Telltale Games was a once beloved studio that brought the “choose your own adventure” genre to the forefront of the gaming world with beloved titles like “The Walking Dead,” “The Wolf Among Us” and “Batman: The Telltale Series.”
In their ashes rose AdHoc Studio, a small group of former Telltale and Ubisoft developers whose initial assignment, “The Wolf Among Us 2,” fell through.
So, they announced “Dispatch,” an episodic superhero workplace comedy starring Aaron Paul of “Breaking Bad” fame, featuring player choice and a lovable cast of characters.
Aaron Paul plays Robert Robertson III, who in a fight with the villainous Shroud, has his Mecha Man armor destroyed and falls into a coma. When he awakes, down on his luck, Robertson heroically tries and fails to stop a robbery and is saved by the Superhero Blonde Blazer, voiced by former “Telltale” regular Erin Yvette.
After getting Robert a little drunk, she reveals they did not meet by chance and that she had a proposition for him: become a dispatcher for a group of misfit criminals trying to turn a new leaf.
This is where the game truly begins. The Torrance, California, branch of the Superhero Dispatch Network is where the player meets the game's lovable and diverse cast of characters, and defends their own “little slice of the southland” by partaking in the game's namesake, dispatching a ragtag group in the Phoenix Program — aptly named the Z-Team.
The dispatching is a majority of what this game has to offer in terms of gameplay. Players get a prompt and work out which hero, or combination of heroes, would be best for each situation based on their stats.
It's a fun mechanic, and the Z-Team’s dialogue is never anything short of entertaining. It really complements the character drama, although I wish there were real consequences for failure. The only time player performance actually affects the story is in the very last dispatch of the last episode, which was disappointing because by and large the game lives up to the text on the screen before you start the game, “your choices do matter.”
This is true when it comes to character relationships, and especially the game's two love interests: Blazer and member of the Phoenix program, Invisigal. Invisigal is played brilliantly by Laura Bailey, perhaps best known for her award-winning role as Abby in the video-game The Last of Us Part II.
Invisigal’s arc is at the core of the game's narrative and themes. The game's central themes of forgiveness and redemption are reflected in her, and if you fail to redeem her, she becomes evil in the end, and you get the trophy “Didn't see that coming?” with the descriptor “failed as a mentor” because many players, including myself, did fail her, and if we had made better choices she could've been redeemed.
Unfortunately, Invisigal’s thematic importance means that regardless of who you pick, Invisigal still gets considerably more screen time. This was disappointing as a player who chose Blonde Blazer, because after your date with her, she has very little narrative relevance or even screentime until episode eight.
The character relationships don't start and end with romance though. As the game progresses, a rapport is developed with the rest of the team, and themes of found family reinforce the player's desire to redeem them and help them on their journey to becoming heroes.
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By the end of the game, no matter what ending you got, you feel like you’ve formed a new family. Finding a family comes at a cost, as at the end of episode three the player has the choice of cutting either Coupé or Sonar. The one you choose will come back as an enemy and if you defeat them in the final dispatch, you’ll be given the chance to forgive them and welcome them back with open arms.
The showdown with either Coupé or Sonar does highlight one of my issues with the game, and that's the main antagonist: Shroud. Despite a good performance from Matthew Mercer, Shroud’s presence in this game is lacking.
Despite this, I loved the creative solution my Robert chose that delivered Shroud’s comeuppance. Forcing a man whose life is entirely controlled by analytics to make a true 50/50 judgement call and it blowing up in his face was incredible to see. I can only imagine how much more satisfying it would've been if he were a major presence throughout the whole game and less of a plot device to give players an inciting incident and an “exciting” third act.
It's more than fair to say that I got a bad ending. It breaks my heart that I failed two of the heroes I was supposed to “train and mentor,” but that just makes me more excited to replay it. In the words of Bershy, the artist behind a song featured in the game, new song “Radio,” Dispatch’s world and cast of characters “changed my heart in a big way,” and I really hope they make a season two, because I know I’ll be tuning in.
Marley Herndon is a beat reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on X @Dailylobo
