Batman - The Telltale Series

A lot has been said about the technical problems of the game so I'm going to talk about the story and game play. First the story. It blows my mind how off the mark this story goes after the first two episodes. I'm fine with the re-imagining of the characters and backstory as it has been done countless times in other batman stories but the story uses these elements to manufacture false tension and provide "twists". The story is filled to the brim with inconsistent character's, and plot holes, seemingly just to give the player instances to make a "lesser of two evils" choice that has very little barring on the larger story. This becomes frustratingly transparent with each episode and made me care less and less with each choice. Every villain given falls flat since they all have paper thin motivation and again will act contrary to their own goals if the plot demands it. Bruce Wayne as well either comes off as a timid pushover or annoying jerk depending on your dialogue choices, both of which seem very out of character from most other interpretations and makes for an unsympathetic protagonist (Troy Baker is just not good at playing suave playboy in my opinion). I will say that batman on the other hand is as bad ass as ever though. And I did enjoy the BruceSelina scenes, although it does get repetitive by the end and only exists to serve one characters jarring "arc". Finally game play is boring. The detective scenes are literally connect the dots or hold a button down while the computer scans. No thinking required at all so the dummies can feel like they "solved" something. It's honestly insulting to the audience's intelligence. The actions scenes are as usual "press a button to continue the cut scene" which I can live with if the scenes weren't trying to be Zack Snyder boring schlock. So this game wants to be a movie, but if this were a movie it would be torn apart as shallow, immature and worst of all, boring. Telltale needs new writers. "Worst. Batman. Ever." -CBG

Played using Feb 2017 update, the latest as of writing this This is one of the most broken (if not THE most) games I have ever played. Characters, textures, models, animation rigging, you name the asset, it can disappear, at any time, for any reason. Stuttering during almost every transition and animation. Depth of field effect that blurs everything and leaves crucial items like TEXT FOR INTERACTIONS illegible, but can't be turned off in options. Music that cuts out when pausing the game, and when watching the unskippable "last time on..." sequences, leaving those scenes much like The Mummy 2017's trailer. And the absolute most broken, non-aesthetic problem with this game, being completely unable to move during investigations. This alone makes finishing episodes, let alone the full game, actually impossible. I managed to get up to midway through episode 3 just by interacting with what I could see on-screen until hitting a point that required me to link 2 points of interest from opposite sides of a room. How exactly am I supposed to do that when I can't move manually, and one of those points is off-screen? Needless to say, even without the myriad other problems people have mentioned, do not pay for this abomination, even on sale.

"Batman - the Telltale series" - the title really says it all. You can expect a game based solely on the story with some really nice moments, and also some shocking moments. The writers managed to twist the lore in some really interesting ways. Episode 3 especially was truly great, with lots of interesting choices, consequences and plot twists. However, as a whole, even the story is way too much comic book based. Which fits the visuals as way as the Batman style, but it's also full of weird leaps of logic, plot hols and silliness - not large issues, only small ones, but there's a lot of them and enough to spoil the mood honestly. The last 2 episodes also don't hold up that well - again, too much of the standard comic book feel as well as resolution. The game itself is the usual Telltale, essentially unchanged from TWD, except actually downgraded from some previous titles. The animations are truly horrible at this time and age (really Telltale, make at least ONE decent walking animation for all your games!) and some of the art looks like it's been drawn by a 10-year old, especially in episode 1. One disappointing element is that there aren't alternative animations for failing QTEs - until you ignore them for so long that Batman actually gets killed, he'll dodge, make punches and activates his stuff as if you were presssing the buttons properly. There are lots of inconcistencies between episodes as well, as if they were made by different studios, especially in art direction. But between ep. 4 and 5 there are inconsistencies in story or choices as well. In short - not bad, but rushed and quite mediocre even for Telltale. I only played 4 of their games and I'm already tired of the formula. Lots of other developers make better games with a similar shtick and Telltale needs to step up. If you want to see how Telltale does comic book the best, play The Wolf Among Us, which is superior in every way. All their other games are the same, only not as great.

I'll break this down as best I can Pros - No right or wrong choice - Different take on Batman Cons - Serious performance issues. Tried on a 980Ti overclocked and on a R9 Fury (Air) overclocked and can't get a consistent 1080p 60fps..Loading screens can be anywhere to 15 to 30fps and cutscene/action sequences can blip to 45fps Meh - Quicktime events...It just feels cumbersome - Playing the worlds greatest detective feels awfully simple By all means give it a shot, but a game thats about story telling and cinematic, you would expect a more consistent performance. NOTE: Telltale have a history of poor performance in fps.

You cannot change subtitles language on the GOG version of this game, while you can on Steam. It is so painful I uninstalled the game.