Now Playing: Dispatch

Dispatch is an episodic adventure game in which you play as Robert Robertson AKA ‘Mecha Man’ a superhero without superpowers. When his mech suit is destroyed in a battle against the supervillain Shroud, Robert agrees to take a desk job at the LA branch of the ‘Superhero Dispatch Network’ to act as a dispatcher – someone who guides a team of heroes through various missions across the city providing advice, intel and hacking support.

Robert finds himself landed with the Z-team, which is comprised entirely of reformed (mostly) supervillains as part of the Phoenix Program. He has to earn not just their trust but also their respect if he’s going to turn this team of misfits and f**k-ups into a team of actual heroes – and maybe a (dysfunctional) little family too.

I first played Dispatch as a demo during a Next Fest last year and was intrigued by the concept but concerned by the gameplay aspect. This is very much a ‘Telltale’ style experience in the sense that as the episodes progress (8 in all) you’ll make choices big and small that determine how the scenes and the game as a whole plays out. And like those older Telltale games, most of those choices aren’t really important no matter how many ‘X character will remember that’ messages pop up in the corner of your screen.

There are some choices, however, that do have a big impact on how things progress – one involves choosing who to cut from your team early on, the other on who to replace them with. And I’d say it’s worth playing through Dispatch at least twice so you can see how things change based on those choices. And then we have the romance angle in which Robert can pursue a relationship with two other characters (or neither, depending upon how you feel) although I’d say the game is clearly pushing you more towards one character than the other.

Most of ‘playing’ Dispatch is just you sitting back and watching it. There are (optional) QTE moments, mostly reserved for the bigger action scenes but honestly, I turned them off after I played through the game once because I found them annoying and distracting. You might get a slightly different scene if you miss a bunch of prompts but – as I discovered when I tested it by deliberately missing several in a row – the game continues regardless and the outcome is the same. My advice – turn them off and just enjoy the animation.

Because Dispatch looks fantastic. Great style, great animation, colourful, fun, like watching an (adult) Saturday morning cartoon. It’s also very funny and very well written. You’ll come to like and care about these characters and become invested in the story as it unfolds. A game like this just wouldn’t work without strong writing and characters and I’m pleased to say that Dispatch delivers the goods.

In fact, I liked it so much that I wanted more and that’s my main criticism of Dispatch – just how short it is. Each episode lasts about 40 minutes and I feel like there’s a lot more they could have done with this story and these characters. And I’m sure they wanted to – because this is a new game from a new studio and I have no doubts they would have have done a lot more if they could.

So let’s talk about the core gameplay of Dispatch – the actual dispatching job you do as Robert as you assign your team of heroes to various missions as they pop up on a map of the city. It’s very simple but it’s also surprisingly engaging and fun figuring out what hero (or heroes) to send based on their unique skills or stats.

As they complete missions they level up and you can spec them how you prefer. Each hero also has special abilities that activate depending upon the situation, and you can unlock new ones by assigning them to training missions that appear as you progress. Some missions involve a simple stat check to succeed, whilst others can be completed by using character specific skills – provided you sent the right hero for the job.

There’s also a ‘hacking’ mini-game that you’ll be required to play at times, but it’s very simple and a bit boring – especially on a repeat play. Once you understand how the dispatch system works it becomes pretty easy to ace each shift. These shifts tie various story events together and you get some fun banter back and forth between you and your team as you play. It’s not overly complex or deep but it’s something more substantial than just picking dialogue choices and I quite enjoyed all the dispatch segments, limited though they are.

Overall, Dispatch is an excellent narrative driven adventure game. Be aware that this is a game you’ll be watching more than actually playing, but if you miss the Telltale style experience then this offers something very similar but with a level of production value and polish the Telltale games never quite had. Fun, funny and engaging, I hope we get a sequel because it’s left me wanting more.

8/10