I
was as happy as anyone to have Sam and Max back after such an extended
vacation, but it is true that the first episode (#301, if you’re
counting), The
Penal Zone, while commendably wacky, did feel a bit on
the well-trodden-path side. I mean, General Skunk-Ape’s ilk
has been seen darkening our heroes’ door before. And yeah, sure,
there was indeed some new stuff, like Max’s “Psi”
powers in the form of the Toys of Power. Some people got excited that
you can now “control” Max. Well, you can spin him around
and point the selected Toy at a hotspot, but that’s about it.
Still, you could tell that the game designers were itching to try
some new moves. The 3D View-Master which allowed Max to look into
the future to see the fate of whomever or whatever he chose was fun,
though it also felt like a cleverly disguised help feature.

Now comes Episode
2: The Tomb of Sammun-Mak and the game designers’ inner
imps have busted loose. First off, Sam and Max make only cameo appearances
in this installment, because they, like you, spend the entire time
watching an old not-so-silent movie starring none other than their
great-granddads — Sameth and Maximus. S&M’s forebears
find themselves caught up in an onstage challenge from a mysterious
fezzed fellow from the East to solve the mystery of Sammun-Mak. Ere
long, our heroes’ ancestors are entraining themselves to an
Egyptian tomb and an even greater challenge. This story device allows
the designers to do two things. One, to backtrack a century to show
the discovery of the sinister Devil’s Toybox, and, two, to indulge
their Indiana
Jones and other classic Hollywood Egyptian flick fantasies.

I
don’t think it’s giving too much away to say that at the
close of The Penal Zone, with Skunk-Ape safely dispatched,
our two heroes made a most grisly discovery in what was left of their
office building basement. Now, as Episode Two begins,
the dynamic duo discover four ancient film reels and a conveniently
set up projector. But the four reels are in no particular order and
it is up to you to unscramble the screwy actions being portrayed.
In the Penal Zone, the View-Master allowed you to
peek into the future to figure out what to do in the present, but
in Sammun-Mak, you load and unload the four film
reels, solving the century-old mystery onscreen in disjointed, back-and-forth
fashion. In Reel Three you will have inventory items and Toys of Power
which you don’t have in Reels One or Two, but you are able to
take knowledge you glean from any reel to any other reel. In Reel
Four, everything is wrapped up tighter than a mummy. The game ends
when you “solve” all four reels.

Confused? Well, that’s
the idea. But it does make for some interesting and even occasionally
challenging game play. As I whined in my reviews of Wallace &
Gromit, Telltale has managed to constrict the choices in their games
to such a point where no actual thought is required to solve them.
It may look like a puzzle, but what you’ve got is a simple selection
of A, B or C. If it’s not A, then it’s B or C. While that’s
still largely true here in Sammun-Mak, at least it
all feels fresher because of the time-shifting and reel-switching.

The
only returnees from Penal Zone are the Mole People,
who get a much more expanded role here, as the reluctant (and chatty)
eternal guardians of the Devil’s Toybox. Also back is the Twilight-Zonish
narrator, who looks like a cross between Rod
Serling, Buster
Poindexter and Howdy
Doody. Back too on the scene from earlier seasons is that villain
Santa Klaus, named, simply, Kringle, a ruthless toy magnate (and Mr.
Monopoly look-alike) and his entourage of elven young toughs who
talk like the Dead
End Kids. (The hardest thing to keep up with in these games is
just which old media icon Telltale is spoofing at any given moment.
You practically need a scorecard.) Baby Amelia Earhart returns as
well. Or, rather, presumably this is the real child Amelia before
she was turned into a baby by the Fountain of Youth in Moai
Better Blues. Whatever. The pint-sized tyke in aviator
goggles simply shows up here and petitions to be Sameth & Maximus’s
faithful sidekick. Rejected for this role, she turns into a Pain in
the Sidekick. Sporting the accent and mannerisms of a young Kate
Hepburn circa “Bringing
Up Baby” she is one of the S&M universe’s more
novel and amusing characters. Though I kept waiting for Sameth &
Maximus to succumb to the obvious and tell her to “Get lost!”

Most
shocking of all, S&M #302 ends on a somber note.
Really, the smirk is wiped right off Sam’s face. Which makes
for the best cliffhanger ending they’ve had in a while. As for
the technical stuff like the controls and the options and the music
and the acting and — c’mon, you’re not really going
to make me go through all the technical stuff, are you? This is the
thirteenth game in the series!

I am still ticked off at
Telltale for deviously dumbing down the puzzles in all their games,
but the quality, inventiveness and cleverness on display in this episode
are undeniable. Now how about a “hard play” button for
those of us who still like to solve instead of “experience”
adventure games? Oh, well, just another losing battle, I suppose.
Grumpiness aside, I must give this newest S&M effort a well-deserved
A.

PC System Requirements:

• Operating system: Windows
  XP / Vista / Windows 7
• Processor: 2.0 GHz +
  (3 GHz Pentium 4 or equivalent rec.)
• Memory: 1GB
• Sound: DirectX 8.1 sound
  device
• Video: 128MB DirectX
  8.1-compliant video card (128MB rec.)
• DirectX: Version 9.0c
  or better

Mac System Requirements:

• Operating Systems: Mac
  OS X 10.5 or newer
• Processor: Intel Core
  2 Duo processor
• Not Recommended For:
  Macs with integrated graphics

Note: Final system requirements
subject to change.