Sam and Max: Beyond the Alley of the Dolls Review
We forge ahead veering towards the ending of the third season of Tell Tale’s now legendary Sam and Max series, the game that quite honestly saved the adventure genre (though not point and click, sadly). I found the last two episodes to be a little bit of a let down, so let’s check in and see how things are going in Episode Four.
The game picks up right where we left off, with Sam having recovered from his brain stealing episode, and having some new superpowered toys to play with. Before the heroes have too much time to recover, a horde of Sam clones shows up, hell bent on grabbing them toys.
It’s one of the more enjoyable plots of the new season, and the first that I really liked from start to finish, though the whole series has a weird tilt to it this season. The delivery is a lot more busy and plotted out, which is more mature, but it’s starting to feel more stilted and less off-the-cuff than the weirdness of the first two seasons.
I don’t know whether it’s a good or bad thing. It’s harder this year to take them as seperate episodes, because they’re not, really, they’re more the child of Tales of Monkey Island than of the earlier Sam and Max iterations. If the series is going to grow it’s going to have to balance that maturation and the inanity of the game’s concepts, sort of like it did at the beginning of Episode 3.
Extra Features:
No special features to speak of as of yet.
Technical:
No issues, as even the review builds are almost as polished as the ones that hit the streets these days. A few graphics dropped in and out at the very beginning of the episode, but it was nothing important or bothersome, and the issues never popped up again after the first ten minutes.
Graphics:
For whatever it’s worth, the graphics in this episode seem much more involved and finely detailed than even the ones from earlier this year. I know they’ve been slowly working on that more 3D animated feel since the Wallace and Grommit games, but after having sort of plateued during Tales of Monkey Island, this and the previous episode seem to be doing more with what they’ve been working with so far.
That’s especially clear in the sets. In Sam and Max Seasons 1 and 2, the backgrounds were almost too cluttered. Here they’re just as busy, but there at least seems to be an order to things. Again, I think it’s more to do with TellTale’s maturation as a developer than anything else.
Sound:
Dialog, as always, is very good and very well delivered. I hope you love the Sam voice as much as I do, because it’s in overdrive here. Newer characters continue to be not quite as strong as the ones from past seasons, but that’s nitpicking. Everybody’s pretty great in this episode.
I’ve always been a big fan of the music in these games, and once again, every piece fits every scene and note to a tee. While I think the music could always be better integrated (especially since they’re so great with showstopping musical numbers out of nowhere), I really did enjoy most of the musical nuances this time out.
Replay Value:
No real reason to go back through unless you think you missed a joke or two in your first playthrough.
Final Score: 8/10
For the first time this season, I think they really hit on all cylanders, which is too bad because the Season’s almost over. While I started out in Season 1 not sold on the episodic nature, they won me over to their side, because it fit the cartoony nature of the series so perfectly. So now I’m not completely sold on the full narative arc thing they’re going for this year.
That said, as an episode, I’d rank this as one of their better ones. The jokes and puzzles all hit really well, better than anything they’ve done thus far (with the exception of the intro to Episode 3), and while Max’s powers are starting to get a bit tedious, they’re all integrated well into the puzzle structure this time out, and I get the feeling they ultimately won’t wear out their welcome after next month.
If you’re interested in taking a look at the game, you can download a copy of the PC Demo at the TellTale Website.