It’s been a month, so I have Sam & Max Episode 202: Moai Better Blues in my hands and ready for review. Since this is the second episode, I expected the episode to be a bit harder than the first episode; a few new characters are also expected to debut.
The story and subsequent plot is pretty straightforward with the sassy and witty Sam & Max humor, but it can get pretty downright whacky at times. If things including time-bending triangle portals, mysterious and ancient prophecies and talking Easter Island stone heads on a mind-tripping island are your idea of a fun story to wade through, then Moai Better Blues is your bag.
Moai Better Blues also continues the more streamlined television presentation look started by Episode 201. That means the game immediately opens to an in-game puzzle to solve. It’s light on the locations but you can interact with most of the starting locations and NPCs to re-familiarize yourself with the game. After solving the puzzle, which is usually easy, you get your visually exciting title sequence. Once that’s over, the fun begins. Tightly-knit and snappy production values make Moai Better Blues visually entertaining.
With the inclusion of two new mini-games this time, I’ll give a nod to Telltale for branching out to more adventure-centric gameplay designs. One of them gives a nod to wildly successful game Guitar Hero by driving the car over bagpipes that lay on the street with avoiding objects. The two mini-games should give some slight replay value on top of what fans already expect.
You also got your new grab-bag bunch of new characters, and people such as Flint Paper (the detective who shares a wall with the duo) are given a more prominent role in this episode, while the Soda Poppers are nowhere to be seen. Something that I think may irk some Season 1 and 2 fans is the constantly shifting character slots; certain fans of characters may be a bit sad to see their character missing in consistent episodes.
This time around, the puzzle difficulty may be a bit tighter than Episode 201. Still, you can adjust the difficulty on the fly while going through the game, so the number and range of hints from Max will adjust to whatever situation you’re in.
Audio is top-notch, as always. Ranging from the snappy and professionally tight title sequence to the island-themed music blends of the game, the audio is something that Telltale continues to nail episode after episode. Sharp lines such as, “Ancient prophecies can only mean two things: tedious backstories and work we don’t get paid for,” give the episode a much needed laugh.
Lingering faults including a short gameplay time, recycled locations and a constantly rotating bunch of supporting characters that may give picky fans something to frown about are present in Moai Better Blues. There’s really no way to avoid these though, and they plague the whole series. Despite the continued faults, Sam & Max: Season Two is shaping up quite fine; I’ll gladly recommend Episode 202 to the next fan.
