Batman – The Telltale Series Episode One: Realm of Shadows (PC)

After Rocksteady Studios completed their stellar Arkham trilogy (yes I am omitting the mostly lackluster, cookie-cutter Arkham: Origins) I imagine that most game companies spent their time alternating between desperately hoping to take over the franchise while simultaneously panicking like a teenage girl with no prom date at the prospect of it actually happening. How can anyone top the masterpieces that Rocksteady churned out? No other Batman games are even in the same area code, and it seemed like after Rocksteady stepped away we would once again be doomed to playing terrible Batman movie tie-ins for the foreseeable future. Who would save gamers and Gotham from this horrible fate?

A fresh take on Batman

Perhaps realizing the impossibility of the task, the license was wisely given to Telltale, the story-driven point-and-click badasses behind the Walking Dead series, A Wolf Among Us, and Game of Thrones among others. It was a ballsy, but ultimately smart decision; gamers had just played through so much non-stop Batman beat-em-up action that choosing political intrigue and backstory over constant violence felt like a breath of fresh air. Here we find a younger, “Year One”-ish aged Batman who is still establishing his reputation and learning who the major players in Gotham are. This is not Earth One (the main reality where DC’s heroes usually play), but an alternate world where Harvey Dent is a slightly shady D.A., Batman has never met Catwoman, the Penguin is Bruce’s old childhood friend, and so on. This is another smart move by Telltale, since it allows them to twist and play with Batman’s world without everyone getting in an uproar about continuity.

But just because Telltale doesn’t have to compete with the previous trilogy or exhaustively study the “real” Batman’s Gotham in order to avoid making a continuity mistake, that doesn’t mean that they don’t have their own unique set of challenges to overcome. The main problem with making a “choose your own adventure” game featuring Batman is that almost everyone already knows what Batman would do in a given situation. The point of Batman is that he is more legend than man, more scary story than substance. He does not falter, question, hesitate or show weakness. He’s the goddamn Batman (I hate you sometimes Frank Miller)! On top of that, Batman isn’t a big talker; he’s more of a haymaker-throwing, batarang-chucking, stealth-attacking ninja, and unlike say, Spider-Man, he rarely talks when he’s beating some unlucky punk’s face in. So how is this going to work?

 

Playing as Bruce Wayne, and also Batman

Telltale sidesteps this entire problem, leaving the bulk of the choices to Bruce Wayne instead of Batman, and the choices he has to make are varied and interesting. Bruce is juggling a changing and dangerous political landscape as a staunch supporter of (and major financial contributor to) a pre-Two-Face Harvey Dent running for mayor; his childhood friend, Oswald “Oz” Cobblepot shows up with some vaguely nefarious plans for the city; and Bruce must decide whether or not to put his faith in Lieutenant Jim Gordon (who hasn’t earned his Commish status yet) or the lovely but story-hungry Vicki Vale. Even though a lot of these situations are obvious (Gordon is my boy, and of course trusting Cobblepot is a bad idea), it’s fun to see these characters reimagined and interacting in new ways. In fact, some are changed so much that it really does make you question if the “obvious” decision is going to be the correct one.

When you do actually don the cape and cowl, you are generally dishing out punishment in a big way. The combat is the standard Telltale quick-time-event fare with button presses and joystick movements controlling whether or not you land punches and kicks on your enemies’ soft spots. There’s a bat-meter that fills as you correctly input button presses with split second timing, and once it’s filled you can unleash a devastating finishing move on your hapless enemies. Disappointingly, I was only able to fill up the meter once, although the finishing move that it unleashed was brutal and entertaining. Also disappointing is the fact that I don’t think I was struck a single time in my entire play-through, and I never experienced a game-over screen in my two hours of play. It seemed that the only penalty for missing attacks (button presses) was the bat-meter not filling, which took a lot of the impact away from the fighting. Throughout most of the combat sequences I felt that I was kind of just along for the ride without really being able to affect the action, since I didn’t experience any consequences for poor play.

With that said, the combat looks nice, and there are a couple of pretty great combat set pieces that work really well, combining the quick time events with Batman’s ingenuity and detective skills. In addition to the tricks and tech hidden in Batman’s cowl and utility belt, he also has a drone that he uses to great effect. You can use the drone in a variety of ways, including scouting enemies and setting up takedowns and attacks. One such situation takes place on the top floor of an apartment building and you have to choose how you will bludgeon, beat, and generally destroy a football team’s worth of henchmen. It works well and it’s a sadistic thrill to choose which guy to smash through a staircase, which punk to brain with a large piece of modern art, and who to just give a good old fashioned, all-American boot to the mouth. It’s another way that Telltale shows off Batman’s intellect and his brawn working together, and it’s a lot of fun.

The detective parts of the game are good as well, but a bit on the light side. You find a murder scene, click on your detective lenses, and off you go. You look for corpses, link them to environmental clues, and then link them to other points of interest around the crime scene. If you link them in the wrong order you will be notified that the clues don’t add up or make sense, and you’ll have to break the link and try again. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it is decent fun. I wish the puzzles had been a bit more involved or required more actual brain power, but it’s a good start – and besides, this is only the first episode, so hopefully there’s nowhere to go but up.

