Batman: The Telltale Series

Final Rating: 8.3
Happy Price:TTG go on sale a lot, wait until its on sale for $15 or less.

I played a Telltale Game for this first time this year and the first one I tried out was Game of Thrones. After playing the game, I found a whole new gaming genre that fit my interests. I enjoy action based games but sometimes its nice to sit back and enjoy a well written story. After that I tried The Walking Dead (Season 1), The Wolf Among Us, Life is Strange and of course my favorite Tales from the Borderlands. So when I found out that Telltale Games was making a Batman game, I was ecstatic. I found a new game genre that I love, throw in the fact that I'm a bit of D.C. nerd and you have a game thats right up my alley.

Some of you might not even know what Telltale Games are so they're  a small/indie development and publishing company that specialize in graphic adventure video games. The games are usually split up into 5 episodes and each episode is approximately 2 hours long so the entire games usually takes about 10 hours to complete. The gameplay itself is usually simplistic, you have very limited movement when controlling your character and all action sequences are handled by quick time events. The biggest aspect of the gameplay is the very in depth talk paths, you ultimately get to chose everything your character has to say. This may not sound very exciting but these games are driven  by the narrative and by putting you in difficult moral dilemmas. Even if it is just a video game, its never easy choosing  gets to live and and has to die.

That's a quick run through how Telltale Games play and work but how does that translate to this new Batman game? Knowing that Batman doesn't kill so I was very curious, how Telltale was going to deal with this since most moral dilemmas revolve in Telltale games revolve death but with this game that obviously couldn't happen. I think Telltale did a great job with this, you often times have to chose between saving one person or another who (is it whom?) are not necessarily in life or death scenarios but they're certainly in precarious situations. There are also situations where you have to chose between going to an event either as Batman or Bruce Wayne. Both options have their pros and cons so you have to weigh it out and pick what you think is the best option.

Where this game really nails it is, its not necessarily an interpretation of Batman but rather it gives you option for you to chose the type of Batman you want to be. Do you want to send a message to the criminals of Gotham by being absolutely Brutal or do you want to work within the law a little more  and by more merciful when it comes to dealing with the criminals. A cool feature at the end of the game actually rates you between being merciful and brutal. In case anyone is wondering, I ended up with a 92% merciful rating so obviously I chose the law abiding approach.

Although I really enjoyed this game, it does have some issues that need to be addressed. The biggest issue of this game is the fact that it has some serious frame rate issues. In some cut scenes, the frame rate ends up tanking and it can make the gaming experience a little less enjoyable. It bothers me because if a game has frame rate issues in cut scenes that means its poorly optimized. The good news is there have been patches released to fix most of these frame rate issues but if you bought the game in 6 months, you're still likely to run into a few.

My only other complaint with the game is, episodes 4 and 5 just feel shorter than usual. Both of these episodes ended up taking an hour and a half so they feel shorter than the first 3 episodes. It certainly didn't feel like the story was poorly edited and moments were cut out but I can't help but feel like the game could have been an hour longer.

Now that I got the "cons" out of the way, I do want to talk about some of the the "pros" and an important one to talk about is the price. Its not a full priced game. The games cost $25 so although they are shorter and they are also cheaper.

I have watched a lot of animated Batman movies, TV's shows, Live Action Batman Movies and have even played a few Batman video games and I think Telltale did the best job with Bruce Wayne. Instead of the game feeling like another Batman story, its Batman and Bruce Wayne. You play as both equally and they both have very interesting story arcs. In some ways, its almost more fun to play as Bruce Wayne than it is Batman.

Since this is a narrative based video game, the story is obviously the most important aspect of the entire game and Telltale does a great job of it.The game kept me on the edge of my seat for most of it and although I don't want to spoil anything but I do want to mention that they had a very interesting story arc with the Wayne's family history. What also got me very excited about the story is, its not all about the Joker. Nothing against the Joker but it just seems like he's a bit overused and its nice to see some other Batman villains get a chance to be in the spot light.

