Come on, you can’t help to laugh at a German vampire with oversized nipples, a bad accent and poorly enunciated U.S. jokes. It must be the same reason why I loved Sam & Max: Reality 2.0 and its hilarious take on the Internet that I love zombies so much. A month later and Sam & Max: Episode 203 Night of the Raving Dead has arrived onto my PC, so does the third episode continue another trail of hilarity or fall into the trap as the stepping-stone third title.
Sam & Max have transcended through a huge variety of environments and themes, including a sitcom and the Internet, so it was only a matter of time for the duo to include zombies. In a move that plenty of TV sitcoms or dramas have shown, Episode 203 opens with Sam & Max currently in a bind and the duo reminisces of the events that lead to the current events, which opens up the events in the game.
I’d say by the time Season 1 released its third episode, The Mole, the Mob and the Meatball, the series began to hit a few bumps in the road since they were in the release period between having just released the content to introduce the series and right before releasing the content that’ll bloom and flesh out the series. But for Episode 203, the laughs just continue and the joy ride was virtually bump-free.
It must have been the cultural impact of seeing zombies in a comedic adventure game that will always keep me desensitized towards the walking undead. In Episode 203, zombies attack the street block Sam & Max reside at; one zombie even steals one of the office’s landmark adornment, Jesse James’ hand. A chase after the zombies reveals the plans of Jurgen, a hilariously over-the-top stereotype of a German, emo vampire. You would think that an emo vampire would be pretty depressed by sucking blood, but who knows.
Sam & Max’s humor is, of course, top-notch like always. You got plenty of jokes ranging from emo stereotypes, David Hasselhoff, reality TV, AOL, dating services and even other games like Resident Evil. One of the included mini-games within Episode 203 is a nice homage to Paperboy, complete with firing discs via a rocket launcher to a street filled with zombies; trust me, who doesn’t want to try that?
Of course, one of the lasting appeals of the game is the characters and their transformations through the two seasons. Since you got zombies in this episode, you get your hilarious zombie Abe Lincoln paired with the ol’ Honest Abe head. Also Sybil’s mini-side plot of going through the break-up and meeting other people is pretty funny as well.
By now, you should understand the regular rotation of locations in a Sam & Max title. This time around, Sybil’s is open while Bosco’s is closed. However, Jurgen’s new location sheds out one of the new major locations for the episode.
In the end, if you’re this far into the second season of Sam & Max, you should stick around for the rest of the episodes. Either you’re a die-hard adventure gaming fan or at least a fan of Sam & Max’s comedy to understand and get the full shtick of the duo. Episode 203 may be the stepping stone to the next chapters, which should be the beginnings of the Season’s hilarious closure, but don’t let the future potential take away from what’s a great episode in itself.
