So here it is. The final part to the latest season of Telltale Games’ Sam and Max. In this season alone the duo have stopped an alien invasion, quelled the rising of an Elder God, dethroned an Egyptian Pharaoh and fought off an army of clones. Now Max is possessed by an Elder God and is rampaging and destroying the city while armies of his flaming head feed off the dreams of the sleeping. Sam only has a short amount of time to assemble a team and get inside him and stop the madness before Acting-President Agent Superball has him and New York City nuked. Taking place two weeks after Beyond the Alley of the Dolls, the ride stops here as the story reaches its brilliant conclusion in the best Sam and Max Finale yet!
The final chapter starts as Sam is charged with the task of assembling a team go get inside Max, who is now a giant monster attacking the city. The fact that Sam is mostly operating on his own again like in parts of They Stole Max’s Brain! is solved by the Max spores flying around the city trying to force the citizens to sleep to feed off their dreams. Their presence throughout the episode prevents a large absence of max, and thus helps prevent a potential pitfall in a better way than They Stole Max’s Brain! attempted to. This means there’s still the humour generated by the back-and-forthing of the titular characters which helps keep the episode hilarious, and even provides some insanely funny moments that couldn’t happen if Max was there with you.
The episode for some reason feels more limited than other episodes in terms of areas you can access, especially at the beginning, but much less so at the end. In the beginning, you’re only allowed access to inside and outside the labs, and nowhere else. While this works with the episode, for some reason it feels limited and gives an impression of little room for experimentation. These fears are all absolved when you realise how well the puzzles work, and how hilariously well previous characters in the Sam and Max series show up for short cameos and puzzles. For the most part, these cameos are hilarious and work in well with the episode, rather than feeling like they’re forced in for the sake of it because it’s a Season finale. The only cameo that doesn’t feel well fit in is Lincoln, who appears twice in the episode, gets one line, and no mention is given as to why he has a body again or why, meaning the whole cameo feels really forced and almost pointless. Still, the opening of the game does well to tie in the other characters and still make you laugh while providing some clever puzzles. Of course, this all acts as a warm up to the other acts in the episode, and after the mysterious Narrator teases you to guess who the true mastermind behind the events of the season is, you’ll be raring to go to find out who and discover the chilling conclusion.
Another thing that needs to be applauded in this episode is the brilliant characterisation that gets provided for some of the characters. Sam himself gets a subtly deep look at his character and his friendship with Max on top of the usual jokes and the story, and Max is looked at in-depth brilliantly and makes you care about the characters even more than you would have before. Some of the returning cameos tease it as well, and open up some more potential if there’s a future season. I’ll admit though, I was disappointed with the conclusion of the Stinky storyline that’s been running throughout the season. It didn’t feel adequately explained in this episode, and even when this is pointed out for humour and a twist is given the whole thing felt like it left a lot of questions unanswered with no future opportunity to expand on it, almost giving the episode a weak point.
In terms of puzzles, while there are some difficult puzzles, most of them are amazingly well thought out and shouldn’t take too long to figure out, with several eureka moments and nothing that’ll frustrate the player as while some are difficult, none are obscure or pointless, as everything has a purpose and works well. They all help to tie into the story somehow and fit in amazingly with the rest of the episode, helping to pace it better than the previous season finales. You’ll have a lot of fun with this episode, even without the psychic powers, which exist in this episode in a well thought-out way and don’t feel forced, and help to give the episode a good challenge without being too easy or too demanding.
The balance of humour and story is there yet again, and provides some of the most hilarious moments of the season despite the massive ramping up of story, especially near the end. You’ll be constantly laughing throughout the episode, especially with a little experimentation, and the storyline manages to expertly tie up a lot of the previous events of the season with a great twist. There’s however not much else to add on the humour front. If you found the other episodes funny, you will this too, with several moments in this episode being highlights of the season. The story and its twists are also brilliant, but I won’t elaborate on them to avoid the risk of spoiling anything. It’s not all hilarity in the story though, as TellTale Games manage to pull at the heartstrings in several moments that show how much they learnt from their time working on the Tales of Monkey Island story. However, Tales of Monkey Island potentially has the edge on this, but The City That Dares Not Sleep does an amazing job at this when it tries.
Me, after holding this all in until the embargo lifted proved too much...
There’s so much I want to say about the ending, how it ties everything up well and almost teases the player, but there’s nothing I can say that wouldn’t spoil the ending for you. But, I loved the ending. It was nearly heartbreaking at points, and the music was so well done at this point that it almost bought a tear to my eye. The ending is spectacular, but part of me wishes it would have ended a tiny bit earlier and teased the player that little bit more. You’ll know what I mean when it happens, but even when it does, the ending is still fantastic, and a brilliant way of seeing out the season.
So that’s it. The end of Sam and Max: The Devil’s Playhouse. How was it? It was the best season of Sam and Max without a doubt. You can tell that TellTale Games learnt a lot from Tales of Monkey Island and helped apply it to the Devil’s Playhouse to give the players potentially their finest work to date. With the Back to the Future and Jurassic Park seasons coming out later this year and next, the next season of Sam and Max might be a long time coming, but this season is basically a can’t miss. The Devil’s Playhouse as a whole is a fantastic product that proves that point-and-clicks aren’t dead, and prove humour in games can be done amazingly. It improves on all of the previous seasons and other series TellTale have made and gives you a fantastic adventure in a constantly hilarious, clever and spellbinding season with few overall weak points and a lot going for it. An amazing conclusion to a sensational season, and one you’d be a fool to miss out on.
-Jokesound
Sam and Max: The Devils Play House – The City That Dares Not Sleep was supplied for review by Telltale Games.
