Sam & Max Season 01 Episode 03 - The Mole, The Mob & The Meatball PC Game Review GAMERamble

Information

Title:
Developer:
Publisher:
Release Date:
Genre:
Website:
Size

Sam & Max S01E03
Telltale Games
The Adventure Company
2007
Point & Click Adventure
Official Website
Digital Download

Sam & Max S01E03 - The Mole, The Mob & The Meatball

After their adventures at the WARP television studios in the last episode, Sam & Max is this time called upon to investigate the toy mafia. An undercover police mole has gone silent and so the freelance police must once again apply their skills to solve the case. Those who have played the first two episodes will know exactly what to expect from this mid season installment but is the formula starting to wear a bit thin already?

The game once again opens in the freelance police office and apart from a new souvenir in the closet, not much has changed. A trip to the local inconvenience store reveals that Bosco is now attempting a French disguise while on the other side of the street Sybill has now changed careers to that of a professional trial witness. Revisiting these recycled areas and hearing the repeated lines of dialogue does dampen the enthusiasm for this episode a bit but I guess that it is an inevitable side effect of creating new installments in such a short time frame.

There are only three new scenes in this episode and they are all set inside "Ted E Bears Mafia-Free Playland and Casino" which is obviously a front for the mob. The first order of business is to infiltrate them followed by the now familiar "three objective" approach. Throw in the obligatory car-chase scene and you might be forgiven for starting to think that the whole thing is becoming way too formulaic.

While the episode framework is starting to become overly familiar, at least the jokes and dialogue is still sharp. Unfortunately, the limited locations and sparse item count means that puzzles are even easier than before. It also doesn't help that some of the puzzles are somewhat recycled. You are still free to solve most of the puzzles in any order but none of them will have you stumped for too long if you are familiar with the genre.

The visuals are the same as previous episodes and the audio is still of a very high standard. My personal favorite was definitely the "organic" listening device who has some great lines. Other highlights include a "Yo-mamma" torture scene and whack-a-mole mini game.

The Mole, The Mob & The Meatball is a bite sized chunk of point & click adventuring but to me felt weaker than previous entries. Hopefully Telltale will pull out all the stops for the next episode and address some of the complaints that players have.

System Requirements

Supported OS:
Processor:
RAM:
Video Card:
Sound Card:
Direct X Version:
Optical Drive:
Hard Drive Space:
Peripherals Supported:

Windows XP or Vista
1.5GHz processor
256MB RAM
32MB 3D-accelerated video card
DirectX-compatible sound
8.0 or later
n/a
120MB
Mouse

TAGS: Sam & Max, Season 01 Episode 03, The Mole, The Mob & The Meataball, Toy Mafia, Ted E Bear, Freelance Police

Gameplay: Shorter than the last episode and more repetitive but still good.
Graphics: Good but nothing outstanding.
Sound: Good voice acting with some funny dialogue.

While the episodes rather worryingly seem to be getting shorter and the puzzles are still not what I would have liked to see in a game with the pedigree of Sam & Max there is still fun to be had. I hope that for the next episode Telltale shakes things up a bit before the series starts to be come stale.