It's a good thing the writing is still top-notch in Beyond Time and Space, because, well, some of the puzzles come up rather disappointing. A large number of puzzles in the game fall into one of two camps: either painfully obvious or achingly frustrating. There were numerous times when I felt like I was just trying to use every item in my inventory randomly with everything in the environment until something finally advanced the action, resulting in a "why did that work?" reaction, which isn't particularly fun.
In previous Telltale Games, there always seemed to be scattered instances of instructing the main character to walk one way, yet he trots off in the complete opposite direction, and in this game it seemed to happen more frequently than ever. In fact, I found that Beyond Time and Space seemed to have more glitches than in any of Telltale's other games I've played. All too often the animation would freeze for a second before moving on, and a few times a character would be speaking but no audio would play. There were also instances of important items not appearing in the animations, such as when Stinky is scrubbing the diner counter with her hand wrapped around air instead of a sponge. I deleted some other games off my 360 hard drive, thinking that perhaps my hard drive and memory were too full for the game to work optimally, but it didn't seem to help. While none of these glitches break the game, they're still annoying imperfections that are very noticeable.
Glitches and all, Sam and Max Beyond Time and Space is a still well-worthwhile compendium of five episodes of Sam and Max zaniness. Just do yourself a favor and play through the slightly better Save the World first in case you already haven't.
Beyond Time and Space is a good deal at 1600 MS points ($20) on Xbox Live Arcade, though not quite as much of a steal as Save the World is at the same amount for six instead of five episodes. If you hunger for more after finishing off Sam & Max Save the World, Beyond Time and Space makes a great second course.
Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space is rated T (Teen) by the ESRB for Cartoon Violence, Crude Humor, Drug Reference, Mild Language, Mild Suggestive Themes. This game can also be found on: PC.
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