Dispatch before Clair Obscur: Expedition 33? Yeah. I am as surprised as you.
The Usual Video Game Disclaimer
Long time followers of my blog know that I don't usually do Video Game reviews. Part of this is because the WTM/STF format doesn't really apply to video game story telling. Movies/Films top out at 3-3.5 hours. Modern video games with a story even worth exploring start at 10-12 hours. There's usually just too much there there to keep up with. The other major reason I don't review video games is that fun is such a subjective and evolving concept.
In 1972, Pong was the greatest game ever. It was two sticks passing a digital ball back and forth. In 1980, Pac-Man was the greatest game ever. It was a big yellow circle eating small white circles and running away from multi-colored ghosts; pretty much indefinitely. In 1991 Street Fighter II was the greatest game ever. It was pick one of 8 people (well, 7 people and whatever the hell Blanka is) and beat up the other 7 and then 4 more. In 1992 Mortal Kombat was the greatest game ever with pretty much the same idea, just doing so with full motion video capture. So, in 2026 what is the greatest game ever? It depends on who you ask. That's my point, gaming is a subjective art form, and what I think is the greatest game ever could be dull and uninspired/too hard.
TL;DR: Don't take any of this as gospel
A VERY brief history.
Early PC gaming was built around "adventure" gaming; specifically "Point-And-Click" adventure gaming. P&C adventure gaming was exactly what it sounds like. The player had a largely static screen, they moved the mouse over the screen searching for interactive elements to manipulate or potentially add them to their inventory for later use; often requiring combination with other collected items to make a new, completely unique items. The undisputed, heavyweight champions of the world for P&C games was a company known as Sierra Entertainment. Space Quest, Police Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, and Gabriel Knight were all well known P&C series created by Sierra and; if groups on Facebook are any indicators, are still beloved today. (Full disclosure: For a LONG time, the Gabriel Knight Series was among my favorite gaming universes of all time) If Sierra was the gold standard for P&C gaming, LucasArts (yes, that LucasArts) were the silver medalists in the space. Loom, Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion/Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, and my personal favorite P&C ever made, Sam and Max: Hit The Road all existed under the LucasArts umbrella. The genre as a whole began to fall out of favor in the late 1990's and has been largely considered extinct in its original form after 1998's Sanitarium which is considered to be the last "great" P&C Adventure game.
In 2004, Telltale games was founded by a trio of former LucasArts developers. Their mission was to keep the IP's with smaller, yet feverishly devoted fanbases within the gaming space alive. Over time, the "Telltale Formula" began to take hold, peaking with 2012's Walking Dead Telltale series. Telltale's games eventually became much less intense than old school P&C adventures and began to resemble interactive novels akin to a "Choose your own adventure" story with occasional quick time events (QTEs) sprinkled in. Some well known games in this mold are "The Stanley Parable" and "The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante" This format is also incredibly popular for "Adults Only" content for PC gaming for reasons that should be obvious at this point.
In 2018, the original Telltale games was granted a general assignment and all their IPs (including the Telltale name) were assigned to a company known only as LCG games. However, several of the developers; much like the original three from LucasArts did almost two decades earlier, set out on their own and opened AdHoc studios. Dispatch is their first offering.
What I Like
The Presentation: Let's get this out of the way.... Dispatch is some of the most amazing animation I've ever seen...full stop. The attention to detail and talent required to make this game look as good as any animated feature ever produced cannot be overstated. This is especially true if you meet Blonde Blazer outside of her superhero outfit as she goes from being "What if Carol Danvers got addicted to anabolic steroids and it actually made her likeable?" to "Oh my God, this girl is straight out of a Disney movie!" To put it another way, they've created a world where 70% of what you do is miserable work, and once you are done doing it, you immediately start over because you feel like you could do it better. Shroud's mask specifically is incredibly impressive, no matter how many times you see it.
The Writing: The story boarding, character work, and universe creation are top notch. These individuals are very easy to have feelings about and see how their relationships with one another develop over time. The best part of Dispatch, like most of the games in this genre, is to go back and see how the story changes with the major choices you make. It's clear the creator put a lot of effort into this creation.
The Cast: Aaron Paul and Jeffrey Wright aren't exactly A-list talents; but if you know who they are you are still kind of surprised that they would not only be doing a video game, but putting out a REALLY good effort into a video game. Paul in particular does a phenomenal job getting across the appropriate tone of his lines. When he's frustrated or annoyed is completely different than when he's giving a pep talk or a come to Jesus tongue lashing. While it would be very easy to slip into Jessie Pinkman takes over a call center and do nothing but screaming BITCH at the Z-team, we feel Robert Robertson III's emotions as he intends them.
