Split Screen
  • The Best Of Us
  • Words
  • Videos
  • Podcasts
  • Infographics
  • About
  • Bonus Round
    • Cast Iron
    • Five out of Ten
Recent Posts
  • Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
  • Dwarf Fortress
  • Alan’s Favourite Music of 2022
  • Cast Iron: Dio – Holy Diver
  • Cast Iron: Killswitch Engage – Disarm the Descent
Tags
A Double Fine Trilogy Adventure Games Alans-music-roundups Assassin's Creed Books Call of Duty cast-iron Christmas Dead _______ Fable Fallout Five out of Ten Football Manager Diaries Forza Games I've Made iPads and iPhones Killing ______ Never Gets Old left 4 dead Let’s Play Life Mass Effect Meta MetaCritique Metal Gear Solid Movies & TV Music Nintendo Operating Systems Passwords and Security Pile of Shame Podcasts Prince of Persia Random Record Review Reality Check Retrocity Scribblenauts Sea of Thieves Shmups Skyrim Sonic the Hedgehog Telltale Games The Best of Us The Screenies Award Show World of Warcraft ______ Versus ______
Split Screen
Split Screen
  • The Best Of Us
  • Words
  • Videos
  • Podcasts
  • Infographics
  • About
  • Bonus Round
    • Cast Iron
    • Five out of Ten
sam-and-max-review

Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse

  • Craig
  • 22 October 2010

sam-and-max-review

Based loosely on The Wire: Season Three.

Acronyms save time and lives. That’s a fact. Need to know if that man stumbling at the front of the bus is having a stroke? Think FAST (Face, Arm, Speech and Telephone). Is Grandma choking on her toffee sweets again? Time to call Dr ABC (Airway, Breathing and Circulation).

Want to play a point-and-click adventure game? Commit to memory the three Ps: Pixel hunting, Permutations and Psychological profiling.

Once patience and effort give way to frustration and curse words, most adventure game puzzles can be solved by clicking on absolutely everything on screen, taking and combining as many items as possible in every way possible and then using the bastard combinations on whatever remains in an attempt to crack the twisted logic of the game designer who constructed the Escher-esque lateral thinking puzzles in the first place.

The most striking and perhaps brilliant thing about Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse is that it is free from the three Ps.

Pick a topic and Sam and Max will then wax lyrically. Most problems are solved by talking. You hear that, violent youth of Britain?A typical day on the corner of Down & OutSam's notepad houses all the necessary information that you probably won't need to solve the puzzles. Looks cool though

I should say that Sam is a fedora-wearing six-foot dog and Max is a hyperkinetic rabbity thing. They fight crime.

Broadly speaking the main story across all five episodes concerns Max’s newly acquired psychic powers- the latest tool added to the Freelance Police already impressive arsenal of talking to people and using things on other things. Each episode, while hinging on a specific Toy of Power, is inspired in style, soundtrack and setting after various film genre.

The sci-fi infused opener The Penal Zone introduces Max’s myriad powers dealing mainly with his Future Vision. Providing a brief glimpse into an item or character’s future the puzzles are then to ensure or prevent such predictions from occurring.

Not only are these non-sequential puzzles supremely satisfying – delivering prophetic punch lines to obscure setups – but using it on Sam himself offers additional hints in the form of snipped premonitions. Between the dialogue hints and Sam’s notepad containing case details and suspect breakdowns, The Devil’s Playhouse errs on the safe side in terms of difficulty- which is to say the correct side. There are no use-cat-hair-to-make-fake-moustache difficult puzzles in the traditional psychotic sense and yet many are as fantastically bizarre in content.

I played the episodes during the season, that is to say with a month or so between episodes. You lack the time-travelling abilities to relive that but know that next time Telltale offer episodic releases it’s definitely worth trying. Each episode lasted me a good few hours played over a couple of evenings and once finished there was a nice cool off period till the release. They’re short, clever and didn’t outstay their welcome- had I waited and powered through all episodes one after the other I don’t know if it would’ve been as pleasurable.

