Batman: The Telltale Series (2016)

So, I was halfway through episode two of this game (approx. 3 hours in) when it crashed in the middle of saving and this happened after reloading:

For some reason the environment I'm in is the police station, while Bruce Wayne seems to be already one scene ahead in the bat-cave, typing on his invisible bat-computer and sitting on his invisible chair. He also seems to be talking to somebody (the butler I think) but I can neither hear him nor see him and had to choose answers at random. I was hoping if I played like this until the next scene it'll be back to normal. No such luck, a few minutes into it, I couldn't progress anymore. I think I was supposed to do something but I couldn't see anything or click anything. Reloading again didn't help, using the local save file instead of the cloud save file didn't work either. I guess this is going into my discontinued folder. I'm not willing to play those three hours all over again. I wish Telltale would get their shit together and release working games, had a similar problem with TWD New Frontier where I played through the whole first episode only to have my save file deleted the next time I started the game. Very disappointed and slightly angry.

A good title, good batman story, very rich and very crowded of moral dilemmas (as a good batman comic).

About gameplay Nothing special and complicated at all, all commands are very simple and have no great influence in the scenes however if you do not hit that buttons on the right time, you will probably see a "try again screen".

In resume: telltale being telltale.

While the gameplay is still pretty much the same as any other telltale game and the plot twists weren't as bombastic as say The Walking Dead I still really enjoyd this game.

I really enjoyed intarecting with all the vilains and how they gave them a unique spin while still making them very recognazible.

4 out of 5 'cause I got to be Batman for a few hours :)

Batman: The Telltale Series

It took far longer than I expected, but I finally finished it with a breakneck 4 hour stint through the final 2 chapters this afternoon. As with most other Telltale games, I enjoyed it....even though I'm well aware of its faults.

And as with all other Telltale games before it, I'm going to vow never to play another of their games again. Until Game of Thrones S2 hits. Because I hate myself.

I'll probably just keep editing this to review each episode then when it's done I'll change the rating to something final once I find the average. I was really looking forward to this one because Batman lends himself so well to a great story, and even though gameplay is obviously lacking in Telltale games, their story can really be on point at times.

Episode 1 (9/10):

- Playing as Batman was a lot of fun, though planning the attack was really simplistic. However, it does suffer from the Telltale formula a bit since I don't think QTE is the way to represent Batman. We knew this was going to happen but it's probably the weakest link in the chain here. Still, the investigations were cool, and it does a good job of making Batman feel like Batman. It's cool being able to choose how brutal you want to be, knowing that there will be consequences.

- The Bruce Wayne parts are wonderful. Spoilers in this paragraph: I had decided to meet with Falcone because of Harvey but due to how ingrained Batman is into my brain, I just could not bring myself to shake his hand or treat him with respect. I was sitting there, frantically trying to decide, and ultimately I thought, "Batman could NEVER bring himself to shake this guy's hand." That's real power in narrative right there, but it does benefit from Batman being such a recognizable figure.

- Being the first episode, obviously the plot is just getting going, but it really hit me hard at the end with an excellent twist and voice acting. I cannot wait to see more because a fantastic Batman tale is hard to beat in any medium.

- The animations and graphics are a little wonky with some PC issues, but that seems to always happen.

Final thought on this episode: So far I'm really digging it. It's obviously not the Arkham series which succeeds on every level, but this is what I wanted from Telltale's take on it.

Episode 2 (8.5/10)

- I'm still bothered by the QTE, and I'm sure this will be the first criticism that you see in all of these episodes. It didn't bother me as much in The Wolf Among Us, but I still think this isn't a good way to represent Batman. I didn't feel that the planning of combat in this one was as good.

- When you first appear as Batman, it was incredibly wonky. However, you show up again as the Bat and those sequences are much cooler.

- None of the Bruce Wayne parts hit me as hard as in the first one, but it's still solid storytelling for the most part.

- The ending brought it together well, and the choice you have to make is setting a lot of things in motion. It didn't end with a big twist, especially to fans of Batman, but it was a narrative that had to happen... it was accomplished well.

Final thought on this episode: A bit of a step down in quality, ultimately, but still great stuff as a whole.