Review:
Sam & Max: They Stole Max's Brain!

This week sees the release of ‘They Stole Max’s Brain!’ – the third and newest episode of ‘The Devil’s Playhouse’ series of game adventures for the Sam & Max comic characters created by Steve Purcell. I have already explained who these characters are in my previous reviews of the first two episodes ‘The Penal Zone’ and ‘The Tomb of ‘Sammun-Mak’.

Once again the narrative picks up immediately from the previous game, and this episode’s title is a bit of a giveaway regarding its theme. Sam finds the dishevelled body of Max with the brain removed from his skull. Insane with grief and rage he sets himself to finding the missing brain and saving his buddy.

This time the game is split into three distinct acts, the first of which is something of a departure from the format of the previous games. Rather than allowing you to walk Max around, the game simply focuses on scenes of dialogue and your use of the ‘interrogation techniques’ related to Sam by Flint Paper. After initially speaking to some cowering mole-men you (as Sam) are then given the opportunity to speak to three other characters – a sign-spinning space-gorilla soldier, a streetwise rodent pickpocket and an apparently clueless Bavarian tourist. You must solve the puzzle of which character to ask which questions in which order.

The second act leads Sam to the Museum of Mostly Natural History where he finds previous antagonists Skunkape and Paperwaite vying for control of the Toybox, and they are using Max’s brain as a conduit for collecting all the magical toys that they have been looking for. When Sam makes his presence known the two evil masterminds agree to co-operate against him, setting up the premise of the puzzles in this act which concern creating tensions between the two villains so that their fragile alliance collapses.

The result of all this though is that the Toybox falls into the hands of the crazed ancient pharaoh Sammun-Mak who uses the power of the toys to turn the city into a modernised Egyptian paradise where everyone are slaves. In this third and final act of the game the newly re-united team of Sam and Max must stop the pharaoh, steal the Toybox and return the city to normal.