This week on Fully Ramblomatic, Yahtzee reviews Dispatch.
Transcript
I was intrigued by Dispatch, and then I was outtrigued, and then I was intrigued again. At first sight, I was like, "Ooh, a quirky job simulator set in a superhero universe. I do love the juxtaposition of the mundane and the fantastical; it's like salted caramel, or choking yourself while jerking off. Tell me more, game." "Gladly, Yahtz! We're a story-based choices-matter adventure in the model of the Telltale games, and we're being released episodically." And if you're wondering why the pitch of their voice started lowering there, that was something called the Doppler effect, and it happened because I was running away very fast.
I thought we were over that stupid "episodic games" thing; it didn't save money or time like it was supposed to, and by the time the last episode comes out, everyone's stopped giving a shit after months of blue-balls, but not even particularly interesting-- Hey, why are you still here, Dispatch? "Oh, don't mind me; just releasing all the episodes on a regular schedule over the course of a few weeks." Huh. Well, since I seem to have temporarily shifted into a sensible dimension, I took the opportunity to binge Dispatch over the course of two afternoons, and you know what, listeners? I didn't hate it. In fact, I... sorry, I've forgotten the word. Liked? Liked. I liked it.
Dispatch is set in an alternative Los Angeles where superheroes and supervillains exist, and centers on Robert, a sarcastic dude with no powers, who fights crime in a robot suit, and who sounds like Jesse from Breaking Bad if he switched to downers. His robot suit gets smashed up in a supervillain fight, and he can't afford to fix it, so he's forced to accept the reality of downgrading from robot-man to just plain Robert-man, but when a hot superhero lady representing a corporate superhero agency offers to repair his robot suit, and all he has to do in return is act as dispatcher and mentor for a ragtag group of squabbling former villains turned bottom-rung heroes, is the offer too good to be true? No. No, it's completely on-level, and Robert gets a fulfilling and interesting job and works hard to impress his superiors, including Hot Superhero Lady, who very overtly wants to fuck him. I thought he'd have some ethical issues switching from independent to corporate superheroics, but apparently, that's not something the story felt like interrogating; I mean, they keep talking about the people we're rescuing being, quote, "subscribers", which smacks of protection rackets to me. What do you do if someone needs help, but doesn't pay a subscription? Do you just cordially invite them to eat shit?
No, the premise and setting don't really hold up to scrutiny. I mean, this is a world where superheroes and supervillains are treated like distinct communities and even have their own pubs, but no larger effort is being made to, you know, arrest the supervillains and stop them committing crimes; it's framed more as a lifestyle choice, like one of the former villains on our team tells us the story of how she "volunteered for the hero program", and I was like, "Bitch, this was a voluntary thing? I assumed you were arrested, and this was the only alternative to eating out Sweaty Betty in the prison showers." So I'd advise not trying to overanalyze the broad strokes of the story, because the real strength lies with the characters and the dialogue; Robert could very easily have been some gormless, naive everyman reacting to all the capes and boob windows with bewilderment and awkward mouth noises. But no, he's a strong character who fits into the world; he's cynical, he's smart, he's capable. It's believable when he earns the respect of his charges, and I'm very glad I only found out in the end credits that he was voiced by Aaron Paul, because I know I would've found that very mentally distracting, as he talks and I imagined him jumping up and down yelling "bitch" at everyone.
So I enjoyed the story quite a lot on the character level; unfortunately, it's also superhero shit, so there's also a lot of action and fight scenes. Very well-animated action, yes, but it does the Transformers Saturday morning cartoon bollocks where 90% of the fighting is people being thrown against shit and immediately getting up with no apparent injury, because this is the universe where everyone takes the extra spine warranty, and so nothing of actual impact has happened. And unfortunately, it's also post-2000s superhero shit, and when things with actual impact happen, the tension must always be broken with a quip, because you can't spell "nice long bath in warm ostrich feces" without "bathos". Although I'd say the writing and strong characters keep things on the tolerable side of smarmy, never quite crossing the line into that dark, forsaken land where King Joss holds sway.
And one area wherein Dispatch breaks from the Telltale Games formula, to its absolute credit, is that it remembers to be an actual game. Hoo-bloody-ray! Only took thirteen bloody years after The Walking Dead. In each episode, there's a segment where we do the actual dispatching with a strategic management game sort of affair, in which we're given missions with loose explanations of what skills are called for, and pick one or more available superheroes with appropriate stats, and it's all nicely presented and challenges our intuition, decision-making, cooldown management skills, and occasional good old-fashioned dumb luck, which is pretty on-theme. Honestly, if the game had unlocked infinite gameplay mode after all the story bollocks was over, I wouldn't have said "no", although I suppose it did help to take a break from the stress with some nice character scenes and occasional momentous decision over whether to say something earnest or facetious to change the other character's next line of dialogue and absolutely fuck-all else.
On that note, I liked how your superheroes level up and acquire new skills and quirks, but I wish that had affected the story more; like, the one dude who was a big old nebbin continued to be a big old nebbin, even though I pumped his charisma stats so high, his very farts had started taking the form of dialogue from broadly marketable rom-coms. "Well, I'm glad you enjoyed the game, Yahtz." Thank you, Dispatch. "Are you planning to do a replay and see the other story paths?" Absolutely fucking not, Dispatch. I still roll my eyes every time I see that little text: "So-and-So will remember that." Oh, will they? So-and-So has a functioning brain, and the concept of causality exists? Thanks for reminding me; for a second there, I was dangerously immersed. Replaying choices-matter games is the fastest way to disillusion yourself on how much your choices actually matter; like, there's two love interests in the game pushed on you rather blatantly. I quickly chose to pursue the one with the actually interesting story arc, and did everything to dissuade the other candidate short of pushing dogshit up her nose, but she still spent the whole game fluttering her eyes like broadly marketable rom-com dialogue was coming out of my arse.
Here's the thing, listeners: Dispatch is a good game in spite of, not thanks to the Telltale format. If it had just picked its most compelling story path and swatted my hand off the mouse at every choice, I'd have liked it equally as much; I liked the story and the gameplay and the characters and the writing and the way it wasn't shy about exploring relationships and sex and naked boobies, like a lot of popular media these days that's primarily aimed at audiences that haven't yet mentally outgrown the notion that snogging is icky, and naked boobies are oppressive, and naked and lovely and boobies and-- sorry, I lost my train of thought.
Addenda
- Please stay on the line madam: Yahtzee Croshaw
- I'm gonna write a book about the guy who invented that device every supervillain has that takes over every TV screen in the city