Dispatch Review (PC)

So, after a month of weekly releases we’re at the end of our Dispatch journey. Episodes 7 & 8 wrap up the tale for Robert Robertson and his Z team, and without spoiling anything, are yet again fantastic episodes that bring the season to a close brilliantly. I had high hopes going into the first episodes, and they only grew as the season went on – and as far as I’m concerned, have more than been met.

You can read my thoughts on the first half of the season here and here. I had wanted to do all four weeks but personal commitments kept me from that. As such, I ended up playing the back half of the season pretty close together, meaning this review will encapsulate the bulk of that, as well as the season as a whole. Again, no spoilers throughout, so feel free to read on!

The final four episodes ratchet up the ongoing saga of the Z team, and provide action, drama, and honest to goodness character moments that hit me in the feels. If there’s one thing Dispatch does well (and there are many) it’s the script and performances. Robert is brilliantly brought to life by Aaron Paul, and Laura Bailey’s Invisigirl and Erin Yvette’s Blonde Blazer are equally incredibly brought to life. While the Z team don’t get quite as much screen time as these – at least in my playthrough – I can’t say anyone here does less than a phenomenal job. Special shout out to Joel Haver’s Waterboy too; I felt every moment of his awkward attempts at fitting in. It’s just brilliant casting across the board, and is a huge contributor to why I think Dispatch is one of the best games of the year, and certainly one of the best Telltale-style games ever made.

I mentioned the phrase there ‘in my playthrough’ and as you’d expect from a title like this, there are a lot of dialogue and moral choices to make across the eight episodes. Some of these add flavour to a scene or character, others shift the plot in a vastly different direction. Again, it’s tough to share without spoiling, but by the time I reached the conclusion I was looking at a vastly different outcome than I’d expected starting episode one. We get the usual percentage breakdowns of choices at the end of each episode too, and I’m already planning a second playthrough to see if I can get certain outcomes to go a different way. 

There can be a feeling that some of the choices don’t have the effect we might expect – there’s one half way through the season that I thought might have bigger blowback but as far as I saw didn’t come back to affect much of anything – but on the whole I enjoyed the dilemmas put in front of me. And one late game choice came down to the literal last moment before I chose as I just didn’t know what to do. It’s overall fantastic stuff.

Episodes are also kept short, much like watching a TV show (Dispatch was originally conceived as a show, and it…shows…I’ll stop now). Running at just under an hour each (albeit the final one is a tad longer) they hook us in, give us some fantastic story and performance, and get us out before we know it. This is a big part of the reason I think my wife – who isn’t a gamer – will enjoy it. She didn’t like the old Telltale fare because of the choice pressure, but also episodes were longer then. At TV show length, I think she’ll be far more interested and able to get involved.

What will also help is the frankly stunning art direction and animation. Thinking back to The Walking Dead’s and its ilk, the tech side was always the weakest aspect in stilted animation and stuttering or hiccups. No such thing here, as Dispatch looks and moves seamlessly. I can’t emphasise how fluid the scenes are, with dialogue choices flowing into the scene with not even a camera change. Even fast moving action scenes flow perfectly, with the opening fight against a supervillain setting the standard that the game then effortlessly follows. Just the general quality of the art and style is incredible too, and whatever we get from Adhoc next will at the very least be a treat for the eyes I’m sure.

The dispatching part of Dispatch is also far more enjoyable than I expected. We get a couple of goes at it per episode roughly, and picking the right heroes for the right jobs is tougher than I thought it’d be. Successfully completing jobs levels them up, and we can allocate points to one of five categories to specialise them further. Sending multiple heroes out combines their stats, and they can also unlock special abilities to compliment these, such as filling empty spaces with clones, or faster recoveries upon successful jobs. By the final dispatch session I still had plenty of room left to improve the team, and failed a few jobs as a result. These failures feed into Robert’s status as a Dispatcher, with him going up the ranks as the game progresses and has a small impact on the overall story, though don’t fret if you fail too much as the rest of the choices feel more impactful overall.

Conclusion

Dispatch is a refreshing piece of gaming. Bringing back the Telltale-style choose your own adventure is great, but doing so with such brilliant style, technical proficiency and excellent script and performances has won me over entirely. Engaging from start to finish, Dispatch is easily one of my favourite games of the year, and a new standard in the genre.

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.