It’s been a month since Adhoc Studios released the initial batch of episodes for Dispatch, and now that the season is available to the public, I can finally review the entire season of this narrative-driven game, featuring numerous twists, turns, and unexpected events that are both entertaining and heartbreaking.
Please note that this review covers the whole of Dispatch in all of its entirety, including gameplay and our thoughts on gameplay features. As much as we can help it, we will try to avoid going over specific events that happen through season one's 8 episode run.
Dispatch‘s main story revolves around the hero known as Mecha Man, also known as Robert Robertson the Third. He is the third person to take up the title after inheriting it from his father, who was murdered by the hands of former teammate, Shroud. The game opens up with a fight against Shroud and his crew. The fight ended with the Mecha suit destroyed. This results in Mecha Man publicly announcing his retirement from hero activities. All seemed lost until Blonde Blazer showed up and gave him a shot at becoming a hero again by offering to repair the Mecha Man suit in exchange for his help in the Superhero Dispatch Network, SDN.
Robert is assigned to the Z team, a ragtag group of former villains looking to turn things around. At first, he didn’t think much of them, nothing more than a group of troublemakers trying to get some heat off of them. In time, he begins to believe in this group of former villains, going so far as to call them family near the end. But before all that, Robert is presented with a list of tough decisions and numerous obstacles that get in his way. The road to being a superhero once again was no walk in the park, with some members trying to be as uncooperative as possible, even going so far as to ignore their dispatcher. Depending on player choices, Robert can choose to step up in his role or give in to doubt and allow other unfavorable outcomes to occur. And oddly enough, the key to everything is stepping into the world of these former villains and seeing things the way they do.
The story itself is quite extraordinary, as many moments of action and reflection ultimately lead up to the game’s three endings: good, bad, and something unexpected. I want to give props to the creative team for giving us a very colorful yet complex story. When playing this game, I felt like I was not playing a game, but rather witnessing a very special episode of a sitcom TV show that is a mix-up of Invincible and The Office, in a good way. Every motif, plot, climax, and ending that this game presented was absolute cinema, and I love how we can get to know a bit of what kind of life not only Mecha Man has experienced, but also how we can freely interpret what kind of person he is in this game.
The gameplay of this game is quite simple yet effective, as players must learn to dispatch the right heroes best suited to tackle the mission at hand. Dispatch them correctly, and they will earn XP points to level up, and players can choose freely which stats they can upgrade and what new abilities they can learn. Failure to do so will result in injury to themselves; the most severe mess-ups could send that hero to the hospital.
Each mission is essentially a skill check that your heroes must overcome to be successful. It’s basically D&D, except you don’t see the dice rolling. The heroes you dispatch to the mission location combine the stats, raising their chances of success. The higher that number, the better your odds become. The key to becoming a successful dispatcher lies in analyzing which stats are best suited for the situation at hand, as well as learning which heroes can work together the best. I find this feature very fun and challenging. It may look simple at first, but one needs to be very measured when determining the needs of the team to reach a favorable outcome while addressing individual weaknesses.
The performance of the voice actors in Dispatch was superb, especially Aaron Paul, who voiced Mecha Man. When playing the role of a depressed hero, Aaron truly gave a star-stunning performance that gave the chills when playing. Throughout the game, he entertained us players by showing us how active and emotional his character is, especially during the times when he was down and out. Plus, I can highly see him win this year’s Game Awards for best voice actor role.
Aside from the great story content and simple gameplay, this game has some issues that need to be addressed. First of all, each episode of the game lasts only 30 minutes or so. I really hope that the episodes were a bit longer since the developers of this game were comprised of highly skilled veterans who have worked previously on Telltale games. Aside from that, they could also have given us a chance to interact with other minor and major characters in and outside of the office, much in the way of said Telltale games.
Another issue I noticed is that there are certain choices in this game that we thought had a major impact, but regardless of what choice was made, the outcome had only similar outcomes or small differences. This may be partly on me for expecting too much from the fledgling title, but second playthroughs were met with some level of disappointment. On the other hand, some seemingly insignificant choices ended up affecting a key event in the game, which was a good thing overall. Still, the general approach felt a bit misleading, coming from a guy who has played multiple narrative-driven games.
Probably the biggest issue with the game is the game-breaking bugs that force players to reload their saves. This happened to us in episode 6, wherein we were supposed to help Invisigal make up for her foolish mistake. The bug occurred during hacking segments, resulting in us losing the ability to move around between nodes. I had to reload a previous save multiple times, resulting in some lost progress, and forcing me to redo a number of quick-time events. At best, it was annoying to deal with, but something that could be fixed through updates. I just hope this failure in QA doesn’t become the norm for their next game.
Dispatch has quickly become one of my most recommended superhero games to date due to its colorful cast of characters and amazing approach to storytelling. This game is literally Invisible meets The Office, a sitcom, a rare sight in gaming. I personally hope that this game gets a second season, as we can definitely see that Adhoc Studios has more tricks up its sleeve as a rising gaming company that will provide us with entertaining content for all of us. Dispatch itself should be something that all players should get into, as it is both entertaining and enjoyable to play at the same time.
Dispatch (PC)
Dispatch has quickly become one of my most recommended superhero games to date due to its colorful cast of characters and amazing approach to storytelling. This game is literally Invisible meets The Office, a sitcom, a rare sight in gaming.
The Good
- Memorable story with a fun approach to storytelling
- The voice actors are impressive and skilled in depth and range
- The gameplay is simple, yet effective
The Bad
- Each episode is short lasting only 30-40 minutes
- Not much interactive experiences outside the story.
- A few game breaking bugs
