Sam and Max are quite possibly the funniest duo in videogaming history: a psychokinetic rabbity-thing and a huge fedora-wearing dog might not strike some as the most humour-prone characters possible, but anyone who plays their games will be quick to correct you on this false assumption. Sam and Max are funny, not wry giggle-to-yourself funny, but put-the-wiimote-down-because-you-might-break-it-from-laughing-too-hard-funny.

The point and click genre is now firmly re-established in its revival on the Wii, and this latest offering joins luminaries of the genre that include the previous Sam & Max game, Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, Zack and Wiki and the genre-defining Tales of Monkey Island.

Now, astute readers will notice that three out of the previous four games were masterminded by Telltale Games, the undisputed kings of the graphic adventure game. It's no secret that these former and sometime employees of Lucasarts have made their living out of this niche gameplay style, and with this latest adventure, it's easy to see why.

In this game you control both Sam and Max through the indirect medium of the Wiimote pointer that appears onscreen at all times. A simple click of the A button will send Sam wandering over to where you pointed, two clicks will have him run. Items that can be interacted with will have disappearing text appear over them as the cursor passes.

These items can sometimes be stored in the inventory (a dirty looking cardboard box on the lower-left of the screen) or interacted with in some way. Interacting is easy, but working out the appropriate interaction to have with each item can be a mixture of trial and error, or a sudden epiphany at the acquisition of a new piece of equipment. Sometimes you must enter into extended and often unflinchingly hilarious interactions with other characters that populate this bizarre world.

Sam & Max Season 2 carries on more-or-less where Season 1 left off: Max is somehow still the President of the United States; the disembodied head of the Lincoln statue is dating Sybill Pandemik with a modicum of success and Bosco is still the screaming, deranged conspiracy maniac he was in the previous title. Returning also are Jimmy Two-Teeth, C.O.P.S., the souvenirs in the cupboard from last season, and sadly, The Soda Poppers.

Every character is fairly full of amusing one-liners, voiced with utter and believable conviction by every actor, and it's so nice to see the full voice cast from Season 1 return to vocal duties. Full credit has to go to each and every member of the cast for speaking their lines with such sincerity as to really suck you into the proceedings. The writing is by far the standout feature of the Sam & Max series, and Telltale yet again delivers an hilariously scripted and cleverly structured plot that while not exactly gripping, is so laugh-out-loud funny in its execution that you cannot fail to be spurred on by the latest guffaw-worthy happenings.

Season 2 is also a slight graphical update on Season 1, but this is hardly an achievement as the "catch all" intentions of the devlopers with a view to the non-uniform PC market necessitates that the graphics play towards the lower end of the spectrum. Nonetheless, the look of the world is well-done, with the locales full of interesting little details that suggest a living, breathing and very twisted world.

The biggest gripe, however, is the slowdown that plagues the game. Stuttering frames, completely cut sequences totally skew the suspension of disbelief and very nearly ruin the game early on. Sometimes the skipping cuts out a pointless cut scene, like the two heroes returning to their office, or just entering a location and saying "Hi!" to whoever is there, the lines of dialogue carry on while the animation waits to catch up.

The real problem, and very nearly the games's deal-breaker, comes when the player is required to react to events in real-time. Controlling a car with a point-and-click interface is going to be imprecise at the best of times, but Sam & Max compounds this problem with the stuttering and slowdown of the action. Luckily these real-time sections are few and far between, so it's very much a case of knuckling down to the hard stuff and just getting on with it, but when these sections crop up, they almost spoil the whole thing.

In addition to the voice acting, the soundtrack has a real "gumshoe" feel to it, and wickedly sets off the ultra-violence and moral ambiguity of the protagonists. Occasional sax solos paint the picture of the traditional black and white detective agency and the cynical nature of the world our heroes inhabit, being atmospherical minimalist in certain places and even jolly at appropriate points.

This iteration is one episode shorter than the previous season at five episodes. A shame, as we can never get enough Sam & Max here at N-Europe Towers. Equally though, the story and scripting remains tight throughout, so to extend it beyond a natural lifespan would be to the series' detriment. We are both grateful and amazed that the funnies remain consistently so throughout the whole experience, even if each episode has its weaker moments. In a game that so often amuses and entertains, the odd slip in pacing or obtuse puzzles remains forgiveable. All things considered, each episode should run the average gamer between four and five hours, which some games with larger production values consider to be acceptable for the whole experience. Sam and Max most definitely offers value for money.

Sometimes the puzzles here will stump you for hours, and it's a sad and slow case of combing through virtually every section of every environment to work out what it is you need to solve the mystery. Other times the solution is fluid and and obvious as you deftly-navigate the funny dialogue and backgrounds. What can happen though is that when a solution is correct, the game slows down significantly, and you will come to rely on this as a signal that your approach is right or wrong. Puzzles all only have one answer, so there are certain aspects of trial and error in the gameplay.

Even if the puzzles are suspect at times and the slowdown is a big cause of irritation, what can never be doubted is the fact that this is by far one of the funniest pieces of software ever to be released, not just on the Wii, but in the history of videogaming as a whole. It easily ranks among Telltale's other efforts in the humour stakes to become one of the top three funniest games on the system – and when those other two are made by the same developer, you know that Telltale are still at the top of their league.