At one point during Sam & Max Episode 6: Bright Side Of The Moon, the player finds herself inside Bosco's Inconvenience, attempting to buy another of Bosco's failed attempts at innovative technology. Players of the previous episodes have been here before, of course, and each time Bosco has charged an outrageous price for his gadgets. This time, the item will supposedly cause earthquakes at the push of a button. The price? One hundred trillion dollars. When the player questions the value of all the products Bosco has sold over all six episodes, his response is simple: "Look man, all I know is I keep making up the most ridiculous price I can think of, and you keep paying it!"
It's an incredibly self-referential moment, one of many in the final episode of Telltale's inaugural season of point-and-click adventures. Over the course of seven months, Telltale has risen to the task of releasing a new adventure for everyone's favorite quasi-detectives on time, every month. The newest and last episode treats its story as a celebration of the episodes preceding it, rolling out characters from every installment of the series with a wink and a nod while never taking itself too seriously. Right from the beginning, it's clear that wrapping up the loose threads is secondary to visiting the schizophrenic world of Sam & Max one last time.
Bright Side begins by throwing the Freelance Police right into the action, sending the pair to the moon to stop Hugh Bliss from hypnotizing the world into being peaceful and content. There's not a lot of build-up, but thanks to previous episodes, there doesn't need to be. Once on the moon, Bright Side is a buffet of previous characters, most on the moon to join Bliss' cult of Prismatology. Sam and Max need to infiltrate Bliss' headquarters in The Blister of Tranquility and end his plan for world domination through happiness, as only an anthropomorphic dog and his hyperkinetic rabbity friend can do.
That's not a lot of story, and it's arguable how much of an overarching plot Bliss' scheme was during the season. But Sam & Max has never been about story. It's a series built around the lunacy of each situation it presents, something delivered in spades during both Episode Six and Season One as a whole. Bright Side Of The Moon isn't quite as long as previous episodes, which themselves weren't more than five hours of gameplay, but it's packed full of hilarious situations.
It's difficult to imagine a full-length Sam & Max game now that the series has gone episodic. There have been moments in the season that have dragged (most of Episode Three springs to mind) but playing through the season in chunks has kept the insanity Sam and Max deal with fresh and inventive. Each episode feels very much like the comics where the Freelance Police got their start, brought to life in Telltale's beautiful 3D engine. The Moon's Souvenir Shop is as bright and colorful as Bliss' inner sanctum of rainbows and icky cuteness. If players had to spend 30 hours roaming these environments, the shine would wear off quickly. As an episodic series, however, wandering around the deranged environments of Sam and Max's neighborhood never gets old.
The dialog and voice work in Sam & Max is the reason this series is so appealing, and goes a long way toward bringing the game to life. Sam's calm, semi-monotone drawl perfectly matches the drawn out lines he delivers, while Max's manic exclamations reveal just how unhinged he is. The voice acting for other characters is spot on, as well. The disembodied head of the statue of Abraham Lincoln from Episode Four speaks with the authority of the commander-in-chief one moment, and breaks into anachronistic dating slang the next. Bright Side's music is catchy, a mixture of classic hard-boiled jazz and modern themes just like the rest of the series, and while there isn't a musical moment on par with Episode Four's "The War Song," the ending montage does have a great musical number.
Just seven months ago, the point-and-click adventure genre was pushing up daisies. The devoted amongst fans of the genre continued to hold their breath for a title with the same spirit as classics like Day of the Tentacle or King's Quest, but most had lost all hope of a renaissance. Now, on the other side of Sam & Max Season One, Telltale has shown there's still life in the genre while proving that episodic, digital content isn't just a fad. Sam & Max Episode Six: Bright Side Of The Moon isn't the best game in the series, but it's a great ending to a season filled to the brim with fun moments and hilarious dialog. Here's hoping it doesn't take one hundred trillion dollars to get player's hands on Season Two.
