampire explorer with a thick effeminate German accent. The easiest way to classify Jurgen is a PG-13 version of Sasha Baron Cohen's character Bruno. While still PG-13 rated humor, Jurgen delivers the funniest dialogue in the entire game and steals every scene he's in because of his 'wondebah' interactions with the characters. Probably the funniest scene with Jurgen involves Sameth and Maximus pretending to be fellow members of the Cult of Yog-Soggoth and Jurgen freaking out with girlish glee, quickly abandoning suspicion and skepticism, and jumping right into asking them about past meetings and conventions he missed.
Click on the video below if you need a real taste of Jurgen. ... Forget I said that and click on the video below.
Jurgen from the Episode 203: Night of the Raving Dead
Replayability
The replayability of Episode 2: The Tomb of Sammun-Mak is surprisingly lower than Episode 1: The Penal Zone, which gave you an extra Toy of Power to screw around with after you beat the game. Unless you are a complete Playstation Trophy whore (like me) then there is nothing new waiting for you in a second play through except for possibly a few jokes or gags that you may have missed.
For fuck's sakes, I'm going to get my ass handed to me AGAIN by the usual readers because I 'failed to make it teh funny review'. For the love of bitter-sweet fuck, how do you rant and rave on not only a game that not only doesn't have anything glaringly horrible about it, but also a game that doesn't even take itself seriously in the first place? Me trying to make jokes on a Sam and Max game would be like me going up to the guys who do the stunts on Jack-Ass and saying: "You guys do some retarded shit."
NO-FUCKING-DUH. That's the Goddamned point!
If you make a funny review that disses some aspect of a Sam and Max game, then I think that somehow you missed the point of playing it. The game is fucking hilarious, and (unlike 'serious' games like Heavy Rain and Devil May Cry) there is almost NOTHING remotely horrible to nitpick because everything, even some aspects that can be considered sub-par, feel like a part of the comedy.
Sure, there are parts of the game that are frustrating enough to make you want to tear your Playstation 3 or PC from the wall and cunt-punt it down a flight of stairs while masturbating, but it's not because the gameplay is broken, it's because I'm too fucking stupid to figure the shit out until after 3 hours of wandering around and clicking on every fucking object in the game.
The point of these Sam and Max reviews is to PROMOTE these under-rated titles because THEY ARE GOOD GAMES and are deserving of praise.
So there, I ranted on something. I hope you're happy.
OVERALL
I actually enjoyed the story aspects of Episode 2: The Tomb of Sammun-Mak much more than I did Episode 1: The Penal Zone. The whole package of the game felt much more conclusive and more satisfying than the first episode, which while still funny only felt like a setup for the rest of the series. The reel swapping was a fresh and interesting idea, but it only added a new level of frustration on top of what is already an arguably hard game to comprehend and complete thanks to the twisted-humor of the game's 'logic'. The sound is more noticeable in Episode 2 and it really has a fittingly cheesy 1920-40's Hollywood/Egyptian feel to it.
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Sam and Max: The Devil's Playhouse: Episode 2 - The Tomb of Sammun-Mak Review
(PC, Playstation 3)
