Author Information
Menu
Navigation
Scribol
|
by KYABen on 06.21.10  It must be difficult being a psychic. People always bugging you wanting to know their future, the past, needing to get in touch with deceased loved ones… wanting to remove your brain from your head to help power a half magic, half mechanical device to summon the Toys of Power from their hiding places around the world. Well, maybe that last one doesn’t come up very often, but when it does, watch out! If you aren’t willing to help them out of your own accord, they might just take your brain by force. That’s what happened in Episode 3 of Devil’s Playhouse: They stole Max’s Brain!
General Skun’ka’pe has escaped from the Penal Zone, again, and teamed up with the malevolent magician Papierwaite in the hopes of succeeding together where they failed alone: world domination. The typically cool-headed Sam takes on a much tougher persona this time around. Incensed at the thievery of Max’s brain, Sam takes the lifeless carcass of his friend and heads out to find some answers, and hopefully the missing organ. Introduced here is a new mechanic for interviewing suspects, informants, and various “persons of interest”. While the subject is speaking, the player is able to choose from several options how Sam should respond. Sam will belt out an angry: “you’re lying!” or impatiently demand that the subject “tell me more,” even a threat with his rather large pistol can elicit a new response, and a clue, if administered at the correct time. All these dialogue options, and a few more, are available as you bounce around town shaking down your sources for information on the perpetrator’s whereabouts.
While the new interviewing mechanic is a cool idea, its implementation leaves something to be desired. Only certain dialogue options work with certain characters to glean new information from them, and it isn’t readily apparent which option to use. I ended up playing through this part of the game the same way I play through the other parts, which is basically trial and error. Because of this, the shakedown portion in the beginning of the game doesn’t really flow very well, and loses some of the impact it could have otherwise possessed. Not to mention having to go back and forth between the same three people trying to get each one to say something different got a little annoying after awhile. There are clues, however, in the transitional scenes that can help point you in the right direction. Sam may make a comment such as “I knew Frankie the Rat was lying” prodding you to go to his side of town, and what to accuse him of when you get there. The clues you receive go a long way on the point of saving time. One of the things that bother me most about adventure games, and the Sam & Max series in particular is that it isn’t always apparent where you’re supposed to go next, or what you’re supposed to do. A good portion of the games are spent wandering around trying to figure out how to progress the story. As you receive clues in this third Episode, it does make things flow better in that respect.
Another issue I had with the game is not exactly with the game at all, but its method of release. By releasing the game in smaller parts, or episodes, it tends to leave each release feeling rather short and inadequate. As you play through each part of the game, not much really changes. The story does, sure, but the mechanics are by and large the same. The graphics, the characters, etc. and it gets kind of tiring after awhile. Have you ever seen a movie that you keep thinking is about to end but doesn’t? Yeah, that’s kind of what we’re looking at here. With each release a game in itself, yet part of a greater whole, each individual part has less of an impact, and the story arc and climax have to be toned down and shortened to fit in each respective piece. Also, you know what to expect in each episode. If something is supposed to be strange, and you’re expecting it to be strange, it just doesn’t hit as hard as it would if it came out of the blue. In the long run, The Devil’s Playhouse: They Stole Max’s Brain! has all of the things that fans of the series saw last month, and the month before that, and will undoubtedly see again when Episode 4 is released. The sarcasm, innuendo, puzzles and strangeness are wrapped up in a tight little package, ready to be consumed. Something weird is going to happen, and Sam & Max are going to get out of it the same way they have been this entire time: by the skin of their teeth. There are some interesting things that could have been done here, but weren’t. We see the return of several of the same psychic powers: the teleporting telephone, rhinoplasty, and future vision to name a few. Even the villains are recycled. The fact that the new interviewing mechanic wasn’t very well implemented (or widely used) also left the game feeling very much like the last two. In the end, to quote Aerosmith: “It’s the same old story, same old song and dance, my friend.” Episode 3 comes out June 22nd, 2010. If you love the Sam & Max series, you’ll probably like this one too.
|
||
Add to N4G
