While I’ve been so tempted to drop my impressions week on week about Dispatch, I kind of wanted to see how it landed.

There’s no doubt, the game has been one of the most talked about in the back-half of the year. Starring the likes of Aaron Paul, Jeffrey Wright and Laura Bailey, the collaboration with AdHoc Studio and Critical Role is a roaring million copy success.

And it’s little wonder, coming from former writers of The Wolf Among Us, a game you feel it draws some inspiration from. Particularly in run down, seedy bars and the nature of bad guys trying to do something good.

There’s so much heart in Dispatch. From the very beginning when you see a former super hero face an impossible life decision and crossroads. As he starts to accept his fate and wonders what lies on the other side, he’s presented with a proposition to lead a group of ex super villians and turn them into heroes. And he’ll do it from behind a desk.

The setup is as entertaining as you’d expect and is full of grand speeches, tough choices and high action moments. I found this extremely difficult to stop playing, managing to play most of the game in a block, clocking in at around eight hours total. The way episodes interconnect while telling self contained stories is masterful.

You’ll find yourslf really falling for its cast of characters. Robert, of course, is such a fascinatingly layered character who you’ll find wholly relatable. But then you’ll also really find a bit of yourself in each of the Z-Team, whether it’s the wild and outrageous Malevola, the unsure but inspired would-be hero Invisigirl and the bat-man who can’t seem to stop shrieking.

It’s all set in a Telltale esque style where you’ll have a limited time to make choices, responding to a character in a certain way that they’ll remember or choosing to do or not do something like kiss a character or start a bar fight.

Honestly, it’s like watching one long anime with writing so compelling you’ll find yourself laughing one minute and cringing the next. But also the absolutely gorgeous free-flowing animated art style that feels a little bit Invincible with a modern-day action cartoon vibe. If you love the Amazon Prime show, you’re going to feel right at home here.

And of course, with a cast as stellar as this – also featuring Matt Mercer, Alanah Pearce and Jacksepticeye – you can imagine you’re in for one hell of a ride. Lines are both delivered in a calm, free-flowing conversational way, but also with the right amount of gravitas and drama when a scene requires.

The interesting thing about Dispatch, though, is you don’t just have your typical Telltale scene to scene dialogue and interactions, there’s also an interesting meta-game here too that takes up quite a considerable chunk of the campaign.

See, as a Dispatcher, it’s up to you to assign a hero to critical emergencies that pop up in the city, using each heroes relevant skill to determine what they should be assigned too. For instance, if they’re heavy in strength and defense, those heroes are going to be better equipped to protect some helpless citizens or fight an overwhelming threat.

There’s no guarantee they’ll complete the mission, of course. And sometimes you’ll need to send more than one hero to balance things out and ensure your victory, otherwise you can not only fail but the hero can be downed or receive an injury that could bench them for the rest of a shift.

And in between that are further hacking mini-games where you often need to restore power to a grid or gain access to a security camera or sprinkler system. You’ll need to move an orb through a grid of increasing difficulty through the chapters. It starts out simply with you just trying to insert the orb into a socket and following the path, but eventually you’ll need to neutralise rogue viruses and even find matching radio waves.

There are times when the Dispatch element can feel a bit drawn out and forced a bit later on. It does mostly manage to stay creative and different, but the concept gets slightly tired later on when you’re bouncing between similar missions. The criterias do mix things up a little bit, like forcing you to only veer too much in one choice direction else you’ll instantly fail the call and you can get Double XP, allowing you to add experience to each hero, but it can get a bit tired sometimes.

Don’t get me wrong, AdHoc have done a really good job finding ways to mix it up and ultimately you’ll still have a great time as often it feels like it’s interconnected to the story, like one heroes morale might be low or one goes off script or an unexpected event happens during a shift that causes you to pivot. But after a while, I was finding myself quite happy to go back to the story itself.

Probably because the story is so interesting and you really want to see where it leads. Robert hiding his identity from his comrades, how his relationship with the other heroes goes, what relevance certain characters have to one another and what will be the inevitable consequences of your decisions, even if you’re sometimes waiting several episodes to find out.

There’s been several would-be Telltale Games releasing ever since the fated days of the original Walking Dead and even the semi-return to the studio with the recent takes on The Expanse, but nothing has felt quite as high production value or as entertaining and enjoyable as Dispatch.

Everything works brilliantly here, choices do feel meaningful, and the story does a decent job of sticking the landing with some suitable twists and turns along the way. With some decent puzzle-solving throughout, some tough choices to make – several of which feel impossible at times – and fantastic storytelling along the way, this is an absolute must play for fans of point and click adventures, of anime, or for players who just enjoy good story.

I was hooked from the word go and couldn’t let go until the end.

Verdict

Dispatch is absolute gaming cinema. A truly gripping, rollercoaster ride from beginning to end and some of the most enjoyable eight hours I’ve had with any game in recent memory. From the absolutely gorgeous art style to the gripping acting to the compelling choices, twists and turns and Dispatching heroes, everything comes together masterfully. While the mini game has some minor glitches and can get a bit monotonous at points, Dispatch is a fantastic, unmissable adventure and we cannot wait for more!

Pros

---

Dispatch is out now on PC, and PS

Played on PS5

Code Kindly Provided by AdHoc for review purposes