In which Dispatch has a direct lineage to a Splinter Cell game that became XDefiant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatch_(video_game)
Critical Role fans will appreciate that a bunch of their favorite voice actors are involved in this game.
Pretty good read, anyone played dispatch that cares to share opinions for someone on the fence?
Gameplay - quick time events weren’t super annoying (I wasn’t a fan of telltale batman quick time events), I personally liked the hacking minigame (though not everyone did), and the actual “dispatch” segments were tons of fun.
The story was excellent - I kept expecting a “twist” like we’ve seen in a lot of superhero media recently, and there weren’t any big twists. I think this was a good thing, it’s nice to see more of a “reconstruction” of good guy vs bad guy.
Spoilers -
spoiler
If there is a twist, it’s that Shroud’s actually kinda stupid with common sense things - no grand plot, he’s just good at math and let it get to his head. Letting Robert live since he was “unimportant” really was just Shroud missing an opportunity. Not having Toxic kill him in the first scene really was just shitty planning, and probably the need to be a drama queen in the warehouse and the need to defeat Mecha Man, not some “I am your father” type moment like some theories were suggesting.
I enjoyed this a lot, even though it meant a lot of theories around the game didn’t pan out.:::
Just finished Chapter 3 of 8. It has some very classic Telltale foibles. Sometimes the script seems to assume you made a decisions that you didn’t make and it makes the dialogue feel awkward. Other times, the sarcastic tone in a written dialogue choice isn’t clear when you select the option and the resulting scene isn’t at all what you thought you were suggesting. I suspect by the time I am done, I’ll have the general sense of “oh, my decisions didn’t ACTUALLY matter,” as is Telltale tradition, but I’m not far enough to judge in that space yet
Despite these fairly common for Telltale problems, it’s an incredibly witty and entertaining piece of entertainment, and perhaps one of better “no, seriously, there’s a game in here” Telltale products. The “dispatch” mechanic is, imo, a fun management game, and they tie it into the narrative in ways that feel clever. Everyone is at each others throats because of a story beat? People are actively sabotaging each other on the job and it’s making your job as their dispatcher harder. As a comedy and near-film, the writing is laugh-out-loud funny, the voice acting and character animation is top notch, and there’s an interesting story and world holding it all together. I’m sure people will argue that it’s a better movie than it is a game, and, as much as I enjoy the corporate dispatcher half of the game, I am sure many will agree, as the dialogue writing is truly the stand-out element of the game.
It’s very good. Not perfect, but very good, and compared to the older Telltale games, a real home-run.
Interesting that you felt the game assumed you made choices you didn’t, I hadn’t ran into that despite very frequently picking the less popular options. I won’t ask for specifics for obvious reasons, but that does make me curious whether there was a bug or a gap in logic. Definitely not a flawless game as gamepad is a very flawed input option when things get hectic, but damn the writing and action sequences had me hooked immediately.
Still can’t believe my first time through was only 7.5 hours. Can’t wait to go through with different choices.
I liked it a lot. It’s engrossing enough to make you just want to keep going to the next episode, and it’s beautifully animated. Other than the story stuff, the gameplay loop is just This is the Police, and I think this improves both the Telltale design and the design of This is the Police by way of pacing. It did still leave me wanting more as a video game, but as a story and a comedy, I loved it.