The Music: Stop me if you've heard this before, but a game I like has an awesome soundtrack. It's an eclectic mix from across the landscape but it all WORKS for what it is; especially as the episodes end and we're transitioned from one story beat to the next.
Effective Product Placement: I don't know how much money AdHoc got from Hostess and whoever makes Sour Patch Kids to have them be Robert's go to snacks of choice, but good on them for their brilliant product use. They absolutely nailed it, to the point where I've lowkey been craving Twinkies for a week now.
What I'm Not Sure About
Episodic Releasing: In general, I'm not a huge fan of paying for content over time. We've all been around Netflix for so long that we are all trained to consume hours worth of content in one sitting with just the occasional button presses in between but whenever you make me buy video games in installments, it just feels like selling me a cow, then charging me for milk. That said, the episodic structure adds a TON to the gravitas of the story, and I bought the game after all the episodes were released so my main gripe with this issue is kind of a moot point. Still, I feel like I would be irritated waiting two weeks for two new episodes to drop and the story to continue.
Robert Robertson/Mecha Man: While I really like Aaron Paul's performance as RRIII/MM, I kind of hate the character. The guy literally just knows how to be an effective team lead to a bunch of people who do NOT want to be led despite constantly being brow beaten and humiliated at every opportunity. He knows exactly what to say in every situation, regardless of what the team thinks of him at that very moment, and he somehow has the two main female characters in the game both head over heels for him which perfectly segues into....
I had a dream last night that we were fucking" I have never claimed to be God's gift to women, but I do know that more than a few people, including my wife, have been sexually attracted to me throughout my life, and absolutely NONE of them have ever told me, let alone kicked off our courtship, by literally walking up and telling me they dreamt about us having sex. Yes, it is not out of character for Invisigal to say this (just like it is not out of character for RRIII to completely roll with it and come up with such witty retorts as "Was my dick big?" or "How was I?") it just feels completely unnecessary, especially since I don't *think* it has any impact on whether you actually successfully romance her or not. The Dispatch Wiki says it's a moment where she's showing vulnerability, but to me it just comes off as a juvenile exchange (especially how the scene ends).
What I Don't Like
"Your Team Will Fail This Mission": In the second half of the game, there are missions where certain criteria have to be met in order to succeed. In my three play throughs so far, I've yet to meet them, despite having skills among team members that literally cover up the entire mission board. I don't like story beats in a story focused game, that I cannot reasonably access or even on repeated playthroughs gain insight on how to access them.
Cutting Team Members So let me see if I get this straight, in a game based somewhat on time and resource management, you consistently want to be adding and removing team members? Especially two of the cooler ones? I get you need it for the story beats in the story's climax, but it really doesn't feel in line with the celebrations
The Statistics: At the end of every chapter, you will get statistics as to choices you made and performance against other players. Most of these make sense or are irrelevant, but most of the chapters are "You performed better than 10% or 20% of other players" Which seems low to me. I've had a few nearly perfect shifts where it says I performed better than "50%" of other players. I just don't think these calculations hold water or are updated frequently enough.
Invisigal: A continuation of my issues with the scene above, RR3/MM falling for Invisigal does not feel nearly as natural or as earned as falling for Blonde Blazer does. The final option to go one way or the other is a gut punch every time it comes around as the story needs you to go Invisigal to get the "best" ending, but so many great moments come out of romancing BB that just get missed in the name of chasing the dragon. This will be especially true if the canon becomes that Visi takes over the Red Ring for Volume 2
Dialogue Choices: Too many of them are unnecessary and don't move the needle of the narrative in any meaningful way.
The Bottom Line
For what it is, Dispatch is outstanding. It tells its story, makes sure you have a good enough time with what you are doing, and makes you really want to see what impact changing a decision has on the narrative (for example, adding Phenomaman to the team is a completely different 3rd quarter of the game than adding WaterBoy is, and each allows for some cool choices to be made.) It's incredibly funny and you never feel lost.
It also is incredibly uneven, poorly paced, and in a lot of ways story beats don't feel earned, especially when one of the characters are going to be sacrificed for the sake of plot development.
I understand completely when people say they want more; but I also understand completely someone who says "Okay, I did that once, I never need to do it again" If it feels like some of the things I like are ALSO some of the things I hate, you aren't wrong, because that's kind of how I feel about it too.
Let's hope AdHoc makes some changes for the positive in Volume 2
3 out of 5 (Good)
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