Microreview [video game]: Batman - The Telltale Series Episode 3: New World Order by Telltale Games

The Villains, Revealed

Reviewer's note: Welcome to the second part in our five-part series reviewing Batman - The Telltale Series, an episodic adventure game. Part one can be found here, part 2 here. This review will contains spoilers for episode 1 and 2!

Picking up after the fairly surprising ending to episode 2, episode 3 continues to tighten the vise on both Batman and Bruce Wayne. Though Falcone and Hill are gone, the antagonists that truly threaten Gotham are revealed; the Penguin, and the leader of the Children of Arkham. But in the real world, Bruce Wayne faces just as much pressure in his support of Dent and the revelation that his father was involved in much of Gotham's corrupt past and the institutionalization of Cobblepot's mother.

Episode 3 is very much like episode 2. More of Bruce's life crumbles around him, and you spend the bulk of it doing damage control. It's split fairly evenly between Bruce Wayne segments and Batman segments. There's a really thought-provoking segment that questions what Batman can do for the everyman. I love seeing that sort of questioning of the role of superheroes in the real world.

However, as we get deeper into the game, I'm starting to notice some of the seams in the story. The decision between Dent and Catwoman near the end of episode 2 seems to be one of those illusory choices that come with offering two obviously different choices that lead to the same outcome. I chose Catwoman over Dent, but given the way episode 3 plays out, it would have to be a radically different structure if I had chosen Dent instead. This is not a complaint per se, but something we live with in Telltale games.

While I continue to enjoy the game and look forward to the next episode, they still haven't ironed out the performance problems. There's one scene in particular that got real choppy. It still doesn't make sense.

In classic Telltale style, episode 3 ends with another significant cliffhanger and teases an episode that I'm very much looking forward to. Despite the technical problems, Batman - The Telltale Series Episode 3 is great and it would take a really particularly bad episode to spoil the whole series at this point. 

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 asks tough questions of what Batman does for average citizens

Penalties: -1 some weird frame rate hiccups (continuing)

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10 (an enjoyable experience, but not without its flaws)

***

POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014

Reference: Telltale Games. Batman - The Telltale Series Episode 3: New World Order [Telltale Games, 2016]

Microreview [video game]: Batman - The Telltale Series Episode 2: Children of Arkham by Telltale Games

Wheels in Motion

Reviewer's note: Welcome to the second part in our five-part series reviewing Batman - The Telltale Series, an episodic adventure game. Part one can be found here. This is the second episode, and if you've made it this far, you're probably in for the long haul. This review will contains spoilers for episode 1!

Let's kick this off the right way with technical difficulties! When I fired up Batman to play this new episode, I discovered that the game had lost/misplaced/overwritten my save game. It was just gone, as if I'd hadn't even started episode 1. Doing some quick googling revealed that the problem may be related to Telltale Games cloud save system. I disabled it and replayed episode 1 and didn't have any problems, but reader beware! I'm playing on a PC through Steam. If you're doing likewise, you may want to disable cloud saves if you haven't already encountered this problem.

Replaying episode 1 gave me a chance to do things different, but I mostly stuck to my original choices. The big one that I changed was that I did not shake Falcone's hand at Dent's fundraiser. The game rubbed my face in that one on my first run. However, it still placed the blame on me for Falcone being at the fundraiser to begin with. So it goes.

Episode 1 was an introduction. Episode 2 is where the plot starts to really take shape. It continues to put the player in uncomfortable or unwinnable situations, which is something Telltale is good at doing. Episode 2 starts to peel back the skin of Gotham, revealing how deep the rot is. It also continues to challenge what the player knows about Batman by making subtle changes to established characters. Again, if you thought you knew Batman, you can discard all of that except the very bones of the characters. The names may be familiar but the characters are not the same.

No particular complaints about the structure of this episode, but the technical problems linger. The afore mentioned save game problem is a real hassle for some who don't want to spend another two hours running through episode 1. It also hiccups in frame rate in some odd places. They're noticeable but not deal breakers. It's still a good looking game without serious graphical problems, but the frame rate hitches are fairly annoying.

By the end of the episode, some serious stuff has gone down in Gotham and I can't wait to get back into it. However, I don't expect the technical problems to be smoothed out by then. It's just something we'll have to deal with to enjoy the rest of this otherwise good adventure game.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 continues to challenge established Batman lore

Penalties: -1 some weird frame rate hiccups (still), -1 lost my save game

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10 (still enjoyable, but the flaws are hard to ignore)

***

POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014

Reference: Telltale Games. Batman - The Telltale Series Episode 2: Children of Arkham [Telltale Games, 2016]

Microreview [video game]: Batman - The Telltale Series Episode 1: Realm of Shadows by Telltale Games

The Batman Cometh

Reviewer's note: Hello! Welcome to the first part in our five-part series reviewing Batman - The Telltale Series, an episodic adventure game. This is the first episode and this review will be completely spoiler-free! However, subsequent episodes will necessitate some discussion of what came before, so they will be spoiler-free for the episode being reviewed but not necessarily for the previous episodes in the series. On with the review!

I love Batman. I've been a Batman fan since I was a kid, and a lot of it was propelled by Tim Burton's 1989 Batman movie. Ever since then, anything Batman has piqued my interest. There has been plenty of ups and downs for the Dark Knight, but we've been on a real good streak in the video game world since Batman: Arkham Asylum. Batman - The Telltale Series, though completely different in nature, continues that streak of quality Batman video games.

Batman - The Telltale Series is an episodic adventure game in the same form Telltale Games has been famous for for quite a while. Rather than picking up one of the many interpretations of Batman, such as the movies or Rocksteady Arkham series video games, Batman is a new take on the character. After Batman foils the theft of an encrypted data device from city hall, Bruce Wayne is caught in a political knife fight over his support of Harvey Dent's campaign for mayor. Bruce Wayne and Batman fight on two fronts to uncover who is behind some vicious attacks on the Wayne family legacy and who called for the city hall break-in.

If you've played any recent Telltale adventure games, particularly The Wolf Among Us, you know how this game is going to play. If you haven't, these are cinematic adventure games, where the bulk of your interaction comes through dialog choices. In Batman, you spend most of the game as Bruce Wayne, playing the politics game in Gotham City. Where nearly every other Batman game focuses on punching bad guys, Batman - The Telltale Series takes a refreshing break from the cowl to put some serious metaphorical knives at Bruce's back. There's a point in the early game where I made a choice as Bruce that was supportive of a friend of mine, but looked real bad in the public eye, and the game never let me forget it. It kept coming up, and I could try to explain it away as Bruce, but it wasn't something Batman could punch until it was solved. I liked that it held me to my actions, even if it felt a little overboard, because I made a big decision at a split second. Making you feel like you're in some control over the story is what Telltale Games does best, and Batman is no exception.

Being the first episode in a series, there's a lot of scenes establishing characters. Obviously, Thomas and Martha Wayne (Bruce's murdered parents) are plainly present, but Telltale manages to give some characters an alternative look. They're instantly familiar in many ways, but different enough to give one subtle reminder: what you think you know about Batman doesn't necessarily apply here. Familiar characters, familiar setting, but this is definitely Telltale's game and doesn't have to strictly adhere to comic book, or movie, or TV show, or video game Batman universes. Again, I love this because it's keeping me on my toes.

I've got two minor complaints about this first episode. The first is that the action is pretty fast (for an adventure game), and the button prompts aren't 100% clear when it came to directional movement. I learned quick that a prompt that looked like a clockwise half-circle moving right to left really just meant push left. It's a minor complaint, but I came off as a very rookie or drunken Batman in my first fight because I was trying to do too much to match the prompt when the actual input needed was much simpler. It's something I caught on to quickly, but it was an annoyance.

The other minor complaint is that the game didn't run great. I'm not running on brand new hardware, but my PC runs much more graphically intense games than this with fewer hitches. It's good looking, but it's still the simple mostly flat style many Telltale games have. I can't really explain why it didn't run better, and the hiccups were largely between scenes, but it was noticeable. Perhaps the console versions run better.

Batman - The Telltale Series Episode 1: Realm of Shadows is a mouthful, but it's easy to recommend to Batman fans and Telltale adventure game fans. Even if you don't fit within those tastes, the political and class machinations are already heating up in this first episode. It's a strong start and I'm very excited to see what comes next. This is what I expected from Telltale; a quality game taking characters I know and giving me an experience that doesn't feel like it's completely retreading well-worn territory.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 recognizable Batman characters now in a different universe from what we've seen before.

Penalties: -1 technical performance leaves something to be desired

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10 (an enjoyable experience, but not without its flaws)

***

POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014

Reference: Telltale Games. Batman - The Telltale Series Episode 1: Realm of Shadow [Telltale Games, 2016]

Tales From the Borderlands - Episode I: Zer0 Sum

[Tales From the Borderlands - Episode I: Zer0 Sum, Telltale Games, 2K Games, 11/2014]

What-tale Games?

I'll be honest, until The Walking Dead, I'd never heard of Telltale Games, yet now they seem to be dominating the market on some of the biggest titles in all types of entertainment across the board. From The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us to Borderlands, Game of Thrones, and the upcoming Minecraft series, none of which has yet to receive anything below an 80 on Metacritic, Telltale has put together what may be the most impressive library of titles in recent memory. They're making EA look like a small, indie production company that just figured out how to make Hexic into a high definition game for the PS3. On top of their plethora of quality releases, Episode 1 cost a whopping $2.50, which is quite possibly the best deal in gaming since The Orange Box. 

Choose Your Own Adventure...Wizard or Warrior?

One of the new gameplay additions that makes this Borderlands game different from the others is the ability to affect the outcome through decisions you make throughout the game. Unlike other games where your decisions can alter the plot, your decisions about how to respond to situations immediately effect how other characters feel about you and parts of the story as immediate as the following scene.

Is This REALLY a Borderlands Game? 

While making game-altering decisions is a great new addition to the gameplay in Borderlands, Episode 1 just didn't feel like a Borderlands game without the massive arsenal at your disposal, discovered and earned through hours of tireless grinding and mission completion. Although it's pretty clear the future episodes will contain plenty of the old-style FPS game mechanics that made the first three games so much fun to play, but they were sorely lacking in the first go-around in Telltale's 

Borderlands product. It's good, don't get me wrong, but it just doesn't have the feel of the Pandora we've all come to know and love. 

So If It Doesn't Play Like a Traditional Borderlands Game, How DOES it Play?

It honestly did remind me of those old Choose Your Own Adventure books, except you couldn't go back and switch to the other outcome if you didn't like what happened as you could with the books. Once you'd spent that ammo or made that other character angry, you were stuck with the repercussions. On top of that, you didn't get much time to consider your responses, like maybe five seconds, tops. Not only does this add to the sense of immediacy each time you are presented with a challenge but it raises the replayability significantly. This is due to the fact that you want to find out what would have happened if you had just been nicer to that one character or showed more of a spine with another. Although it felt as though many of the "choices" were just going to end up with you getting insulted no matter what response you chose, there were plenty that definitely affected how the game progressed. It will be interesting to see if they carry over your decisions from the first episode into the next four or if the decision-making effect is limited to each episode. Hopefully it's the former. 

A Little Bedtime Story

As usual, I don't want to get too far into the story line so as not to spoil the game for those who have yet to play it. I have to supply a little bit of backstory, but to give away the ending would probably get my figurative Interwebbian head chopped off by crazed jihadi gamers. To that end, I'll just give you the setup and some critique and let you decide if it's worth a play or not based on that. You start the game as Rhys, a lower-tier suit-and-tie at Hyperion who has dreams of middle management. However, instead of the raise and promotion you were expecting, you quickly learn that your former boss has been "Blown out of the g@&&^m airlock," to borrow a phrase from Aliens, and replaced somehow, repercussion free, with your arch-nemisis Vasquez. 

Needless to say this doesn't do good things for your career, with you ending up as Vice President of Janitors. You and your sidekick, Vaughn, come up with a quick plan to get back at Vasquez by stealing a deal he has set up to purchase a vault key for $10 million. Things get a bit off track from there and you end up trying to salvage what you can from the leftovers. 

At the same time, Fiona is a con artist that lives on Pandora alread. Rhys is lucky enough to at least live on the space station where there are working toilets and people don't eat one-another's eyeballs. Fiona is working with some other shady characters trying to set up the deal for a Vault Key planet-side. However, all hell breaks loose and you're being dragged through the desert that looks strangely like the male version of Princess Leia's bounty hunter from Jabba's Palace in Return of the Jedi. You know, the one that's holding a thermal detonator and says, "Yoto, yoto." 

"Where am I?"

"Jabba's Palace." 

"Who are you?" 

"Someone who loves you!" 

Anyway, sorry for the Star Wars flashback. Back to the game. While I will admit to being a bit disappointed with the lack of a real control mechanic and firefights, the place where this game really shines is in its story. Whereas Borderlands 1 and 2 seemed to be a bit disjointed at times when you got off on a side quest run for a few hours, Tales From The Borderlands never suffers from such side trips off the main course. Telltale Games was free to focus on creating a top-quality story set within the Borderlands universe, and they squeezed every ounce of goodness out of the opportunity. This game is fraught with the irreverent, sometimes dark humor of its predecessors. Where it lacks in control scheme, it more than makes up for with a hilarious and overwhelmingly engaging tale of Pandora and its unique and often freakish inhabitants. The only real problem I have with this game is waiting for the next installment to come out!

The Math

Objective Score: 9/10

Bonuses: +1 for having possible the best Borderlands story to come out yet and leaving me starving for more.

Penalties: -1 because, come on, Borderlands is a first-person shooter. I can count on one hand the number of times I fired a weapon in this game. Heck, I'd still be able to count the shots on one hand if half my digits got sheared off in a thresher accident at age nine. I know there are guns coming to the series from hints in the story, but I was a bit disappointed in the almost total lack of them in this episode. 

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10. A standout in its category. Very high quality. You should REALLY go buy this game, especially for just $2.50! If you don't like it, I'll personally refund your money. 

(But not really.)