After a thrilling opening sequence in which Batman goes toe-to-claw with a famous nemesis, the action slows right down, as players step into the designer shoes of Bruce Wayne. The mayoral race is getting ugly. Unfortunately, Dent has also reached out to Carmine Falcone, the notorious crime lord. Oswald Cobblepot, a skinny man who is not (yet?) the Penguin, appears to be scheming. Meanwhile, in an earlier scuffle with Catwoman, Batman recovered some supposedly valuable data that’s taking a while to decrypt.
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The biggest threat in the series, however, could be the status quo.
Telltale Games’ Batman series is finally out on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, with Mac users being able to play later this week.
Telltale’s narrative driven approach to storytelling makes the more action-oriented Batman an odd character to focus in on for a first dive into the superhero genre. Minus that upcoming Batman VR game, they’re done with the character and a series of games that are pretty much the final word in being the Batman on the streets and Bruce Wayne under the sheets. You know, talking to people, figuring out what’s going on by myself, stuff like that. It’s a tough act to follow for a new game starring the Caped Crusader, so how does a Batman game stand out? While Telltale’s dialogue-heavy focus fitted neatly with the political intrigue of its last big outing – Game of Thrones – here there’s a palpable tension between the company’s signature style and the combat-heavy source material. Instead, our choices are about how brutally you’d like to beat someone, challenging you with the ethics – and sanity – of what it is to be Gotham’s vigilante during a time when the city hasn’t quite made up its mind on that subject either. It really is the best of both worlds, however exhausted that phrase may be: while it isn’t afraid to shake up the Batman universe a bit, it also preserves the time-tested elements that make the franchise so adored by so many people. Young GCPD lieutenant James Gordon is only beginning to know the Dark Knight. Telltale’s reputation for quality has been established across more than two dozen different product releases over the years with recognition and acclaim from publications like IGN, The New York Times, and Variety, including over 100 “Game of the Year” awards from publications like USA Today, Yahoo! “How far are you guys going?” the player might as well respond. To give you a quick rundown with as little spoilers as possible, the first episode starts off with Batman hunting down some sort of data drive, only to have a run-in with a certain cat burglar.
By concentrating on Bruce Wayne as much as his alter-ego, Batman feels more like Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins than Rocksteady’s best-selling, perpetually costumed Arkham videogames.
Arkham Asylum managed to capture something that had eluded video games for decades: the feeling of being Batman. Sure, there’s an element of choice with crucial decisions left in your hands, but considering that Telltale’s track record is rather mixed in this department, it might boil down to some very obvious and binary choices.
Even the action sequences have a bit more bite, as players have to plan the best way to break into heavily-guarded compounds. Thankfully, Telltale is already hard at work on Episode 2, which should be coming next month. This is done by linking together different pieces of evidence, and while it won’t cause many people to scratch their heads, it’s a welcome change in pace for a relentlessly fast-moving episode. Batman goes to tie a crook to the rafters, you press up on the D-pad when prompted on screen; Catwoman takes a swipe, you press Y to counter. For a character that has been interpreted and explored in hundreds of ways over the past 75 years, the game infuses new life into Batman. So far as we could tell there were no wrong choices, so it still boiled down to a test of reflexes in order to move ahead with the story. You’ll get to read about characters and locations you’ve discovered in the codex, watch the local news, and dip into the Gotham media feed to keep up to date with all the news stories.
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The first episode of Telltale’s take on Batman packs a great deal into its roughly two-hour playtime.
