ADSactly Game Review - Batman: The Telltale Series

in #gaming7 years ago

Batman Cover.jpg

Line Break.png

Batman: The Telltale Series

I wonder if any of you can remember those awesome Choose Your Own Adventure books from long ago?

Well, this is pretty much the twenty first century's answer to those epic stories from before we had things like Netflix and Facebook. If you aren't sure what I'm talking about, there use to be, probably still are, only on some dusty library shelf no one even knows about anymore, these magical books. What made these books so amazing was that they had multiple endings, that were all based on the decisions you made. So at the end of each chapter there was a consequential decision that had to be made, then, depending on your decision you would have to go to a specific chapter and continue reading. Much the same as in life, you would only realize 3 or 4 chapters and many more decisions later that a choice somewhere has greatly affected the outcome of your story.

Batman from Telltale is very much a Choose Your Own Adventure, every choice you make either has a positive or negative outcome to what happens. The great part about this is that you can play it a few times over with the main story following sort of the same path but every decision or lack there of will have some kind of impact on the story.

Line Break.png

The story begins with Batman responding to a break-in at Gotham City City Hall, where he has to take on a group of mercenaries, who are there for unknown reasons.

He discovers Catwoman has broken into the safe and stolen a hard drive, while he was dealing with the bad guys. She tries to make a run for it but we know Batman, who somehow steals the drive back from Catwoman as she escapes. Batman heads back to the Batcave to analyze the drive, then has to meet with Harvey Dent who is in the process of holding a fund raiser for his Mayoral campaign in Bruce Wayne's mansion.

During the party the notorious gangster Carmine Falcone shows up, who then attempts to proposition Bruce to join his crime family. The alter ego of the Dark Knight would obviously never agree to something so outrageous, and Falcone leaves vowing to get even for being denied. The next day accusations come to light in the press that the parents of Bruce, Thomas and Martha Wayne who died when he was just a young boy, are somehow connected and had affiliations with the Falcone crime organization.

The story continues with Bruce and Batman having to solve this mystery of what had happened in the past. Are these false accusations created by Falcone in order to strong arming him to comply, or is there truth that his parents might have somehow been involved with Gotham's more shadier characters?

Batman 02.jpg
source

Batman 10.jpg
source

Line Break.png

If you have ever played any of the other Telltales games you would know, they are all tied together by two distinctive elements.

Firstly the visual feel of all their games, which is an animated, almost stock motion feel but not really, which I am finding incredibly hard to explain right now. The other element is of course the play style, which is what they refer to as point and click style games. This makes the game rather easy to play, it's almost like watching a movie where you get the make decisions. These decisions do require pretty quick thinking as you only have but a few seconds to respond when prompted, and failing to responds counts as not saying something which does have consequences. You know like when you girlfriend or boyfriend says I love you and you don't respond, things can turn ugly quickly.

Batman is an unpredictable adventure, that is very well balanced between playing as Bruce Wayne and his alter ego Batman. The two are almost different characters altogether, completely independent from each other and this is even experienced through the game style. While as Batman it's mostly detective work and combat, and when playing as Bruce, there are for more quick strategic decisions that need to be made.

Batman 05.png
source

Batman 07.jpg
source

Line Break.png


"You crossed the line first, sir. You hammered then and in their desperation they turned to a man they didn't fully understand. Some men aren't looking for anything logical. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn." - Alfred Pennyworth


Batman 09.jpg
source

Line Break.png

My verdict on this game, well, it might be a bit on the short side when it comes to the length, if you have to compare it to other games or even the Arkham Knight series.

The story is exciting, original and does not follow any of the Batman stories either from the comics, films or previous games, that I know of. The vocal dialogue was well done but at times felt a little over explained, almost like I might miss certain plot points in the story. I was caught off guard a number of times with the game which probably caused me to make decisions I didn't want to. Once the the decision window is gone, you have to live with it, or restart the entire episode.

When it comes to combat it was rather fun, like I said it very much like watching a movie, then out of nowhere and without warning you have hit the right keys to not get killed. This happened a few times as I was getting into watching more that actually participating, when instantly I would need to grab my controller.

Batman 11.jpg
source

Batman 03.jpg
source

Batman: The Telltale Series game is what's called an episodic point-and-click graphic adventure game, due to the mechanics as I explained earlier.

