Sam and Max Season 3, The Devil’s Playhouse Episode 5 – The City That Dares Not Sleep is as long as titles get. It’s so long in fact, that its bordering ridiculous! But then again ‘ridiculous’ has never been above Sam and Max, so that sort of behavior is not exactly discouraged around here. Typing long titles over and over is discouraged (for my own sanity), so lets just call this game The City That Dares Not Sleep.

The City That Dares Not Sleep is the final episode in the third Sam and Max season, which has thus far proven to be the most successfully episodic game of recent times, if not of all time. On a monthly basis a new episode was released that provided a good few hours of gameplay, some consistently good and funny writing, and two of gaming’s most loved characters besides Mario and Luigi…and Ryu and Chun-Li…and Sonic and Tales… Ok, they are well loved by me at least!

Over the first four episodes Sam and Max have been travelling through time, thwarting huge alien space ships and fighting big gorilla dictators. They even fought a clone army looking exactly like Sam. The end of each episode sets you up perfectly for the next episode, and if nothing else, the wacky story pulls you in, itching with those “what happens next” moments. You can read the reviews of the first 4 games here: Episode 1: The Penal Zone; Episode 2: The Tomb of Sammun Mak; Episode 3: They Stole Max’s Brain; and Episode 4: Beyond the Alley of the Dolls.

The final episode sees Max, the two eared bunny thing, turned into a giant monster and running rampage throughout the city. It’s up to Sam to build a team of experts from the rag-tag bunch of characters, to infiltrate Max and destroy him. Obviously Sam will not stand for that and he will try save Max as well as the city.

The rag tag team consists of four typically weird characters in the Sam and Max universe. You won’t get to control them directly, but as you slowly take control of Max’s extremities, they all come in handy to control different parts of Max’s body. Max still has his psychic abilities and these will come into play once you have control of Max. Ultimately this will further the plotline and result in a pretty gross ending to the series. As usual, things tie up neatly and seemingly random events in the first four episodes now makes more sense.

Since this is still a game in the same series, nothing as far as gameplay has really changed. Controls are still the same sticky controls, and the graphics are virtually identical. A few new sets are used and the characters from throughout the entire season make an appearance. But playing the game you often feel like you have seen this before, or used this gag before, probably because you have. Sets, props and even puzzle elements make their way from the earlier episodes and if you managed to solve the puzzles there, you will solve these puzzles pretty easily, bordering on too easily.

The game is by no means a tough game. It is not long, or terribly exciting, and at the end, even though you feel like you need a bath, you will not have a great sense of accomplishment. It would be more akin to finishing watching a movie, than completing a game.

This is perfect for a single episode, and with the gaps in between each episode you almost forget those little annoyances and just can’t wait for the game’s conclusion. Playing this game’s episodes as a single large game would simply not be fun. The faults and problems would be amplified and the game would suffer because of it. As it stands, Sam and Sax is the perfect game for episodic release.

It may be the end of a season, but I have no doubt that Sam and Max will be back. For the next season we should hopefully see better controls and maybe a bit more of a challenge, but graphically it won’t be too much different. As it stands Sam and Max will run on pretty much anything, and the casual nature of the game requires that wide compatibility.

If you like Sam and Max then you certainly need to play this season. If you wait a few months you will certainly pick this up for a steal on an online special. Then you won’t have any excuse for not supporting this duo in their quest for humour!

The good: Perfect pacing for episodic content; classic fun; neat tying up of the episodes.
The bad: Needs something fresh; better controls.
The ugly: So THAT’S what Max looks like inside!

Purchase: