As I finished episode 5 of Batman: A Telltale Series I soon realised I had just played through my favourite Telltale game so far. I loved the first series of the Walking Dead and adored The Wolf Among us, but Batman has been the icing on the cake for me.
We decided not to review each episode as to not give anything away, so instead I played all five episodes and now you can have my overall impression.
I’ll be honest, I’ve played a load of Batman games but haven’t really read the comics, so I’m not fully up to speed with all of the plot lines and some of the lesser known characters, but for the benefit of this game I think it worked in my favour.
This series focuses much more on Bruce Wayne as opposed to Batman and it was interesting from start to finish. Of course there is plenty of action as the Bat but it was entertaining making decisions as Bruce and seeing how his choices made a difference to Batman and Gotham. Bruce also used his network of people for advice quite often, it was nice to see more of Alfred and gadget dude involved.
Telltale tend to struggle mid way through the season when it comes to the story but that was the case this time, each episode was really enjoyable. There was a nice balance of Action storytelling and puzzle solving. Using Batman’s gadgets you would spend time in the game analysing a crime scene, before linking together the evidence to piece together a story as to what has gone on. It was never particularly difficult but broke up the gameplay nicely.
This was the most combat-heavy Telltale game I’ve played and it was great fun. Everything fight was a QTA battle yet it still felt intense enough to keep things enjoyable, these game have always suffered from performance issues, stalling and stuttering when the gameplay becomes more complicated. I was nervous as to how things would pan out with Batman but thankfully the game handled the fight scenes perfectly, which was a relief.
As you would expect, the voice acting was excellent, Troy Baker is brilliant as Bruce Wayne, while Laura Bailey returns to the Telltale games to voice Selina, my favourite was Travis Willingham who took on the role of Harvey Dent, he was excellent. Tied in with the gorgeous hand drawn art that makes the Telltale series stand out you are getting a very worthwhile experience.
If you have some spare Christmas money and you happy to be a Batman fan then this is well worth picking up, I was entertained throughout and if there is to be a second season then consider me signed up!
Thanks to Xbox and Telltale for supporting TiX
