Review:
Sam & Max: The City That Dares Not Sleep

Last week saw the release of the fifth and final instalment of the Devil’s Playhouse series of Sam & Max games produced by Telltale games entitled ‘The City That Dares Not Sleep’. After battling simian alien invaders, corrupt archaeologists, invincible undead pharaohs, chthonic monsters from alternate dimensions, an army of mindless clones and a megalomaniac ventriloquist’s dummy, the faithful canine detective Sam must now find a way to turn his buddy Max from a giant, city-trashing monster back into his pint-sized wise-cracking self.The title of the episode not only riffs off of one of New York's many epithets but it also hints at the fact that Giant Max is trying to make the population of the city fall asleep so that he can feed from the energy of their nightmares.

This mission is the toughest yet, and unlike previous episodes Sam is alone and not able to call on the psychic powers of his sidekick. The first puzzle requires Sam to find a way to get Giant Max to eat him. Once you’ve figured this out, Sam then needs to overcome several challenges inside Max to take control over his body and combat the agent in Max’s brain which is the source of all this trouble. All of this is set against the threat of the city’s militia destroying Max completely using guided missiles.

This final game sees the return of many familiar faces, but also the introduction of many new characters that, although drawn from the Sam & Max mythos, have not previous featured in this latest run of episodes. Mama Bosco, Agent Superball and Paperwaite/Norrington are joined in the Bosco-Tech lab by the thespian cockerel Mr. Featherly (whose party trick is the key to one of the first puzzles). In addition to Grandpa Stinky, outside the lab Sam runs into Satan, who is working on his public image with the help of Jurgen the vampire. Sam also meets Sybil Pandemik who, returned from her honeymoon with the statue of Abraham Lincoln and heavily pregnant, enlists on Sam’s team to delve into Max’s innards.

The structure of the game is split into two parts – the introductory section that takes place outside the body of Giant Max, and the main part of the game that takes place inside him. The main part of the game offers a new type of game play, as once you have taken control of Giant Max’s arms and legs you can move to an exterior view and move him around the city streets in search of the locations you need to complete the story.