I do want to give out a friendly warning about the game though. This is not an action based game, there is very little action in it. That may seem like an obvious statement but it seems like some people buy these games without realizing what type of game they are. I always describe these games as interactive movies or TV shows. You have control over dialogue and decisions but you can't go flying off somewhere and just start beating the crap out of anyone you want to. If thats more interesting to you and a game that's revolved around the story doesn't interest you as much, I would recommend to go out and play the Arkham Knight series.

But enough about me and my opinions, I want to hear from you guys, what did you think? Don’t just hit the like button (you can if you want to) but tell me why right or wrong.

Batman: Arkham Knight

Rating: 9.4

Happy Price: 59.99

Gameplay

Gadgets, hard hitting fists, and the Batmobile are the elements that make up the core mechanics of this iteration of Batman. The shift has gone from stealth in Arkham Asylum to the use of the Batmobile in this version. Most of your time will be spent driving around and in action packed battles

Combat

Different enemy types pose different problems for Batman, and force the player to make strategic decisions before going into battle. Most of the time you will be perched from above so you can make calculated decisions on who to attack, such as the bat would do in his world. Two men might be armed, one may have electric batons, and there may be a brute. Who to attack first, and what gadgets to be used will make the battle successful or a failure. Combat stays the same for the most part using the FreeFlow engine, but is definitely more difficult than previous games. The variety of ways to take down enemies and the use of the environment makes each encounter different and interesting. The pacing is great as well, as the fights become harder and harder as your skills also grow as a character and player of the game.

Batmobile

Gotham is plagued by an occupation that forces the evacuation of the city. There are tanks all over the streets and this must be countered by the batmobile which is equipped with a machine gun and a 60mm cannon. The car has a "battle mode" feature which allows guns to be shot and the vehicle can strafe allowing for evasive maneuvers while firing shots. Against enemies outside of vehicles, the batmobile shoots stun bullets due to Batman's policy of not killing. The transition between battle mode and car mode is smooth and its really fun to go full speed in car mode then quickly switch to battle mode, then switch back and take off. The controls are not tight so it does take some getting used to, but this isn't a racing sim. However you spend ample amounts of time in the batmobile and I wish they spent more time on the design of the city making driving around a little more fun. At times you move so fast in a compact, dark environment it forces you to always feel a step behind when turning around corners.

Story

The story is one of the best I've played in a video game. The two main villains in this game are the new character "Arkham Knight" and Scarecrow. There is a struggle between the two villains as Scarecrow wants Batman to suffer, while Arkham Knight is hellbent on revenge and wants Batman's head ASAP. Scarecrow seems like a disappointing character at first, but as the plot unfolds you begin to respect him and his abilities much more. The Joker definitely makes his presence, but not in a way you'd think. As the story progresses the Arkham Knight impresses with his knowledge of Batman and both you as a player and Batman become highly curious as to who this person is. The reveal is perfect when it happens.

Open world games struggle with integrating side quests into the narrative, but this game does it very well. As you are hunting down Riddler, Two-Face, Penguin, and others, the player is consistently reminded of what is going on in Gotham. Everyone is taking advantage of Scarecrow's new plan, and as you take down the villains one by one the player can feel the difference in the world. Side missions and quests gain significant amounts of XP so it becomes very fulfilling to do them.

Animation

Don't be fooled when the game begins, the animation seems really quick and its difficult to see what is going on during combat. It's as if the animation was done at 30fps but the game is running 60fps and its 2x as fast as it should be. Before you know it, Batman gets a new suit that allows you to hit harder and take more damage. After that, the animation settles down and looks normal. Since there is such a high focus on the story, the acting is very important. Rocksteady knew this, and did a great job with facial expressions and body language during cutscenes that drive the story. Many times in games animation can hurt the story, but in this instance it's pivotal in making it better. 

Conclusion

 There are many open world games out there right now. I would not say this is a must buy, but it is definitely worth 60 bucks. If you like Batman, you will enjoy this game. I think the Witcher 3 or GTAV offer more than this game, but don't provide the novelty of playing as Batman or such a good story.