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In “The Devil’s Playhouse,” Telltale Games brings Sam & Max back for five more episodes of adventure… but this time Telltale has changed up the formula. On the PlayStation 3 for the first time, the biggest change is a console-friendly control scheme, but the first episode also sets up the unsettling notion of Max having psychic powers. In “The Penal Zone,” the Freelance Police must put the brakes on an alien general’s plan to locate the mysterious Toys of Power. And it’s okay if you giggle at the word “penal.”

While the Wii port of Season One capably imitated the classic PC mouse interface, our pre-Move PlayStation 3s are not so endowed. The PS3 debut of the Sam & Max series therefore brings a brand new interface, one better tuned to a non-pointy controller. Rather than point-and-click, Season Three allows for direct control of Sam via the left analog stick. The camera positions are fixed, so it is sort of like a less tanklike Resident Evil. Interacting with the environment is accomplished by either getting Sam to face an object, thus focusing a small blue arrow on the selectable item, or by flicking through available object choices with the right stick. I suppose I’m a console partisan, but this control scheme makes a lot more sense to me than trying to mimic mouse movements with a Dual Shock.

Your options for interaction are usually through an Examine/Talk feature on X. Hitting square providing an instant connection to the items in your inventory. So if you’re holding the jumper cables and looking at the battery, stabbing square will bring up an easy option for “use jumper cables with battery.” Conversations are handled with a circular menu reminiscent of Mass Effect.

The most interesting control tweak is that triangle now switches you from controlling Sam (dog) to Max (rabbit.) When you’re in Max’s skin, you do not amble around the environment but instead you get a planted-feet first-person view. A menu of psychic powers appears at the bottom of the screen, each of which can be used by focusing a central reticle at your target. In this first episode, Max receives – and loses – several powers, one of which allows you to see visions of the future.

These visions are effectively a masked in-game help system, but presented so cleverly that you will not feel like the game is handing itself to you. Often the future visions are just for yuks, or are purposefully obtuse. If you crank up the game’s hint level, you will receive more obvious help in the form of Sam muttering to himself about what he ought to do next. Although I have been stumped by previous S&M adventures, I made it through The Penal Zone entirely without cheating and looking up an online guide. I completed the game in roughly four hours, and collected nine of the possible thirteen Trophies.

I love the vintage toy design to the Toys of Power. I hope we eventually get to see more of the Silly Putty riff: nose-shaped rubbery goo dubbed Rhinoplasty.

And that selector wheel is totally the spinner from The Game of Life.

Naturally, the psychic Toys are key to solving the game’s puzzles. The ability to teleport through phone numbers dominates this episode, although some other powers are revealed in a teaser tutorial and an unlockable bonus for a second playthrough. In a nod to the classic item-combining of the original PC game “Sam & Max Hit the Road,” there are a few instances where you must analyze matched pairs of found objects in order to reveal the next clue.

Despite an intentionally confusing beginning, I found Penal Zone a far more accessible S&M adventure than some of the episodes of previous seasons. Longtime fans will recognize cherished elements, and several moments call back to events from Seasons One and Two, but there is nothing so outlandish that could stump a complete newbie. (Except maybe the revelation that Max is still the President of the United States. YES WE DID.) The basic plot is so ridiculous anyway that any overt references to something prior will just roll right off. It also struck me as more effortlessly funnier than previous installments, with a smart script that does not always rely on the Sam & Max formula of outrageous non-sequiter followed by strained insult.

Episode 3.1 is a kickoff episode, so expect a lot of lead-up to Plot Elements to Be Named Later. Yes, Max has psychic abilities granted by the mysterious Toys of Power, but 3.1 alone will not explain where the Toys came from. The chief goal of Penal Zone is to stop the marauding alien space gorilla, General Skun-ka’pe, who is searching for the Toys. On the quest our boys must interact with detective Flint Paper, long-suffering waitress Stinky, New York City’s moleman population, and the scientist Momma Bosco (deceased.) And yup, there’s a cliffhanger ending.

The voice work is spot-on, and the graphics are… well, the S&M series still has weird little glitches after all this time. I don’t know if this is because I have only played these games on Wii and now PS3, so maybe I am seeing artifacts of the port out of PC-land. Every now and then, your eye will catch the characters popping in a microsecond after the scene changes. Or the scene will stutter, almost imperceptibly, before cutting to the next. Literally a microsecond, and it’s not enough to ding the overall experience, but still. You notice it and you wonder why this is still happening.

The Penal Zone is available now on the PlayStation Store as part of the $34.95 full season bundle. The second episode, “The Tomb of Sammun-Mak,” is expected this May.

For a great script and an intriguing twist on the established S&M style, plus tweaked console controls that actually work… the first episode of Sam & Max on PS3, “The Penal Zone,” gets 5 out of 5 Aeropausonauts.

Sam & Max – The Devil’s Playhouse: The Penal Zone was released April 2010 (NA) on PlayStation Network.
Rated E10+

Check out Sam & Max and other PS3 reviews at Test Freaks.