Switching to Max triggers a random flash of comedic tastiness.The world through Max's eyes shows standard visions like the cow playing chicken tennisAlong with Teleportation and Future Vision there's mind-reading, transformation, ventriloquism and death ray abilities

Contrary to perceived notion of episodic gaming reusing assets and sets, the locations visited are surprisingly varied with Telltale themselves evidently in some sort of experimental phase.

The second episode, The Tomb of Sammun-Mak, chronicles the pairs’ great-grandfather’s turn-of-the-century escapade to Egypt. An epic adventure in four reels, the story is told through switching between reels in the projector and puzzles in an often non-chronological order. Navigating the episode itself becomes a puzzle.

They Stole Max’s Brain! was quite honestly amazing. The grainy opening has bad cop Sam stomping the streets in search of justice and brains against a soundscape of jazz and neon signs. Because Max’s life is on the line, the static dialogue tree is replaced with a more dynamic way of interrogating perps. As the suspects tell their tall stories, you choose when Sam should interject with either accusations of lying, further questioning as well as some good old fashioned police brutality. It’s used sparingly but to great effect with the more spontaneous and urgent line of questioning showcasing yet another way The Devil’s Playhouse avoids the three Ps.

[Hello? Is this thing on? I’ve travelled back in time from July 2011 to tell you that the above interrogation interlude, though far shorter, packs more of a punch than L.A. Noire. That is all I have to add. Let us return to the 2010 review in a time when everyone was moaning about Google Buzz and not gushing over Google+ -Future Craig]

Beyond the Alley of the Dolls and the finale The City That Dares Not Sleep take a surprisingly dark turn into B-movie and Lovecraftian horror. The latter two episodes are more traditional in nature and in that sense are less memorable in terms of puzzle solving and sort of blur together. At this point Max has the full set of psychic powers at his disposal so it remains an enjoyable if slightly flatter experience.

Inevitably, with puzzles involving psychic powers in an already absurdist world, there were a few times when I was being asked to jump the logic shark. But with all the support on offer you’ll find you’ve already been guided onto the motorboat in the water with the in-game hint system nudging you gently saying “Try jumping over that ramp over there, little buddy”. Need some more convincing? None of the puzzles are as contrived as that shark metaphor.

So when it comes time to gain the Egyptian overlord’s trust by transforming into a toaster and nutting a table of corndogs in a laser-quarium, it’s quite naturally the sensible thing to do.  The characters are absurd, the world is warped but the logic is solid and dependable.

Most importantly, and top of my list but bottom of the review, is that The Devil’s Playhouse is damn funny. The dialogue is crisp, the sight-gags hit their mark and a lot of the humour is worked into the responses to both correct and incorrect actions- both the blessed and failed paths feel rewarding.

Like seeing a really good standup comedian I don’t remember many of the jokes but they were cleverer than anything you’ll get from those schmucks on QI or Mock the Week. This game is funnier than TV.

I came for the comedy and so I don’t mind the relative ease of The Devil’s Playhouse. If I wanted a truly challenging puzzle at the cost of being thoroughly entertained then there’s a perfectly good Rubik’s Cube down the back of my cupboard.


4stars


There's more style in these posters than there are in many gamesIf only all PowerPoint presentations looked this goodTeleportation sidesteps frustrating backtracking between different locationsSammeth and Maximus delivering a snappy punchline. See how damn funny this game is?Yes that man has a tentacle demon on his chest. Yes Max's head is floating and on fire. Yes these are spoilersSelecting the noir option has Sam spout some incomprehensible metaphor-laden monologue that gives me sexy chills

Tags
  • Adventure Games
  • Telltale Games
Craig

The Scottish One. Multimedia Renaissance artist.

Posts You May Enjoy
Read

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle

  • Craig
  • 24 March 2023
Read

Dwarf Fortress

  • Craig
  • 23 March 2023
Read

Alan’s Favourite Music of 2022

  • Alan
  • 23 December 2022
Read

Alan’s Favourite Music of 2021

  • Alan
  • 28 December 2021
Split Screen
By Alan Williamson and Craig Wilson.

Input your search keywords and press Enter.