I had been hoping to get my hands on Batman A Telltale Series for some time but I wanted the full season rather than just episode by episode. I was very pleased to get my hands on it this past weekend.
Batman A Telltale Series is a re imagining of the early years of Batman done by the creators of the popular Walking Dead Telltale games. It introduces several of the Bat’s rogues gallery including Penguin, Joker, Two Face, and a new villain, Lady Arkham. Their stories, all interwoven, are well thought and well-crafted giving them a very believable depth. The main story, surrounding Bat/Bruce, Catwoman, and the crime syndicates in Gotham are far from canon and take a novel approach to Bruce’s parents. I can’t say I 100% like the approach to Thomas Wayne, but it allowed for some splendid character building moments throughout the game. I can’t say too much without risking a spoilers for the people who haven’t played it but I will say if you like your Batman stories to be on canon 100% and the Wayne’s be saints who walked among us, this game is not for you. If you’re okay with the Wayne’s as deeply flawed individuals, by all means, keep going. Be ready, though, for you are Bruce Wayne as much as you are Batman in this game. There’s even a few situations where you have to decide who can handle the story best, Bruce or Bats.
The graphics and art for the game invoke a mixture between the animations in Batman the Animated Series and comic panels. Likewise, the sound and voices do invoke The Animated Series to a degree (I would swear for Harvey they actually got Richard Moll to do the Two-Face voice while using a different actor for Harvey, but IMDB says differently). The music lacks the iconic oomph that Danny Elfman gave us but it becomes a living part of the story, anyway. The voice acting was very well done; the now traditional dual Bruce/Batman voice was kept up. Personally, I would have liked it better if Kevin Conroy did the voice but the man can’t be Batman all the time, right?
The controls for the game were a little awkward. Most of the control was button mashing at the right time and aiming and firing. The aiming and firing was on occasion a little too fast but it is more an interactive comic than it is an action game so quirky controls can be forgivable. The investigation mechanic is damn near genius. As you spot clues you can link them together to form the narrative of the crime scene. At least one scene seems to have more than one solution leading you on a different branch of the story. The bad bit here is this: The game is buggy as hell. Sometimes reading clues will shut other clues off and they just happen to be the clue you actually need to look at. You wind up having to restart from a save because there’s no way out of the frozen investigation. You can’t back out and you can’t read the final clue. Also, for the first three episodes, the game would hang during the credits/choices screen forcing me to have to home button out and go back in and reload the whole game. Thankfully that never hurt my progress.
Summing up:
Story: 4/5: Great story but a little loose with the Wayne canon. I didn’t like the changes at first but got into the spirit of it, remembering that DC Comics is bigger on alternate realities than JJ Abrahms. And DC does it right.
Graphics: 4/5: Well drawn mix of video game and comic feel. Imagine a “motion comic” with actual motion and some contrast and definition.
Sound: 5/5: Well done. And I’m not even knocking off a point for not having my generation’s Batman as the voice.
Control: 3/5: Getting past the quirky controls the bugginess of the interface takes away from some of the enjoyment. QC is more than just a cute, corporate buzzword.
Playability: 4/5: I enjoyed the game. I enjoyed how after each episode they ranked your choices with other players. I plan on going back and replaying some of the episodes to see how it turns out with different choices. (Hm…I think there’s one you can pick where Bruce goes corrupt…)