 Sam and Max: The Devil's Playhouse: Episode 3 - They Stole Max's Brain Review
(PC, Playstation 3)
The film noir of one pissed off pistol packing pooch pursuing his partners pilfered pumpkin.
By LaughingMan
After watching the adventures of their forefathers on the astral projector (Episode 2), Sam returns from the bathroom only to make a horrific discovery: Someone has stolen Max's brain! The normally calm, cool, and collected Sam emerges from the darkness of the Moleman temple with his jacket off, his sleeves rolled up, and the five o'clock shadow of a hardboiled detective. This six-foot tall talking dog is going to get film-noir on someone's ass.
Sam and Max: The Devil's Playhouse: Episode 3: They Stole Max's Brain starts out as a breath of fresh air for those who played through The Penal Zone and The Tomb of Sammun-Mak and got bored with the two episodes' similar gameplay. Episode 3 takes a unique twist to the point and click adventure game through Sam's new ability to interrogate suspects in order to gain clues on the whereabouts of the thief who stole Max's brain. This means that Sam is going to smack some bitches up.
The essential gameplay goes as follows: You find one of three characters on the city map: One of Skun-ka'pe's sign-spinning minions, a rat, and a poor, unsuspecting foreigner who is caught up in this whole mess. You listen to the suspects tell their tales, and it is your duty to call them out on lies, threaten them with your enormous Dirty Harry pistol, or even slap them around to get confessions. You also have the ability to depress the hell out of them by talking in Film-Noir lingo.
You play off of the stories of each of the three, and if two stories don't add up to a hill of beans, you can jump down the character's throat and beat more information out of them to use elsewhere.
The film noir spin is, again, a breath of fresh air to a game series that would otherwise become quickly repetitive and tired. The mood is dark and gritty, the background music is cool saxophone, and scenes of this portion are a great shout out to some of the classic noirs and hardboiled cop dramas. Even traveling between the gorilla, the rat, and the tourist has the often-parodied neon-sign vignette, but with the tongue-in-cheek Sam and Max humor. Neon signs that read "Exotic Pets" and "S&M Club" roll past the car, making me laugh out loud over Sam's long noir metaphor-heavy monologues. This section alone is worth the price of admission.
But unfortunately the Film Noir only constitutes less than one-third of the game as a whole, and as soon as you gain access to the Museum the noir reverts back to familiar Sam and Max gameplay, which is a shame to say the least.
The next segment involves Sam finding Max's brain in the Museum of Mostly Natural History's planetarium; however there is a large-scale war of lasers and magic occurring between...
General Skun-ka'pe and Anton Paiperwaite?
It was so cool to watch the villains of the previous two episodes of The Devil's Playhouse fight one another over the Toys of Power that I completely forgot to question the following: How did Skun-ka'pe escape the Penal Zone, and how did Paiperwaite escape the dark realm of Yog-Soggoth? So, omitting this minor plot-hole, the game continues onward. Skunk Ape and Pantywaist call a temporary truce where they share the toys of power for the time being, anyways. It's up to Sam to do his best to break this unstable treaty in order to save Max's brain.
In the mean time, Sam encounters the newest character to the Sam and Max universe: Sal, the giant cockroach.
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Sal works as the security guard to Paiperwaite's Museum of Mostly Natural History. He's a laid back and friendly character who you can manipulate via a headset to get his ass kicked by Skunk Ape's minions and break the villains' truce. But first Sam needs to find a replacement brain for Max's body or Sal will dump Max into the museum incinerator. |
The Museum of Mostly Natural History has some extremely interesting and humorous puzzles to be solved; however for the risk of further spoilers I won't go into detail about the puzzles themselves.
While doing nothing new for the gameplay in comparison to both the first film noir segment or past Devil's Playhouse episodes, the third segment of They Stole Max's Brain is one of the more interesting. The puzzles are similar, however it's the climactic ending and the clever final boss battle that makes me consider it to be the second best portion of Episode 3. Again, I can't get into too many details because it's worth your time and effort. However, the cliffhanger at the very end was pretty "meh" in comparison to the previous two episodes.
It's not the complexity of a game's graphics that make them good, it's what you do with what you have that counts, and Episode 3's film noir segment gives it an edge over The Penal Zone and The Tomb of Sammun-Mak. The beginning of They Stole Max's Brain is so chalk-full of atmosphere that I was honestly hoping that this unique style would have been carried out through the remainder of the game.
The music, while not as noticeable as in The Tomb of Sammun-Mak, is a mixed bag. The cool saxophone music of the film noir beginning amplifies the mood, while the remainder of the game, while adequate, feels almost non-existent and stock. At least in my ears, anyways. One great note on the sound is the voice of Sal, the cockroach. For a cockroach he has such a cool, devil may care sound that you can't help but laugh at when you hear it. On a more sour note, some of the sound effects are absolutely horrible. For instance, a majority of the sounds of lasers during Skunk Ape's fight with Pantywaist are MUTE, as in you see the action, but hear nothing. Unacceptable.
The replayability of this latest Sam and Max game is, again, almost nonexistent unless you are a trophy whore, but even if you are into collecting Playstation 3 trophies, it was surprisingly easy to acquire ALL of them in one single playthorugh. However, since the film noir bits are (thankfully) in the beginning of the episode, it may be worth replaying through the beginning one more time to see more of the hilarious interrogation scenes and to read some of the neon signs you may have missed.
Overall, They Stole Max's Brain started out fresh, clever and entertaining, but the uniqueness quickly petered out and I found myself back into (overly) familiar territory. The story was good and it was great to see returning villains duking it out against each other, but it is still not as unique and satisfying as Episode 2: The Tomb of Sammun-Mak. Still, Episode 3 was another hilarious wild ride through the insane world of Sam and Max.
Check back in a few weeks when I cover Episode 4 of The Devil's Playhouse: Beyond the Alley of the Dolls!
Graphics |
8.5
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Episode 3 gets a slight boost for the cool Film Noir detective approach early in the game. |
Sound |
8.0 |
Again, another slight boost thanks to the jazz music of the beginning of the game. |
Gameplay |
8.0 |
The Film Noir interrogation scenes are a massive improvement on the series, but it only sets you up for a disappointing crash back to the tried-and-true point and click style. |
Story |
8.0 |
Not a bad story but it doesn't hold a candle up against Episode 2. |
Replay Value |
1.0 |
Unless you are a trophy whore or you just like hearing the same jokes over and over again, there's little reason to ever replay this game. |
OVERALL |
8.5 |
The Noir 1/3 of the game is a welcome addition to a series that was already beginning to feel old and repetitive. |
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