Sam & Max 203: Night of the Raving Dead

Finally... Night of the Raving Dead is the best episode yet. It's funny, challenging, and ridiculous; but most importantly it manages to cram a lot of creativity into a 3-hour story. Backtracking is prominent, but for the first time ever it's done well. Each time you revisit an area details have changed, or you'll learn something new which can be used to further your progress. Parts like this are why Sam & Max is so well remembered. Fun characters, an outrageous yet humorous script, and a quirky take on the genre.

Sam & Max 203: Night of the Raving Dead is another entry in a long series of short ScummVM style point and click adventure games. This episode has our comedy freelance police rabbit and dog deal with undead Eurotrash ravers. Gameplay consists of basic point and click adventuring and inventory management, with the occasional minigame. The only things preventing this from being recommendable is the way Telltale Games removed it from the store, and replaced it with a fully remastered collection (which I do recommend). https://store.steampowered.com/app/1747050/Sam__Max_Beyond_Time_and_Space/

Night of the Raving Dead is where Season Two starts to shape up, seemingly in preparation for the high point of Episodes Four and Five. Some of the puzzles here in Episode Three are good, but others can prove a bit frustrating. They're some of the hardest of all the Telltale Sam & Max games up to this point, at least for me. When I replayed them at the time of these reviews, this game marked the first time I had to look in the community guides for advice. The difficulty here has less to do with lack of thematic cohesion like with the preceding episode (which was also on the relatively difficult side) and more with the fact that there's more trial-and-error than usual here, and in at least a couple of puzzles you absolutely must be observant of the environment. Compared to the rest of the genre, it's still lenient, but if you're playing these one after the other you'll need to step up your puzzle game. As befitting a Sam & Max game, the writing's pretty good. It has the usual humor, but there's also a couple interesting twists this time around, the ending leads nicely into the next episode, and overall it's thematically consistent with its pisstake of classic horror. However, I felt the Sybil mini-arc was a bit bland, even if it did provide plot development for her. I also have mixed feelings about the villain: on one hand his personality does a great job of motivating you to defeat him, but on the other hand I feel it's a bit out of character for Sam & Max to repeatedly poke fun at metrosexuals, even if the one they're making fun of is also a dastardly European vampire. It's still bizarre enough to work, but it felt a bit out of place to me. Then again, after over two dozen comics, games, and even a TV cartoon, I can forgive the odd writing misfire.

The entire series relies on its unfunny jokes which hinder the gameplay a lot, and the gameplay itself is rather average anyway. I shouldn't have bothered myself and I don't recommend it.

ther is a resident evil joke you have to have a big knowledge on gmaes to get it though sorry guys

- Я никогда не знал, что вампиры настолько... "сладенькие". - Не все вампиры, Макс. Только европейские.

Superball! 🐎🔊

"No soy un pedazo de carne".