Batma
n: Episode Three – New World Order
Developer: Telltale Games
Publisher: Telltale Games
Release Date: October 25, 2016
Platforms: Mac, PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One, iOS and Android
ESRB: Mature
Telltale continues to pull no punches as they tear apart the legacy of the Wayne name and destroy Bruce Wayne’s life. Episode Three sees Oswald Cobblepot make good on his threats to take power and start a revolution in a surprising way, the deterioration of Harvey Dents psyche, the blossoming romance between Bruce and Selina and finally the identity of the leader of the Children of Arkham revealed!
Having any game play my emotions against my good sense will keep my full attention. As a player it took everything in me not to follow my baser instincts in one segment of the story to avoid a possibly bad outcome. It’s also great to see some of my older decisions finally effect gameplay. Having played previous Telltale titles I know that seeing “Character will remember that” pop on the screen can get pretty scary as the story goes on.
Episode Three finally lets players explore a relationship with Selina. If you’ve been paying any attention to the marketing at all you’ll have seen this coming as Telltale has been pretty transparent about putting these two characters together. Based on your decision making things can get pretty hot and heavy before the end of Episode Three. If you’re playing this with a child you’ll want to send them out of the room until it’s all over. However, as I was talking about previous decisions, you can miss this if you made certain decisions in Episodes 1 and 2. How’s that for cause and effect?
Telltale has definitely thrown me for a few loops in terms of narrative and character changes. As a Batman fan for many years with a good working knowledge of the lore a few of the changes had me confused. It felt like some of the changes were made just to trick the Batman faithful so they won’t predict where the story is going. Even with those changes I can’t wait until Episode 4. They don’t ruin anything and intrigued me more than some of the current run of the actual Batman comics.
With all that said Episode Three had a few hiccups for me on day one. I suffered from several instances of frame rate drops. Most notably during a big fight sequence in the middle of the game and two hard crashes in the same place at the end. While this may seem like small potatoes it got me pretty annoyed and ruined my immersion in the game a bit. However, during my second play-through a few days later I didn’t suffer any crashes so it might have been a day one technical issue.
All in all Telltale Games Batman series is definitely going strong. After a lackluster first episode the last two have been a great experience. Dare I say on par with my much loved The Wolf Among Us!? And with consistent month to month episode releases it feels like i’m waiting for the next issue of my favorite comic book to hit the store.
Eric Snell
Esnell@comicattack.net
