I noticed something playing through the fourth episode in the 3rd season of these Sam & Max adventures. By the end of every episode, I have controlled these two characters to flat out save the world. Not just take steps TOWARD saving the world, but actually and literally saving the world. Every episode ends this way. It’s like one season of this is worth five seasons of 24 in some strange way. Which is cool, and gives a satisfying each time, but it does leave me wonder what kind of grand finale they’ll have planned for next month’s finale. While this episode isn’t brimming with any unique twists on play mechanics, it does have a juicy enough story to, again, keep me tuned in and wanting to see said ending.
The story this time around sees Sam & Max struggling to stop a swarm of Sam clones from running amok throughout the city, and to stop them from stealing all the Toys of Power that Max has used throughout the game. As I progressed through this episode, I was treated to a lot of the pervading mysteries in past episodes being explained. In a lot of cases, I thought “finally!” while playing. That is actually probably the most engaging part of this episode. At the same time, it also brought into attention the fact that on the whole, episodes aren’t connected by these lingering small mysteries, but by seemingly random twists that occur during the ending cutscenes. These twists set the stage for Telltale to do pretty much whatever they want on the next episode without worrying too much about continuity issues, but sometimes a shocking reveal that makes one think “ah! of course!” is nice. Considering this is about two detectives solving a mystery, the ground seems fertile for those well-thought surprises. There is actually a shock of this sort within this episode as well, where a new villain comes about out of nowhere, and his big reveal seems perhaps a little too random.
But on introducting characters, I have to make special mention of a cameo from what I can only guess is previous seasons: the talking arcade machine Buster Blaster. This character only really serves to give you one item, but the dialogue with him/it is probably some of the funniest stuff I’ve heard in any game in some time. It’s all in his obscenely shrill voice, which is a mix between a demon voice off an 80′s metal album and a D&D nerd who listened to said metal. He’s completely hysterical, and is a huge motivation for me to go play last season. More of him/it, please!
In terms of gameplay, it remains largely untouched. Again, you walk around and solve mysteries through dialogue and interactions with your environment while using items you pick up along the way and will also call into use Max’s psychic powers. This episode only had two particularly tricky parts, while the rest of the game actually felt rather easy. Again, maybe I’m just getting my swagger back for this kind of game, or it’s genuinely just easing up on the difficulty. Neither character dropped nearly as many hints this time around, and this was also a nice little ego boost, if I may.
One thing I did differently, though, was play through this episode on a gamepad. I was surprised to find that nearly all my previous complaints about controls went away. Within these 3D environments, this game just plays a whole lot better with a gamepad. All my fighting with camera angles disappeared. The interaction was a bit more cumbersome since I couldn’t simply point and click on what I wanted to, but would sometimes have to sift through with left and right bumpers to highlight just the thing I was after, but that aside I found this to be an overall smoother experience with a gamepad. Something to consider.
It’s good. This episode is, overall, probably the best one yet. The plot twists do feel a little random this time around feeling like the end to the main story with sudden events forcing room for the finale. Still, the story does pace and progress well, the puzzles are consistently fun, and the laughs are at a peak with Buster Blaster. If you’ve made it this far, and if for some reason you’re buying each episode individually (It’s really a better deal just buying the whole season), rest assured you’re getting another quality experience with this one.
A review code was provided and did not affect the outcome of this review. This is a review of the PC build. 
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