Available from

Telltale Games!

Platform

Genre

Adventure

Publisher

Telltale Games

Developer

Telltale Games

ESRB

E (Everyone)

Released

June 22, 2010

‑ Wacky, frenetic out-there story that seemingly has no business staying coherent once again is hilarious

- Beginning "interrogation Sam" sequence plays more as hard-boiled detective movie than funny Sam & Max gaming
- It's the usual assortment of intuitive-to-solve mixed with head-scratching "What do I do next?" point & click puzzles

Review: Sam & Max 302 (PC)

Review: Heavy Rain (PS3)

Review: Trace Memory (DS)

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Sam & Max 303: They Stole Max's Brain!

Score: 8.5 / 10

More than one adversary throughout the Freelance Police's many zany adventures has accused Max of being a mindless numbskull. In They Stole Max’s Brain!, Max proves that accusation as true, as the furry, frenzied bunny loses his mind – literally

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- Adventure Game Reviews

– and his now brain-free body becomes the unwitting vessel for the world-domination-seeking pharaoh, Sammun-Mak.

The game begins with Sam discovering that his buddy Max's brain has taken leave of his bunny body. And he's not very happy about that, not one bit. Gamers get to see a decidedly different Sam, one not seen before – a angry,

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vigilante-serious Sam – one that's going all Dirty Harry on everyone, in search of answers of what happened to his little buddy’s brain. The gameplay moves away from the usual point & clicking and turns into a hard-boiled detective interrogation simulation.

And Sam's not afraid of playing rough and tumble "bad cop" until he's got the answers he needs. This episode beginning is likely the least fun that anyone that’s ever played a Sam & Max game before will have. But fortunately from there, the silliness and insanity of the storyline returns and somehow remains coherent despite the bizarre and that's-just-nuts twists and turns. That's along with the typical Sam & Max gameplay that everybody's come to love (and sometimes hate, because the usual assortment of hard-to-figure-out puzzles along with the puzzles that are less frustrating) at the forefront of this mind-finding adventure.

A wacky, alternate reality where the world's leader is an Egyptian bunny pharaoh – and a reality that has everything to do with the inadvertent intercession of Sam and Max with incendiary implications just another typical "boring" day in the lives of the madcap Freelance Police. Although the humorless beginning brings a little too much Dirty Harry attitude with an angry, scary side of Sam gamers haven’t seen before, once They Stole Max's Brain! really gets going, the gameplay once again is yet another hilarious gaming delight heading into the final two episodes of the season.

- Lee Cieniawa
lcieniawa@armchairempire.com

(October 26, 2010)