The game was launched in September of 2016 and was released an episode at a time, in much the same way TV series would be released. So every few weeks they would release another episode with 5 in total and about 2 hours long each, depending on your play style. The game was developed by Telltale Games, who have done quite a few of these games by now, like Game of Thrones, Back to the Future and The Walking Dead. This title can be be found on all your favorite platforms, even the older generation consoles like the PS3 and Xbox 360. I would say this is something fun to introduce to someone who's just starting to game for the first time. It's currently free on PSPlus and on special for the PlayStation Easter sale.

I'll give Batman: The Telltale Series a rating of 7/10

Batman 08.png
source

In case you missed it, here is the previous game review

Bad Feeling Tag.png

Thanks for popping in, hope you liked the post. Please leave me your thoughts and or opinions in the comments below, have a beautiful day.

Batman.gif

Line Break.png

untilnexttime 2.png

Line Break.png

Adsactly Banner New.jpg

Game review for ADSactly by MorkRock

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not
necessarily reflect the official policy or position of ADSactly

✯ ✯ ✯

Adsactly Banner New.jpg


Vote @adsactly-witness for Steem witness!

Witness proposal is here:

Witness Proposal
Go To Steem Witness Page

In the bottom of the page type: adsactly-witness and press vote.

adsactly.gif

Thank You

Sort:  

Super & excited game, thanks for the review

Well it is Batman, not sure how excited the game it self could feel.

Telltale Games, the name of this one developer has managed to gain rapid popularity in the gaming industry over the last few years. They consistently "play" in the interactive story genre that has captivated the interest of many publishers and franchise owners. From The Walking Dead's first season heart-breaking, Telltale seems to be entitled to the title as one of the busiest developers of the day. Convert existing universes and build background stories that you never imagined before, they are even trusted to handle the Borderlands, Game of Thrones, to the latest - Batman. For the latter name, the first quite anticipated episode was finally released into the market.

I have to say that outside that heartbreaking season 1 finale for the Walking Dead, the next best thing was The Wolf Among Us, as it really opened my eyes to a universe I never knew existed. At the same time, having played a lot of their games, I'm concerned about the games becoming stale, a lack of new innovation and a persistent feeling that your choices don't matter quite as much as you think in certain games. I'm also concerned by the slowly declining review scores for Telltale Games, hopefully they can keep producing high-quality games!

I loved Wolf Among US great game. I do agree, it's not something I would ever reply.

This sounds super cool. I loved the choose your own adventure books when I was a kid. I would read them over and over. It is nice to see that there sounds to be a solid story and the playability is easy. Some of the new games these days have some complex controller manipulation to perform actions and moves. I will be suggesting it to my kid.

Your kid would totally love this, and I think you would too. Super easy to play. Thanks for always commenting bro.

Ahahahahahaha! Consequences like when your girlfriend says "I Love You..." Best line of the day.

I'm not a gamer, but I love your enthusiasm for the games and the Games. Thanks for a great post.

Awwww and thank you so much for the great comment @bigtom13

I love Batman and his universe and who loves games of choice, I could only adore this game. Graphically it's like the other telltale game, the comics style suits him well. We find several characters more or less known in the Batman universe and it's nice to choose with whom to create affinities or not. And the story is very good I was a lot taken in and the end announces (I hope) a second season. Very good game for me!

I'm not saying I am Batman, I am just saying no one has ever seen me and Batman in the same room...

I loved the look and feel of the Batman telltale game though I have to be honest that I never finished it. What drew me away from it was the timer. I play games for the story and I actually am Batman in rl (just don't tell people k?) so when I first got my hands on this title I was excited but the timer is so short to make decisions that will carry consequences that will follow you through all 5 chapters! I want to get everything perfect (like I do when I go out at night to fight crime) However, after seeing this article and the screens that you have put up I can guarantee that I will soon be getting no sleep and pissing off my woman late at night as I face my problems with it head on and binge play through the night ^ ^ Wonderful article (Upvoted) and PS- Lemme know when you do a review on Judge Dredd so that I can explain how during the day "I am the law" too" ^ ^

Graphics in gaming has come a long way, nice review on this game @adsactly

You mention the sound was not so great is that due to slight lagging within the game?

No the sound was great, I was talking about the character dialog, which was a little over explained.

Awww are't you just helpful

Good review... I haven't played the game yet. And your review is a bit fair regrading it's strong and weak points.

Hmmmm... QTE is standard for telltale games... how do you think they can make it better?

Hmmm not exactly sure, I mean it is a very specif game style of Telltale.

Look like a cool game and i think i play it now.....