Telling Tales

The story is fun and moves along at a brisk pace. Small choices like whether or not to shake Carmine Falcone’s hand in front of your dinner guests or whether to put Harvey in his place with a sharp verbal jab feel like they have real weight, and the ever-present countdown bar makes you sweat as you try to choose the “best” response. Telltale does an excellent job making you consider your actions as Bruce, while always remembering that you can beat the applesauce out of the person later on as your alter ego. Multiple times I caught myself muttering things like “Ohhh, you just WAIT till I get my cape on, son!” or “Keep talking punk. I got a check in one hand and a big ol’ batarang in the other.” It’s way more fun to play as Bruce Wayne than I thought it would be, and his choices are interesting and varied. I stayed involved and glued to the story even without slugging someone in the face every five minutes, and it’s largely due to the writing.

The writing is crisp and witty, and it clicks right along. There are a few out-of-place lines, but when a clunky line of dialogue rears its head, it always errs on the side of comic-booky, which is fine by me. Bruce and Alfred have some particularly good dialogue, and it’s fun to see Alfred as even more of a familiar confidant than usual, admonishing and encouraging Bruce in equal measure. Bruce even refers to him as “Al”, and for such a simple thing it really shows how their relationship in this world is closer than in most variations I’ve seen before in comics and games.

 

Not everything in Gotham is pretty

There are some faults, however. One gripe I had is the fact that they jam the death of the Waynes in your face ad nauseam. Sure, this is early in Batman’s career and the death of his parents is the whole reason he became Batman. I know this. So does everyone else on the planet. Also, the story takes a page out of the “Night of the Owls” story arc (from DC’s “The New 52” relaunch in 2011/2012), concerning a dark plot that delves into the Wayne family’s past, so the death of the Waynes is integral to the story. So sure, mention the Waynes being murdered a time or two, but don’t whack me over the head with it every 15 minutes. It’s so heavy-handed that it gets a little ridiculous. There are the bloody ticket stubs from the night of the murder on display in the Batcave as a twisted memento, multiple flashbacks to the murder itself, a picture frame that falls to the floor and shatters (one guess who is in the picture), and characters refer to it at every opportunity. Penguin mentions it, Alfred brings it up, Harvey Dent drops a few lines about it, there’s even a woman at a party who basically says “Oh, Bruce Wayne! Lovely party! Remember that time your parents were gunned down in the street? Boy did that suck.” Overall the story is great, but this overkill (pardon the almost-pun) really stood out to me in an annoying way.

A huge problem I had (and from reading the forums, many others did as well) was trying to get the game to run in full-screen mode. I couldn’t make it work, and every time I tried to switch to full-screen, I got a white screen where I could hear the audio but not see any video. This was a major bummer. Playing the game in windowed mode when I could be playing it on a 55-inch T.V. screen was very frustrating, and seriously detracted from the overall experience. I didn’t get the frame-rate dips that other gamers have experienced, which was nice, but especially when playing as the Dark Knight, having my white desktop icons and background show up while I was stealth-attacking everyone was a real drag. There’s no excuse for a studio like Telltale to have this kind of problem, especially with a property this large.

 

But a lot of it does

The graphics, I am pleased to report, look great, and the style is perfect for the material. It’s appropriately comic-bookish, and Batman looks like a cross between the “New 52” version and the stubby-eared “Dark Knight Returns” Batman. The reimagined characters in Gotham look good as well – if sometimes a bit jarring; seeing the perpetually fat and usually disgusting Cobblepot reimagined as a young, slender, and handsome karate-kicking man is something that takes a little getting used to. The action sequences are fun to watch and the environments (which look great, if not a little repetitive) usually play into the beat-downs in brutal fashion.

The sound is similarly well done for the most part. Unfortunately there is no Kevin Conroy as Batman, and honestly, the actor (who has voiced Batman/Bruce before) just does okay. The rest of the characters sound great, from Alfred to Vicki Vale. The music is appropriately ominous and tense depending on the situation, and the first time Batman popped open his blindingly white peepers, I got chills as the music reached a crescendo. The punches, kicks and sound effects all sound as they should, especially a scene with Batman performing an impromptu autopsy that had me cringing from the stellar sound effects.


Summary

Batman: The Telltale Series Episode One: "Realm of Shadows" is a welcome addition to Batman lore. There are plenty of tweaks on a familiar universe that make the characters and Gotham itself feel fresh and interesting. It’s oddly pleasant to take over the responsibilities and choices of Bruce Wayne, especially since in almost every other incarnation of the character Bruce Wayne’s foppish playboy decisions and persona is just a boring but necessary pastime until darkness falls and the real work can begin. I wish the technical problems had been ironed out more, since it really does drag the experience down not to be able to play in full screen mode. I also wish there were more weighty and severe choices to make, but then again, this is Gotham, not the zombie-overrun Atlanta from the Walking Dead series. For a first installment to an episodic series, Telltale has created a great way to spend a couple hours with your favorite vigilante.

Story-90
Gameplay- 70
Graphics- 85
Sound- 80
Fun Factor- 87
Atmosphere-95


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Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review
Batman – The Telltale Series Review