Batman – The Telltale Series – PC Review – by BoxCatHero

Genre: Adventure Episodic Superhero Point-and-Click
Developer: Telltale Games
Publisher: Telltale Games
Release Date: Aug 02, 2016

Once again Telltale has knocked a game out the park, and personally left me thirsty for more. I am talking about their latest in a line of amazing games, Batman – The Telltale Series. I am not a true comic book nerd, but I grew up with the Batman cartoons and movies, developing a love for Batman early on. The game pulls its information on the Batman universe from Bob Kane and Bill Finger’s Batman comic book series, but is not related in anyway to the series in any form of media. Like all of the Telltale games of recent years, except for Minecraft: Story Mode, it is split into 5 episodes, with a recap of your choices at the end of each episode.

 

The control scheme for the game is pretty much the same as all Telltale games; WASD for directional cues and walking around, E and Q for certain actions during scenes with a shift modifier at times, and interacting with object in the environment are done by left clicking. During some of the action scenes, a circle indicator will come on the screen and you move the mouse cursor into the the circle to click to perform an action. That being said, some of the cues can be missed, but that can turn quite deadly, like a shotgun to the face. The dialog choice timer seems a bit fast at times, but when choosing to go somewhere or between two objectives there is no timer.

 

However, what’s special about this game, other than it being about Batman, is Telltale introduces a new feature to their games as a test. It is called crowd play, which when enabled will allow the player to provide a link and a unique code to a website. From there, viewers can vote on key conversation points in the story, and, if the player so chooses, they can set it so it automatically chooses the popular vote for them. This feature can be used in conjunction with streaming sites such as Twitch, however, due to latency it may impoverish the viewer experience. It is intended to be used in small to large theater settings where people are in the same location.

 

With all of that out of the way, let’s talk about what’s truly important about the game, and that is Batman and the other characters. Let’s start with Batman since he is the most important character. The game seems to split playtime almost evenly between Bruce Wayne and Batman, it even gives you choices between approaching situations as either Batman or Bruce. They did a really good job showing the internal conflict between man and bat and the struggle to be both. Next up is everyone’s favorite feline, Catwoman, who is absolutely catty in the game. I know, I know, terrible pun but it’s true. I feel like this version of her embodies that of a cat, from the standoffishness, down to the unpredictable behavior.

 

I can say this, Catwoman and Bruce do have moments in the game. I also love the new toy she has in this which is the catpaw, as I’ve dubbed it. It works similar to a zipline except it works on flat surfaces, zooming the person holding it along it. We also have Harvey Dent aka Two Face. I really enjoyed how they progressed his character from mild mannered person running for mayor to his decent into madness as Two Face. Of course we have James Gordon the lovable, scruffy, and trustworthy detective. We see his relationship with Batman go from ‘hey stop that’ to trustworthy contact, and even see the creation of the Bat Signal. Penguin is also in the game, and plays a major part in the overall story. The best way I can describe him in this version is a british dick of an asshole.

 

There is also your staple characters like Carmine Falcone, Jack Ryder, and Vicki Vale. In one part of the story you also meet the mysterious “John Doe” *cough cough* Joker *cough cough* whom I have to personally put on the same level, but differently, as Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the same character. As far as the story timeline goes, it appears to be in Batman year one. Batman’s vigilante career is still fresh and not fully fledged. The core of the story is centered around the consequences and sins of the father to the son. Won’t go into much detail other than that because it will ruin the story for those who care about such things.

 

The graphics of the game do lend a gritty feel to it that is much needed in a Batman game. I had one small issue graphics-wise and that was when I was full screen, but it fixed itself when I went to windowed mode. I am almost 100% sure this was due to an issue with my pc and not with the game. Now the voice acting, to me, was on point, especially with Troy Baker as Batman/Bruce Wayne. Also Laura Bailey’s portrayal of Catwoman came across very sultry.

BoxCatHero gives Batman – The Telltale Series a Drastik Measure of 9.9 out of 10 (99).

Pros:

• Crowd Play Feature
• Batman Tomfoolery
• I am Groot…I mean I am BATMAN

Cons:

• Had some chugging on full screen (100% almost sure that’s my PC’s fault)