Telltale have once again produced a transcendent game.
On Easter Island you find that Sybil is indeed fine, and she has decided to have a picnic with Abe - however, Abe has other things on his mind. You will discover that the Moai heads that inhabitant the island can speak, and they will tell you that it is up to Sam & Max to stop the volcano from erupting and destroying everyone and everything on Easter Island.
The backtracking in this episode is generally low, and won't have you constantly trawling back and forth from all the locations for every puzzle. The street layout from Ice Station Santa has been retained, even down to the robot, which is slightly disappointing. Even though Jimmy has set up a business there, you can't do anything there except have short conversations that don't help advance the game in anyway.
Despite that, in all other usual locations (such as the office and Stinky's), a few items have been added to help keep things fresh, such as the addition of the North Pole in the office. New dialogue has also been recorded for all the items, which is a good factor that Telltale have retained from the last half of season one.
This game isn't going to last you as long as its predecessor, and will probably give you three and a half hours tops, even if you stop to listen and see everything there is. In saying this, the pros of the episode out way this and the length of the episode will not get in the way of your enjoyment.
The difficulty in the game is spot on, and if you think hard enough you'll be able to figure a puzzle out, rather than thinking that the solution was pretty stupid. If you do struggle, there is the hint system which will enable Max to pipe up with some clues on what to do next.
You might be getting tired of hearing about it, but it is just so good that it needs to be highlighted every single time - the voice acting. This episode probably had the best out of every single episode, first and second season included. A real highlight was when Sam & Max are doing their 'cute' voices to intimidate a baby. The new characters are also well cast, such as the sea chimps. Still remains though is the lower-than-other-games size of the sound files, giving off hissing on the 's' sounds.
The graphics are well done, both artistically and graphically, especially Easter Island. The lush landscape looks really nice, and the tropical image is helped by the marvellous music that is truly pleasing on the ears - however, the music is tremendous in every other location too.
Despite the minor problems of the length, Telltale have once again produced a transcendent game that'll have you going back over again and again just to make sure you haven't missed any of the witty dialogue. Although this was a great episode, is the best still to come?