Sweet merciful Zeus! Telltale’s latest foray into the twisted world of Sam & Max, freelance police and general malcontents, is quite possibly their best episode yet! To save Bosco and fix the timestream, our crimefighting duo must travel deep into the past, off into the far future, and back again. Can they possibly succeed? No matter what, you know that it will involve a whole lot of hilarity.

From the beginning, you can tell that Chariots of the Dogs isn’t going to be your typical episode. We open with Sam, Max, and private dick Flint Paper breaking into Bosco’s convenience store. The paranoid shop owner and weapons dealer has gone missing. Turns out that his paranoia was actually spot-on for once. Bosco has been taken aboard on an alien spaceship. This is when things get weird. With the aid of a time-traveling elevator (TARDIS, much?), our duo must fix the timestream, save Bosco, and defeat a band of musical madmen. So much happens in this episode that you’d think that it was the season finale. Questions are answered, plots come together, and there is one hell of a cliffhanger ending.

The pop-culture cannons have been brought out in full force. The obvious Science Fiction examples all made it in — Agent Superball makes one hell of a “man in black,” and the future Sam & Max logo is an obvious play on the Star Trek logo. Some of the references are a little more subtle. For instance, I got a few good chuckles from the AI’s menu options and “Future Sam’s” wheelchair. I, as always, have to give Telltale’s writers kudos. It would be easy to descend to “Epic Movie” lows. Tell a bunch of obvious jokes and call it a day. They never do. Sure, a few of the wisecracks are a little played out, but they are never dumb. I called last month’s zombiefest the funniest episode yet, but I think that it was outdone here.

The developers did a great job of shaking things up. I think that just about every complaint that I’ve had about the series has been addressed here. Even the locations that you’re familiar with by now -– Stinky’s diner, the office, Bosco’s store -– have been given a fresh coat of paint (in some cases literally, time travel will do that for you). Sure, the spaceship is just a proxy for the well-traveled street, but it still feels like a breath of fresh air. Over the past few games, I established my routine. Sure, the order changed a bit, but the same basic process applied. That doesn’t quite hold this time around. Things are just different enough to seem fresh, and similar enough that it still works.

Of course, tossing some new textures onto a set does not a good game make, especially for adventure games. The puzzles have to back up the style. I was a little worried, last episode’s puzzles were a little inconsistent. Turns out that there was no reason to fret. Chariots of the Dogs has some of the most clever puzzles that I’ve ever seen in an adventure game. None of them made me want to throw the computer out of my office’s tenth story window. At the same time, only a couple had obvious answers. Pretty much perfect. Thanks to the time travel theme, there were even a few clever nods to the dog and rabbity-thing’s previous adventures.

What is up with Telltale and fourth episodes? The fourth episode of the first season is a fan favorite, and Chariots of the Dogs is probably their best episode yet. At this rate, the fourth episode of Season 3 should be incredible. Regardless, Chariots is the best adventure game so far this year. Telltale has pretty much outdone themselves. As usual, there is a demo available. Go download it and become hooked on the best episodic series in the biz.

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