Adhoc Studio dispatch Wears Many Hats: True to its usual pitch, the narrative adventure game has you deploying improvised supervillains to deal with problems around Los Angeles, making strategic calls about who to send where, then choosing dialogue options during conversations. It’s all done in a TV-like episodic structure, right down to the title cards, and the game happily embraces this mix of the X-Men, DC’s Suicide Squad, and the Fox/ABC series. 9-1-1Does it work? It’s been a long time, but its biggest flaw lies in its handling of choice-based love stories,
As Robert Robertson III, a former superhero mecha man who undertakes a dispatch to obtain resources to rebuild his mech suits, the story has players choose between two potential romantic interests. There’s Blonde Blazer, who approaches Robert about taking a dispatcher gig, and Invizigal (née Invizibitch), a member of the misfit “Z-Team” crew who can disappear whenever she holds her breath. Each episode has at least two interactions that, if it were a TV show, would be a “ship moment”, like Invisible checking out Robert’s butt and making inappropriate comments or Blazer inviting him to dinner and trying to motivate him to get over his ex, Phenomenon.
The writing in these moments is generally solid, and his performances are good, even if it seems like Aaron Paul is intentionally under-reacting as Robert so it doesn’t clash with (or over-emphasise) the player and streamers’ reactions. Yet as things progressed, the more I became unable to fully understand dispatch Was asking me about this. I didn’t really feel like Robert did anything to earn the affection of two women who had very different power dynamics apart from their closeness. To continue the TV metaphor, it felt like the game made a mistake common to many shows with a romance element, underestimating my potential investment in these potential relationships and not making a thorough effort to make them stand out on their own merits.
That doesn’t mean I wasn’t seeing the signs or that I don’t like romance in my games. This didn’t entirely agree with me, especially on the Invisalign stuff. I like the character and Laura Bailey’s performance, but she feels young compared to the other Z members. It’s surprising when her in-game profile reveals that she’s 27, even though the way it’s written doesn’t reveal this, and it seems she has to play the “baby sister” role in the group dynamics. Whatever else you can say about Blazer, he feels like he’s around Robert’s age and generally on par with him, and the game is measured more by how their potential relationship plays out. This isn’t really the case with Invisible, as episode four has a cool open effect. Very Her wet dream involving Robert makes it clear that she is in love with him, and the apparent tension is so intense that a character later comments that the interaction between the couple feels like an HR violation.
many dispatch The episode ends with Robert guiding the Invisibles in taking down a crime syndicate or giving him a pep talk. Through him, Adhoc asks whether the Z-Team – whose past crimes have included mass murder, arson, theft and stalking – might be the good guys. Things are a little more complicated for her: as we learn in the final two episodes, she was there the night Robert lost his suit while fighting the season’s main villain, the Shroud. Whether you’re romantically involved with her or just want to remain friends is a nice complexity, but from a character perspective her feelings for Robert feel very rushed, even though he’s been warming up to her ever since their paths accidentally met.
Invisible is the game’s deuteragonist, and she wears a lot of hats that hit with similar vibes found within the game. A Z-Teamer with complicated relationships and feelings about Robert? You can find it in Flambe, the team’s pyro. Do they have untapped potential and are unsure if they really belong here? The Waterboys in particular, and the entire group. Even if you don’t trust him in the finale, Invigil’s potential turn into villainy at the end isn’t too far off from him teaming up with the Shroud of Sonar or Coop, depending on which of them you cut to earlier in the season.
From all of these various conflicting dynamics and the team’s own interpersonal relationships, there could be some potentially fun messes here besides the X-Men, who are famously one of the dirtiest superhero groups around. But Adhoc has limited resources and can only do so much, and if the studio gets the chance to make another season, I hope there’s a storyline spread more evenly among the various Z-members.
my favorite dispatch The episode is its fifth episode, in which the Z-Team goes out and meets a supervillain bar, where they get into a bloody, chaotic fight with other patrons. As the team tends to his wounds and eats some late-night tacos, Robert can choose whether or not to reveal whether he is Mecha Man or not, and by doing so most of the others reveal their real names. It’s a nice moment, and the second half of the episode puts everyone on equal footing in terms of character development, leading to the finale, where he and his allies fight the Shroud, which works as well as it does. Sports excel when it lets its misfits become sidekicks and heroes at the same time. When it comes to luck, where is your heart set on? Not as much as he thinks.
all eight episodes of dispatch Available now on PC and PlayStation 5.
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