I’m playing Batman: The Telltale Series. When I first heard of it, I was confused how that would even work. Telltale, for those who don’t know, is a game company that takes licensed properties and makes story-based games out of them. They’ve made The Walking Dead: Seasons One, Two, and Three, The Walking Dead: Michonne, Tales from the Borderlands, Game of Thrones, Minecraft: Story Mode, and several others. Those are their main ones, though.
Batman came out recently, and I wasn’t sure how it’d work out. I’m used to Batman games being, like, Arkham Knight and such. Very action oriented. That’s how you do a Batman game! So how would Telltale do one?
The opening sequence was Batman taking down a small group trying to break into the mayor’s office. There’s a ton of quicktime events, and I seriously almost just turned it off. I hate QTEs, as do most gamers I’ve asked about it. But luckily I stuck it out.
After that, I see something I don’t think I’ve seen outside of the Nolan movies; Bruce Wayne interacting with the citizens of Gotham. He is campaigning for Harvey Dent, and after the introduction there’s a fundraising party at Wayne Manor for Dent. At one point, an elderly couple says that even though they have never heard of Dent, they’ll vote for him because Bruce is backing him, because they trust him. I’ve never really thought about how the citizens of Gotham viewed Bruce Wayne before.
I’m much further on now, and I must say, this takes a fully different approach to the Batman game formula, but I thoroughly enjoying this. The game is less action-based and more dialogue-based. That may sound boring, but it’s done very well. For example, at the end of the introduction scene, you have to fight Catwoman. This is obviously at the beginning of the Batman story, because he has no idea who she is. Later on, he meets Selena Kyle while dining with Harvey Dent. The two realise who the other is immediately, because they still have the same injuries from the fight. After a minute, Dent has to get up from the table to make a call, leaving Selena and Bruce to dialogue for several minute. It is more interesting and intense than the fight between the two of them at the beginning of the game.
There are five episodes in the season (yeah, it’s one of those games), and I’m about halfway through the first episode. I’m excited to see where this goes. Just hope there’s not too many QTEs left.
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