If you’ve ever played a Batman game you’re used to flying around as the Dark Knight, driving the Batmobile, and taking out the Joker, Penguin, and more of the goons in the vigilante’s Rogue’s gallery. So I wasn’t sure what to expect when I was invited to try out Telltale’s new Batman game, the first part of which is out Tuesday.
Not familiar with Telltale’s games? They’re story-driven point-and-click adventures, which don’t really lend themselves to a high-intensity action thriller like Batman. Sure, there are some quick-time challenges which can result in your death, but generally these moments are grounded in the emotional pull of the story as you’re asked to make choices that will affect and alter the story’s outcome.
“Batman — a Telltale Series” flips the usual Dark Knight game model on its head by focusing primarily on Bruce Wayne, the man behind the Batman. I can’t remember a game which has ever allowed you to play pretty equally as Batman and his alter ego as this one does, and it’s pretty great to take the billionaire for a test drive.
The story itself isn’t based on any existing Batman story, and it doesn’t focus on one of the hero’s bigger foes (not yet, anyway). No, we’re going far back in time.
If we’re talking comics, this isn’t exactly Year One Batman, but it’s definitely a younger and scrappier Bruce Wayne who’s trying to make this “Batman” thing work as he’s trying to juggle his friend Harvey Dent’s political campaign and look into crime lord Carmine Falcone. You’re here to guide and mold Bruce Wayne into whatever type of Gotham Knight you see fit.
The marketing for Rocksteady’s "Arkham Knight" game was "Be the Batman." Telltale’s game could easily be summed up as "What kind of Batman do you want to be?""
You want to be a heroic Batman? Cool you can play the game pretty straight and narrow. You can have your Batman go for a less violent approach by interrogating suspects, thereby getting in the good graces of the Gotham Police Department. If you want to be a darker, more Frank Miller version of the Dark Knight, you can go totally rogue — brutalizing and torturing those who get in the way of the answers you’re looking for.
Without too many spoilers, here are some highlights from the game I jotted down while playing in a candlelit room in a warehouse in Brooklyn.
- The game itself looks like a comic book come to life, something which the animation of Telltale games have always lent themselves to since “The Walking Dead” series (based off of the graphic novels).
- Though the game doesn’t appear to have any of Batman’s bigger foes, it does set up a few villains for possible future games. Harvey Dent (who eventually becomes Two-Face in Bat canon) plays a pretty big role in the game, along with Catwoman and Oswald Cobblepot (the future Penguin).
- You get to act as a detective by linking together pieces of evidence to solve crime scenes.
- I was surprised how much of the game actually wasn’t just grounded in point-and-click choices. There were a lot of button combinations that were needed when fighting. For example, to toss a Batarang, I had to hit the right directional button + A (on the Xbox One controller). However, I didn’t always get the combination correct, and it seemed like it didn’t really affect my gameplay either way.
- You get to use a Bat drone! Seriously. You get to fly a drone to help you take down some mobsters.
- Oh you can also choose what color Batman’s tech is (blue, red, yellow, or purple), because why not?
The game will also allow for a multiplayer option called Crowd Play. It’s a feature we didn’t check out (since I was playing the game alone in that dark cavern), but it’s one that sounds pretty cool especially if you’re one who’s prone to watching other people play video games. (Yes, people do that. People such as myself.)
The way it was explained to me is that crowd play can be utilized in two ways:
Four-to-12 players will be able to vote on game choices any time a player is faced with a multiple-choice decision. Depending on your settings, you can either allow the majority crowd decision to override the player’s choice, or you can have the majority decision show up on the screen but still allow the player to make the ultimate decisions.
Since Telltale games feel like giant movies with choose-your-ending gameplay, they lend themselves pretty well to the format. My brother and I have often debated over choices to pick while playing the developer’s many "Walking Dead" games. It can become pretty stressful since you have a limited amount of time in which to choose your response (unless you’re a cheater who pauses the game, you cheater).
When trying out “Batman: The Telltale Series,” Tech Insider was told Telltale has plans to set up some Crowd Play sessions with fans later this year. One is set to take place in the fall during New York Comic Con.
Episode one takes a little over two hours to complete. Telltale will eventually role out five episodes in total. While you can definitely finish it in one sitting, I was a little bummed out to find out that the game was so short. One of the nice things about early Telltale games was that an episode could take about three to four hours to complete (if you’re being super thorough). Lately, it seems like gameplay for Telltale games has become shorter.
It appears that this is to help make each roll-out a more digestible bite which can be consumed in one sitting. I don’t know about others, but I often like to go back and have more than one ongoing game in order to see how alternate choices play out. In this case, I want to have one Batman who’s on the right side of the law and then have an all-out vigilante who’s not afraid to break some bones and get brutal.
Overall, if you like Batman, but you’re not that good at being the Caped Crusader in say the Arkham games, then this is probably the game for you. You get to have the enjoyment of being the Batman without having to try too hard to be the Batman.
The first episode of “Batman The Telltale Series,” “Realm of Shadows,” is available now for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
