Dispatch: Become A Hero-Office Worker Who Manages Spicy Criminals

Dispatch spins the Telltale formula and makes it into something that feels straight out of a Netflix series. It’s not the superhero brawler some might have expected, but it’s a show you play. It’s packed with sharp writing, relatable dilemmas, flawed and funny characters, and humor that is corny but actually really funny at the same time. 

It’s messy and it’s modern, and I understand why it’s impossible to put down. That’s something that you realize once you start playing it and you don’t stop.

It’s a very refreshing take on the telltale format and not the type of game you would expect from game industry veterans. FYI AdHoc Studio is formed by veterans from the likes of Ubisoft, but they’re quite a new studio and they’ve only got three games released. 

Dispatch is episodic, so you play it in episodes (8 in this case). Anyway, it gives you the telltale game mechanics where you have the branching narrative, you have the choices you need to make, the different routes, and then at the end of the episode you get the community’s gameplay stats, which makes it feel like a group project. You can find the same mechanic in games like Detroit: Become Human. 

I understand why it’s popular. It really unfolds like a modern Netflix series. It’s very, very engaging from the get-go. I mean, the show opens with your protagonist contemplating his love for his dead father while mad-dogging a guy strapped to a chair. Inner-monologue and a crazy action scene, a modern take that works your brain. All at once.

I think the game studio is either collaborating with scriptwriters or that they themselves are just huge show fans who have serious know-how.

Everything clicks: you’ve got a well-written game that almost plays like a modern series, created by studio veterans, AND then you’ve got Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad voice-acting the game’s protagonist. The stars truly aligned for this game and made a charming formula.

And by the way, not all the episodes are out yet. So this is an early review. So far, we’re loving it.

It does tend to have some cliché elements, some tropes here and there. Your typical meta-kind of self-deprecating humor…ultra postmodernist vibes. And I suppose, you could think of Iron Man. Yep, Iron Man is actually a good parallel. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, but sometimes it does. 

For the most part, it’s humorous. There’s always a little bit of humor underneath everything, even the bad scenes. You’ve got this stoic main protagonist. Well, he’s kind of stoic, but he talks more than your average stoic. Everyone’s kind of a dickhead, but you find the humor in it and in their sharp edges.

Honestly, the game made me giggle and even laugh a lot, regardless of the sometimes-generic joke(s). But it does a good job at being relatable and simple. And at the same time, it has its unique perks.

The comedy’s not so bad. It’s corny in the sense that it works for it. It doesn’t hide its corniness, but uses it proudly.

There are some modern terms that only millennials and Gen Zs can laugh at. Like they used the term “natty” at one point. And there’s all these internet terms that they throw around to make the show relatable (especially for the chronically online, like myself). 

Mecha Man, our main character, starts work at the ‘hero dispatch center’ (alas the game name). He takes his dog with him. I’m not even sure what the dog is, I think it’s an oversized chihuahua. So, you’ve got this every-man type and he doesn’t have superpowers. See the parallel for Iron Man there. He has a mecha suit and his dad died, so there’s a little bit of Batman in there as well. 

From the start of the story, he’s unable to fire up his mecha suit. So, he’s having an existential crisis/wants to avenge his deceased dad in the most stoic way possible. For context: his dad didn’t die in a good way, hence the vengeance lore.

And then he meets Blonde Blazer. She’s a snapshot of the modern working woman. She’s got it all together. She’s actually his manager, but she’s very friendly. She invites him to become a dispatcher and it escalates from there.

Mecha Man dispatches and manages a team of ex-villains who need to be rehabilitated (so they stop being villains and become helpful neighborhood heroes instead). And it just works for the story. It’s funny as hell. 

Really, it’s effortlessly fun and probably very relatable to a lot of players. I mean, of course, the fact that he works at an office and has an obese pet. That type of relatable. 

---

So, I’m sure there are gamers who came into this game thinking that they’re going to fight super villains and it’s going to be all action and everything.

Hate to break it to you, but really this is Telltale format, Telltale core. The game centers around the story, around the characters, the depth, the content, the humor, the layers of it. It’s not a combat game. 

Gameplay is about branching narratives, making choices, etc. AND gameplay centers around puzzles, because when you work as a dispatcher at the call center, you’re mostly hacking into stuff. The other part of the gameplay is dispatching your team of ex-villains to do some good.

You get a good amount of funny dialogue between these villains because you have a group call each time you work together. Inevitably, the conversations are chaotic with enough colorful insults, roasts, witty comebacks, and the occasional rage-burst.

You also do a lot of ‘picking’ the right villain to do certain jobs (depending on their strengths), getting skill points from what you’re doing, and then using those skill points. Lastly, you spend a lot of time trying to choose the right action, depending on your own brand of nutty or common sense.

And still, somehow, even though it’s not action-packed, this game engages you. You get immersed in what you’re doing, and you might find the unique formula grow on you in time. The show premise of this game is engaging on its own, but the gameplay is refreshing as well.

While you’re doing your job at the call center and managing your team through group calls and solving puzzles, the scene will sometimes jump to your villain team-member’s POV. The call center has cameras installed everywhere in the city for some reason. 

So you get to check up on what your villains are doing and how they get themselves into trouble. You see the action and everything, but you can still hear yourself on the phone call with said villain. It’s really cool. It’s creative. 

Last Notes

It’s got enough charms, especially for male viewers in a sense. You’ll see what I mean when you start playing.

Spoiler: Well, one episode does open with a sex scene. I’m not going to get too much into it, but it definitely wakes you up when you’re playing and a sex scene pops out of nowhere, unexpectedly. Eye candy at most.

We’re still waiting on the episodes to come, and we’re still waiting to play more of it. For PS5 and PC players, you guys are lucky. And of course, I’m lucky because I’m a PC/PS5 player myself.

Get this game. You’ll like it. It might not be a genre you’ve played before or it might be a genre you’ve played before. Whichever’s your case, it’s brought a fresh angle into the telltale genre and it goes down easy.

Short and sweet.

It’s funny, it’s corny, it’s modern, it’s engaging, it’s immersive, and it’s all about the story. 

What do players say about Dispatch on Reddit and Steam? 

Player quote	Source
“I am loving it and can’t wait for the next episode, but if I had to complain I’d say the episodes are a bit on the shorter side” @FalseRoyal4669	Reddit
“Holy cow the writing is so good so far” @gorjousiphone	Reddit
“We joke, we laugh, we suppress our trauma….I almost forgot what good writing in games sounds like. This is like a Telltale Invincible game we never got. The mix between 2D and 3D is a really interesting art style. It feels like an interactive movie and it needs to become a TV show. This has one of the wildest VA cast lineups out there. I would never have thought of a day where I’d see Moist Cr1tikal, Jacksepticeye and Jesse Pinkman in a game together. I can’t believe they got their hands on the actor that was in the Hunger Games…” @Ciri	Steam
“The game is technically good, and the graphics plus plot is good. What really pisses me off is that there’s too much flirt with the girls I don’t like. I just wanna be banged by Royd.” @Renzo	Steam