Sam and Max: The Devils Playhouse - Episode 2: The Tomb of Sammun-Mak Review
So after a four week break from the season it's nice to be back and get my grubby little hands on the next episode. So what will happen this time? We were left with a bit of a cliff hanger ending last time. Let's go and find out.
Like always in these reviews there will be no spoilers just my thoughts and opinions of this episode and what it does better or even worse than the last one. I just wanted to point that out incase you thought I was going to ruin the whole episode for you.
The game starts with a brief recap of what happened in the last episode in case you didn't play it or simply cant remember. After this brief intro you are shown a few cut scenes before you are flung into the latest episode. Unlike the last episode the story is split into four parts, the whole system works that these are four parts of the story line. In this episode you will have to connect the dots to link each of the parts together and finally get the full story on what has happened. The whole system reminds me of how the game Day of Tentacle worked by having you, the player, switch between different parts of the story I.E. the past the present and the future.
This allows for the puzzles to get a little harder due to the fact the story line itself isn't linear and you will need to frequently move backwards and forwards between the four parts of the story to get the solutions to most of the puzzles. With this system though there is a few problems. The first problem is that the first time you start the game you will find yourself almost stuck as you cant seem to get where you need to go or even get some of the objects which you need to progress. This is mainly because the whole system of switching between the different sections of the storyline is not inherently obvious to the player as no real tutorial about this system is available. While this system works well for the puzzles once you have gotten used to it, I do find that most of the story line seems to be a bit miss mashed and you will pretty much figure out the whole story before the finish.
Unfortunately the control system is still flawed and on a number of occasions I found that Sam got stuck on objects which he shouldn't of been stuck to making it almost impossible to walk around an area. The problem again is the fact that am having to resort back to the keyboard keys to navigate around the game as I find the mouse isn't responsive enough or just doesn't do what I need it to do for moving around the game.
Max's powers are back and again from the first episode and they are the thing that you will probably be using most to solve puzzles through out the game. Once again you will start the game with powers which you have to unlock throughout your progress just to give you a taster of whats to come. The good thing is that the powers you are using are brand new to this episode and they wont be any powers which are from the first episode, which I think is a good idea as Max's power of seeing into the future I thought was a little too powerful and gave the game away quiet easily.
The last thing I want to mention is that in its own right this game can stand on its own merit and a lot of the Sam and Max episodes have been this way. Unlike some of the other episodic titles which seem to lead from one thing to the next and keeping a cast of NPC's. These episodes seem to be able to tell its own story within the greater story allowing users to drop in and drop out of these games and also in a sense to not really need to follow the main story line at all.
Like in the previous episode the graphics are spot on again. Obviously they haven't updated the graphics system but the different locations that you go to in this episode all look fantastic and are great fun to explore, as well the voice acting is spot on and all the new NPC's seem to fit perfectly into the story line and none of the voices seem out of place.
This has been another great episode for the Sam and Max series and while the game play has taken a slightly different approach I think it was a good idea to mix and match and the way the games are played out even though they are all Adventure games I hope that they continue to use these different styles and mechanics that keep the game fresh and the puzzles challenging.
8.50/10
8½
Sam and Max: The Devils Playhouse - Episode 2: The Tomb of Sammun-Mak (Reviewed on Windows)
This game is great, with minimal or no negatives.
So after a four week break from the season it's nice to be back and get my grubby little hands on the next episode. So what will happen this time? We were left with a bit of a cliff hanger ending last time. Let's go and find out.
This game was supplied by the publisher or relevant PR company for the purposes of review
COMMENTS
Angelfromabove - 11:45pm, 3rd April 2015
Im tempted to give these a go actually, since your adventure gaming podcast i been playing Monkey island and am really getting into it :D Good review Si :)
Si^ - 11:45pm, 3rd April 2015 Author
Im tempted to give these a go actually, since your adventure gaming podcast i been playing Monkey island and am really getting into it :D Good review Si :)
Gald you are enjoying it, having a lot of fun with these games and they are awesome to play and write about!. If you havent got it yet i suggest this to anyone [url]http://store.steampowered.com/sub/4327/[/url]Angelfromabove - 11:45pm, 3rd April 2015
That is a very good pack, monies are a little tight at the moment but will certainly look into it once im back on track next month :D