Sam and Max: They Stole Max's Brain!
As I hinted previously, the third chapter of this season of Sam and Max's adventures doesn't quite crackle with the same energy of the first two, although it still has some good ideas of its own and some inspired moments. It continues like part two did, picking up exactly where the last part left things, with Max's brain stolen and Sam pretty angry about it. Like the clue scanning and reel jumping, this chapter introduces its own unique kind of gameplay, in this case, interrogation. The first act plays like a film noir story, Sam looking for suspects around town and leaning on them pretty hard. There's a variety of ways you can interrupt peoples' stories to try and get information, and it's a neat idea. The problem is that it's not really fully explored before the segment ends, although it does pop at least once more in the future chapters.
After that, it becomes more of a standard episode in the series, though not a bad one. There's pointing and clicking, messing with some more familiar psychic toys, and of course an alternate reality that only Max is aware of that you have to prevent from happening. Actually, that part was pretty cool. As is pretty much standard at this point, the game looks pleasant, has some nice music, enjoyable voice acting and humor. I didn't like the puzzles quite as much, again because of situations where the "logical" solution might not occur to someone as quickly as it should. It ends well though, and once again teases an intriguing scenario for the fourth chapter. They could still blow it I guess, but so far this is the best series Telltale has done.
