Dispatch is an episodic adventure game developed by AdHoc Studio. It follows an ex-superhero who swaps being a hero for becoming a dispatcher for other heroes. This is a reaction to episodes 3 and 4. Although it won’t be spoiler-filled, if you’re looking to go into this game fully blind and have not played the first two episodes, I’d be wary.
The third episode follows Robert dealing with the Z-team as he has to find someone to cut. The team’s dynamic is thrown off as they all know the worst-performing member will be removed from the team. This leads to subpar dispatches with some of the members trying to sabotage others.
I thought this episode finally gave more of the team an opportunity to show their personalities and allow you to get a vibe for each individual member. At the end of the day though, this episode is really about two characters: Robert and Invisigal.
Aaron Paul really shines in this episode as he is given the room to flex both his snark as well as his leadership abilities. Laura Bailey is no slouch though as we see the character arc forming for Invisigal.
The story is also finally starting to come into focus. They’re still playing the main plot points close to the chest by choosing to give more character-related content so far, but if you squint and pick up on the right clues, you do see where we might be going story-wise.
So far, it’s been interesting what and who we haven’t focused on rather than who we have. We’re halfway through the game and have yet to have much to do with the main villain, Shroud… Or have we? I’ve got my theories.
The gameplay, while still not deep, has started added a few more elements to keep it from getting too stale. There were the sabotage attempts in episode 3 that made the dispatch calls a lot tougher to succeed.
However, I felt the addition of the antivirus gimmick in the hacking minigame part did add enough of a layer for me to feel much more engaged than previously. Especially when it becomes a make or break for a certain decision and the game then says that most people did not succeed.
Decisions, decisions. These two episodes really cranked up the difficulty of the choices. First, the choice of who to cut and how that leads to a different cutscene later, but also it says that that character will remember it. So you know that character will come back later on to haunt Robert.
But of course, most notably, episode 4 kicks the romance options into full gear. I’ve really appreciated the more adult take on romance here. Some may find some of the stuff gratuitous or fan-servicey but I’ve just found it to be a good depiction of how adults go about romance.
GCReaction
The game continues full steam ahead with what it had already established as its strengths in the first two episodes. It starts to really make you choose between consequential options, and I can’t wait to see how the next episodes throw my decisions back in my face. This pair of episodes feel even stronger than the first two, so we can only hope the trend continues.
