Review:
Sam & Max: The Penal Zone

The Penal Zone is the first episode of The Devil’s Playhouse, a new series of game adventures featuring the Sam & Max characters designed and owned by Steve Purcell. Sam & Max first appeared in video game form in the Hit the Road point-and-click adventure published for PC by Lucasarts in 1993. This latest series of adventures is the third ‘season’ of stories produced by Telltale Games, who took over the franchise after Lucasarts dropped it in 2005.

For readers not familiar with the characters, Sam & Max are anthropomorphic cartoon characters that live in an alternative reality populated by talking animals, monsters and aliens. Sam is a talking dog who dresses in the style of a typical film noir private detective with a dry wit and a wide-ranging knowledge of trivia. Max is a highly strung wise-cracking rabbity thing with sharp teeth and an insatiable curiosity. The pair work together as the Freelance Police and are constantly hired by people to investigate a variety of crimes and mysteries.

The story of The Penal Zone concerns the arrival in Sam & Max’s home town of General Skunkape (pronounced skoon-ka-pay, not skunk-ape) a nefarious alien who is intent on collecting a number of mystical toy devices that bestow psychic powers upon their owners. As the player you must guide Sam & Max through a number of encounters with various characters and puzzles involving a variety of items and special powers through to the end of the story.

Interestingly, the story starts at the end rather than the beginning, with Sam & Max already trapped in his spaceship trying to work out how to thwart him before he destroys the city. After dealing with the villain the story rewinds back to the beginning where the narrative begins, with elements slowly coming together to lead the characters back to the story’s eventual climax. This approach deliberately plays with your expectations, and the final conclusion offers plenty of surprises.

The game utilises a 3d engine similar to the first two seasons produced by Telltale. One key difference to the game experience this time however is that, in addition to controlling Sam, you can now swap to control Max and his new psychic powers. In fact, the use of Max’s powers is the key to unravelling the mysteries in this episode – his first power is related to the first toy he finds – a viewfinder that allow him to see people and objects in the future, which may lead to clues regarding what the team needs to do in the present. Later powers unlocked by other toys include teleportation and shape-shifting.