Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse Episode 1 “The Penal Zone”

It’s been over two years since we have seen Sam & Max and now it time for a new adventure in “Sam & Max the Devil’s Playhouse.” With the first episode already released to all called Sam & Max Episode one “the Penal Zone” is one of five episodes in the Devil’s Playhouse series.  Does the first entry show some promise or will this be the first Sam & Max to avoid.

Story:

The story follows who else, Sam & Max on a weird yet, funny adventure. Somehow in the random, Max gets psychic powers from touching one of the Toys of Power. When Max touched that toy a space gorilla named Skunkape comes out of the sky in his monkey-faced spaceship looking for an ancient artifact. Sam & Max have a funny feeling about this Skunkape and soon set out to solve puzzles and find clues on what really is happening. If you played Sam & Max before some characters make an appearance from Flint Paper to Stinky and Old Stinky. Each of them has their own problems and Sam & Max must travel all over the city to found a special item for them to progress in the story line. With funny and smart dialogue with each encounter, Sam & Max feels like a very unique world and soon you just want to play more of the game and story. In the end Sam & Max is a pretty well-built story and hope that in other episodes the story will get better and better.

Gameplay:

Sam & Max gameplay will feel somewhat clunky. The controls to move Sam around changes depending on camera placement and sometimes you have to fight with the stick to get Sam in the right direction. Another problem with the gameplay is that you have to use menus on menu to use Max’s Toys and this can be very time consuming when frame rate will sometimes drop at times.  Other then these problems, the other side of the gameplay will have you solving puzzles, using Max’s psychic powers and more. The puzzles within Sam & Max “The Penal Zone” are very unique and sometimes will have you thinking outside the box when hard ones come around. When Max uses his psychic power (Only two within episode one) which are Future Vision and Teleportation comes a unique gameplay experience. The teleportation can teleport you to any location but, Sam and Max must have a phone number to do so. Future vision on the other hand will let you see into the future and helps when trying to solve majority of the puzzles with. Both of these Toys help Sam & Max get thought the adventure in a different way. With little problems here like fight with the controls or frame rate down, the gameplay is still a unique feel and very fun to play over and over.

Closing Note:

Sam & Max Episode One “The Penal Zone” is just one of this five part series. This first episode was very enjoyable and from the looks of things Sam & Max will be around for a long time. With each episode that comes out each month, we won’t have to wait long to continue and see what happens to Sam & Max inn future episodes.

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Posted by Chris C on Apr 22 2010. Filed under Other, PC, Playstation 3, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry