Dispatch Review In Progress: ep.1 & 2 (PC)

Dispatch is releasing as a weekly series, with two episodes a week from October 22nd. We’ll be reviewing each of these as they are available, with a final score with the release of the final pair of episodes.

After playing the Steam demo for Dispatch a few months back, I couldn’t wait for the full release. Having just finished the first two (of eight total) episodes, I am once again in the same boat – I cannot wait to see more of this fantastic narrative adventure. 

Dispatch sees us take on the role of Robert Robertson, the third in a line of super-powerless Superheroes known as Mecha Man. While in the world of Dispatch there exist actual superheroes, Robert – as Mecha Man – is renowned for being a shining knight in literal armour thanks to a long family history of saving the day. After an early failure in episode one, Mecha Man’s hi-tech robotic suit is damaged beyond repair. Robert, fearing his days are over as a hero, announces his retirement only to bump into Blonde Blazer who offers him an opportunity to fix his suit, and still play hero in a different way.

This involves becoming a Dispatcher; with his own crew of supervillains turned good that no-one so far has been able to tame, he must send the right people off to the right emergencies, all while battling their ego’s, disdain for each other, and distinct personalities. 

And so, we have a game of two parts. Coming from former Telltale developers, Dispatch features a strong narrative choice-based ark, where we’re picking responses and actions under pressure. But the dispatch parts are more a game of organisation and control, where we’re limited to sending heroes to one place at the risk of them being better suited to other jobs elsewhere. Shifts last several in-game minutes and heroes need time to rest between jobs, as well as risk injuries and perhaps not even solving the problem in the first place. While this was present in the demo, playing it again now emphasizes how much this can be messed up due to our choices. 

We might send a brute to deal with a stealthy problem, or a talker to a crime that needs action. Characters will go to any job, but occasionally we’ll be prompted with an extra task, such as choosing new nicknames to settle a dispute, or whether to sneak into a building or blast through the security. It’s surprisingly tense at times, all the more so when certain characters refuse to play ball and go rogue.

I failed a few jobs across the shifts I’ve done so far, and this affects the overall rating as well as any bonuses at the end. Each character can be leveled up with skill points earned in mission, but also as a reward at the end, so it’s worth making as good a job of things as possible. 

Jobs require certain skills, and each of the crew specialise in one or two of the five areas, such as intelligence or speed. Clues are given as to what approach will be needed, and when complete, we see how their skills overlap with the job’s needs as a random marker bounces around the area. Land in the overlap and great success – outside of it, and mission failure. 

There’s also a hacking minigame that we play directly. This involves moving along a puzzle network of nodes to get keys and codes, and to the end before the timer runs out in some cases. It’s a simple affair, but a nice way to keep us engaged in the activities as well as dispatching heroes.

I found the dispatching parts of Dispatch a lot of fun, and the constant push and pull of trying to get all of the people in the right place is actually quite the challenge, especially after the first shift. I did wonder if I might just want to fly through these to get back to the story, but I enjoyed them enough that I was actually kind of sad when a shift ended.

So this part of Dispatch is a welcome bit of interactivity to the old Telltale fare like The Walking Dead and Tales from the Borderlands. But there’s no mistaking their previous influence in the dialogue and choice-based part of the game.

And let me tell you I am utterly blown away by Dispatch in this regard. Everything – and I mean everything – from the animation to music, writing, performances etc is fucking incredible. Aaron Paul (of Breaking Bad fame) takes on lead role Robert here, managing to sound like a mix of Jesse Pinkman and Archer Sterling, while Blazer – played by industry stalwart Laura Bailey – proves to be a perfect match across the screen from him. Elsewhere, characters like Chase, InvisiGirl, Flambae and, well, the whole damn crew are brilliantly performed and written. There are genuine, honest to goodness gags in here that had me laughing, and the pitch and pace of the writing feels as good as some of the best TV out there. Honestly, this has me itching for an Archer game with this level of fidelity across the board. But luckily, Dispatch is so damn good that I’ll happily play this in its place. 

Episodes are under an hour, and the urge to immediately jump to the next one is only halted by the fantastic cliff-hanger endings and music we’re treated to. It’s something that would be easy to binge with your partner even if they aren’t a gamer much as if you were watching a Netflix show. There’s even an option to turn off interactive QTE’s to make this much more appealing to do so.

I expected to like Dispatch, but I didn’t expect to have it hook me anywhere near as much as this has so far. The character work in both writing and performances are excellent, the art and animation is stunning, and the dispatching game surprisingly more-ish. It ADHOC can keep up the quality of the first two episodes going forward, this will easily end up as one of the best games of the genre I’ve ever played, and likely very high up my end of year rankings.

Further episodes are being released weekly, with ep.3 and 4 out on October 29th. Now, full disclosure; I have access to these already but purposely haven’t played them before writing this as those impressions will have to wait until the episodes are out. But, I am stopping here to go see what’s next for Robert and co. and I can’t wait to tell you my thoughts next week.

This game was tested and reviewed on PC (via Steam). All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by the publisher.

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