Dispatch A Fancast Game Review

Dispatch

Ad Hoc Studios

PC/Steam

Dispatch is a superhero workplace comedy where choices matter. Manage a dysfunctional team of misfit heroes and strategize who to send to emergencies around the city, all while balancing office politics, personal relationships, and your own quest to become a hero.

You play as Robert Robertson, AKA Mecha Man, whose mech-suit is destroyed in a battle against his nemesis, forcing him to take a job at a superhero dispatch center: not as a hero, but a dispatcher. In charge of rehabilitating a group of ex-supervillains, you must manage your roster while navigating office relationships and rebuilding your suit for a shot at revenge.

Graphics

First things first, Dispatch is a beautiful looking game. I am a huge fan of animation and Ad Hoc brings this game to life with brilliantly detailed characters and environments. As an animation fan, this game could easily be a series I would binge given the story, characters and writing, but I enjoy playing the game immensely and seeing how it transitions between moments of awesome, intense action to comedic character-driven moments is a treat. Visually, the game has a wonderful visual mixture that reminds me of both the Justice League animated series and Invincible. I also really enjoy the mission screen and how it highlights the characters, skills and environment.

Gameplay

I’ve never really been a huge fan of quick time event games because I always felt like they take away from both the story and the player’s agency, but Dispatch handles that in a way that keeps the thrills of the game in the forefront with decisions affecting the characters and ultimately the player. I knew what to expect when I walked into this game and was not disappointed by it at all. There is some palpable suspense to be had with these events as well and I enjoyed both succeeding and failing in equal measure. The events are seamless and I appreciated the fact that you have to pay attention to the action and characters so you don’t miss anything.

Replay-Ability

As of this publication, only the first two episodes of Dispatch are currently available so replaying it is a given with the engaging plot and interesting premise. The remaining episodes will be released over the next few weeks and I will definitely be playing them. That being said, replaying the first two episodes does have its headaches. The game saves at moments throughout the game, but you cannot restart the game or episode at any of those points. If you want to replay a moment and see if you get another outcome based on different choices, you have to play the entire episode over from the beginning and you lose access to any previous episodes you completed.

In essence, restarting episode 1 to try a different approach with a character means I have lost my ability to replay episode 2 until I finish 1 again. It’s mildly annoying, but not prohibitive in both enjoying the game and wanting to play it again.