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Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space Episode 3: Night of the Raving Dead
The best is yet to come, said Remi last month, and he's not wrong.
Last episode felt a bit on the short side for me. Babies and Easter Island aren't my favorite themes either so when it was revealed that this episode was going to be about vampires (well, vampire) and zombies, I got more thrilled than a thriller arriving at Thrill Island!
The episode starts out with a zombie attack in Sam and Max's neighbourhood and it's their mission to find the source and get rid of it. Life has gone on inStraight Street with several small differences compared to last episode. These B-plots and changes that have happened so far in season 2 make the world around Sam and Max seem more alive. I feel it is an improvement to the much more static world of last season where Sybil always had a new job and Bosco always had a ridiculously overpriced gadget for Sam and Max to buy. A joke wears thin fast if it's used in episode after episode. Just look at Friends.
Again there's a minigame. This time you have to throw subscription CDs for AOL SOL at zombies and again it gives you an item that's necessary for a later puzzle. You can see bits of the classic time waster Paperboy in this minigame. The controls feel a bit awkward. You can control with the keyboard arrows, but you have to right click with the mouse to shoot the CDs. Please make the minigames completely controllable by the keyboard next time, Telltale.
Sam and Max eventually ends up in Stuttgart where a vampire wants to take over the world with his zombie army. I'm not going to spoil the game further other than to say that a minor character will finally take a part in the main story and there's also the return to an old location. The episode feels longer than the previous one. This feeling could come down to the fact that the episode is more segmented in that there are several goals to accomplish before the end. For the people who really want to complete everything, there's also the minigame with its decals that cary over from episode to episode. This will prolong the entertainment even further for people who like such things, though I lost interest pretty fast.
The writing is funny with some obscure literary references thrown in. On the aural side, Jared Emerson-Johnson has again composed an excellent soundtrack with music ranging from the cliched church organ with thunderclaps to annoying techno beats. The voice acting is also top notch, though raising the sample frequency certainly wouldn't hurt. I don't think everybody's supposed to have a lisp.
All in all, I find this episode to be an improvement on the previous one. It's longer and the characters are more interesting. A minigame with awkward controls is not gonna stop me from calling this one of the best Sam & Max episodes yet.
Zaarin
14th February, 2008.
Pros: Game world feels more alive than ever (even if it is at the same time more dead in this episode)
Cons: Minigame has awkward controls