Dispatch Review (PC)

I’m a bleeder.

I previously mentioned how Telltale Games passed me by. Every single one I played I’ve done so at my own pace. Sometimes all in one sitting, sometimes over the course of the week, a month. And it’s not limited to Telltale Games but others in the same choices matter genre such as Life is Strange. Basically, I consumed all of them as if they were normal videogames. Dispatch is my introduction to this release schedule and let me tell you it has been a very painful but unique experience. Every Wednesday, 2 episodes dropped at 9 (or 10 once daylight savings started, screw clock changes.) and 2 hours later I’d be done and desperate for more. Filling my cravings by engaging in discussion, something I very rarely do for any type of media, and reading theories/fanfiction (Yes, I was down THAT bad). Over the past month it’s all I’ve been able to think about. A remaster of one of my favorite games releases, freeing it from PS3 jail? I can’t get into it. My playthrough of the entire No More Heroes franchise? I don’t want to keep playing. Frankenstein, a movie I was excited for the entire year? I spent the 2 hour runtime distracted. Perhaps I’m not built for episodic releases, but I can’t imagine experiencing Dispatch any other way. After all, suspecting the dog of being the big bad adds to the experience, no?

It just hits all the right buttons for me, combining everything I love from both games and TV, simple but addicting gameplay, having control over the narrative, and an angsty yet sweet romance between a former villain and a former hero, yes please.

The game follows a fairly basic plot. Rober Robertson the III, a superhero with no powers, loses his suit in a fight. Unlike Batman or Iron Man our friend here is not only flat broke, but he’s lost the source of power that makes the suit work. But not is all gloom and doom, he gets offered a desk job to be a dispatcher of reformed villains. In exchange, the company will rebuild his suit free of charge. From this point on the main story slows down and you will mostly explore how Robert copes with his new life, his relationship with his subordinates as well as co-workers, and oddly enough romance plays a big part in this game.

The concept of romance in Telltale like games is, in my opinion, unexplored. Most of the time it’s a very small subplot that either doesn’t go many places (Borderlands), doesn’t matter (Life is Strange) or is left vague (Wolf Among Us). Batman may have the most fleshed out one, but funnily enough it’s the only one where I rejected the lone love interest so I’m not sure how big of a part it actually played. It’s because of this that Dispatch took me by surprise when I started noticing just how much focus they put on this aspect of the game. I went in only expecting an optional romance with Blonde Blazer, that ultimately wouldn’t change much of the story. And ended with 2 routes that do enough to differentiate from each other.

Now, this isn’t The Enemy Within episode 5 by any means. You still follow the same beats regardless of who Robert pursues, but you get exclusive scenes and dialogue out of it, and with the love aspect being as prevalent as it is, makes it feel like a very important choice.

Which brings us to the choices part of the review. Do they actually matter? Well, yes and no. The game is linear so no matter what you will go through the same events, however what changes most between playthroughs is your party. The Z Team is your dispatch team, the lowest ranked group in the company, and you get to make certain changes to it. Outside the romance, this is the biggest change you will experience between playthroughs, making the weight of choices feel unbalanced. Episodes 1 and 2 are there to set the world, so nothing really happens. 3 and 4 are when you will make the big decisions, this makes it so chapters 5 and 6 differ in playthroughs, but it also makes them the most linear of the bunch. This is due to the changes happening because of what you do in chapters 3 and 4, and not any actions you take in 5 and 6. While I love chapter 5, it and especially 6 feel extremely linear and ones where nothing you say affects the story in any significant way.

Going back to my Enemy Within comparisons. There is one aspect from that game that is present here, although in a much smaller way. There is one character who your choices will influence to either do bad or good, basically playing the role of a mentor as Bruce did with John. Since this is brand new we don’t know if it’s many choices or just one (like Batman) that triggers this change of heart, but it’s here nonetheless.

Choices aren’t the only gameplay aspect. Your office job isn’t for show and depending on the chapter you will work 1 or 2 shifts dispatching your heroes. It’s simple to understand, and fun. Each character has different stats and passives, and you send them out on jobs you think they’re a good fit for. The game doesn’t say what stats each job needs, instead giving hints. A successful job means experience, which means more points you can give your units, it’s up to you to decide how to build them, whether you min max their best stat, or make everyone balanced. Balance sounds like a great idea until you get to the later episodes, where having too high of a stat makes you fail a mission, meaning if all your friends are built for combat, you’re out of luck. While it is very fun, it doesn’t seem to matter much if you succeed or fail, and the story plays out as normal no matter the outcome. The second gameplay style are the hacking minigames, where you move around a map and input commands using arrow keys, there’s not much to say about this one. New gimmicks such as viruses are introduced later down the road but they remain the same experience throughout the game, simple but gets the job done. And lastly, QTEs. Wouldn’t be a Telltale game without them, there’s not many of them in here, in fact, more than half the episodes don’t feature any quick time events. Like dispatching and hacking, they don’t change the story as you will still progress despite failing every single QTE, but the animations change which is nice. Some people will mourn the loss of those explorable segments where you could look around and interact with things, I’m certainly not one of them.

But that’s the gameplay, this is a story based game so who cares about any of that? We’re here for the story and characters and I’m happy to confirm both are excellent. The writing here is very modern, for a lack of a better word, and full of profanity, which sounds like a recipe for disaster, yet it remains full of life and is genuinely funny and heartfelt at times.

Robert is the standout character here. A broke Batman, dead parents and depression included, who has only ever lived to be a superhero. He’s a funny guy, very quippy and sarcastic, but also dedicated to his work, and deceptively strong. I meant the Batman comparisons; he can kick some serious ass even without his mecha suit. Watching Robert throughout the game is like seeing an athlete who was forced to retire young and now works as a pundit or a commentator, you can see there is nothing he wants more than to throw everything away and return to the pitch to do what he loves, and by proxy, so do you. You really want to see Mecha Man rise one more time, I know I did.

The rest of the team fares very well, while not all screentime is created equal (My beloved Invisigal hogs so much of it.) they all manage to stand out. It’s hard to pinpoint a favorite since I like them all so much. I mentioned how I really liked chapter 5 and that’s because it’s the dedicated team chapter, the moment they stop being antagonistic towards Robert and let him into the crew, it’s really great stuff.

I also appreciate the story remaining grounded, if a little predictable. There are no forced plot twists for the sake of it, and if you pay attention (and trust me, if you spend the entire week daydreaming of the next episode you WILL pay attention) you can see just about everything coming. Does it make things a little boring? Maybe. But I’m glad no shark was jumped and things remained consistent from beginning to end, after all, when it’s the characters who carry the experience, you don’t need any shock value.

I wrote most of this review before the final two episodes dropped. With the full game out now most of my thoughts remain the same however there is one forced “twist” (if you can even call it that) at the very end that completely falls flat. It also suffers from the same issue as Wolf Among Us where I found the main villain ultimately boring and unremarkable. It’s a shame the only stumble, small as it is, happens at the end which is what we end remembering most.

Despite this, Dispatch was a massive surprise hit for me. I was interested when I first saw it at last year’s Game Awards, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I’d become so obsessed with it. I loved every single second I spent in this world; I felt real emotions; I grew attached to every character to the point where it will be very difficult for me to make different choices in future replays.

I have not loved something this much since I first played the Mass Effect trilogy over a decade ago and trust me when I say that’s the highest praise I can possibly give to anything.

SCORE: *****