Sam & Max Season 2 Episode 3: Night of the Raving Dead

"The humor is by far the most important defining trait for the Sam & Max series, and the developer is really doing a great job with each installment."

"Even the optimal solution to the puzzles, though, still requires an excessive amount of driving between locations, and while the driving/parking animations are always impressive, they begin to become little more than an artificial playing time increase after a while"

If you've not been won over by Sam & Max yet, this episode certainly won't change your mind. It's better than Ice Station Santa, yet not quite as good as Moai Better Blues. It remains small in both size and scope, while those who have stuck with the series since Season 1 will find that much of the actual gameplay is basic meat-and-potatoes fetch-questing. And yet...it's indecently cheap and, for all its minor flaws, the ongoing saga of Sam & Max is still the funniest game around. I've not laughed this much since Psychonauts, and that's not praise I dish out lightly. Let's just hope that the tricky balance between brain-busting puzzles and gut-busting jokes works itself out for the next chapter, Chariots of the Dogs.

"Probably the biggest improvement is to the inevitable driving portion of the game, which has switched from a now-boring chase-cam perspective to an isometric view that's similar to the old Paperboy games - appropriate, given that your time on the road is spent thwacking zombies with promotional CDs for an online service."

After the high quality of the first two episodes of Season Two, it's disappointing to see the series misfire as it reaches its midpoint. It's certainly worth playing, especially for series fans (and there are plot developments that long-time players won't want to miss) but we're hoping that this particular episode will end up being like Episode 1 of Series One: a middling anomaly in an otherwise great series of games. Night of the Raving Dead can be purchased and downloaded for $8.95 (the game is free with a Gametap subscription), but at this point, the entire five-episode Season Two package that's available for $34.95 is still likely the better value.