I'm terrible at my job in Dispatch (but Invisigal is really into me)
Like a lot of the gaming community, I've become obsessed with Dispatch. The new episodic game by AdHoc Studio - which is staffed by a subset of former Telltale developers - tells the ongoing story of Robert Robertson, an Iron Man-type hero that has fallen on hard times when his mech suit goes belly up during a showdown with a supervillain. To make ends meet (and to possibly get some free work done on his super suit), Robert joins SDN, the Superhero Dispatch Network, as a dispatcher.
(Spoilers below? Maybe? WHY AREN'T YOU CAUGHT UP?)
As a dispatcher, Robert must man a desk, taking incoming calls from SDN subscribers and sending out appropriate heroes to meet their needs. Kaiju attacking the city? Send someone strong enough to handle that fight. Need a pretty face to charm some possible investors? Send someone with a high charisma rating. Each of the misfit heroes on your roster has inherent strengths and weaknesses, which you can either develop or mitigate by investing points when they perform well at their assigned duties. As you assign them to tasks, the heroes chatter amongst themselves, cracking jokes (mostly at your expense) and moving the story along.
That all seems pretty fun, but it quickly becomes clear that the game is rigged. Starting with the third episode (four out of a total eight are now released), it becomes obvious that Dispatch is setting the player up to fail for story reasons. In Episode 3, a cut is going to be made to the team, with the hero that performs the worst getting slashed from the roster. As a result, all of the deeply flawed heroes start sabotaging each other in the field, causing all sorts of trouble for poor Robert. Assignments start failing left and right, causing heroes to get grounded (they can only fail so many times a shift), which reduces the roster, which causes more of them to fail. This cascading disaster causes the entire shift to fall with a thud, leaving the player scrambling, unable to keep up with the barrage of requests.
Now, here's the thing. I know I'm supposed to fail at this. It is vital to the story that I do poorly. I suspect my poor performance in Episode Four is scripted as well. And, in terms of the overall game, it seems to not matter even slightly how well I do at the actual act of dispatching heroes. The game rolls forward whether I stink up the place or not.
The real game at play here is Robert's interactions with the other heroes; the story beats are what matters. The dispatch interface is just a bunch of interactive video game theater. It is ultimately meaningless. But I can't stop trying to succeed. The gamer in me wants to do well, even to the point where I've been tempted to start an episode over just so I can beat Dispatch at it's own game - which I'm fairly sure is impossible. By stacking the deck and then hinting around that it doesn't matter at all anyhow, Dispatch is totally playing with my gamer emotions.
Of course, Dispatch is playing with my other emotions as well. In addition to being pretty much the best animated superhero show this year, Dispatch is also a game, and in Episodes Three and Four, it finally got around to letting the player make some decisions that feel like they matter. At the end of Episode Three, the player gets to decide between two characters to cut from the team. And in Episode Four, we get down to the real nitty-gritty, as we get to determine for Robert which of the two love interests he is going to pursue. (You get to choose a new hero to add to the team as well, but that's not what we are here for.)
There are two superhero love interest options, and it's not even a choice, y'all. Reformed villain Invisigal is super into me. She is clearly the only choice.
The other option, SDN Branch Manager Blonde Blazer, rebuffed my initial advances, and then she's been playing this quiet long game ever since. Dropping little hints, letting me zip her up in her overly revealing dress. I mean, fine, if there are no other options. I suppose I can play the long game too. GN's Randy Kalista also points out that Blue Blazer might ultimately break bad, with her "I have to drink a ton to feel anything" schtick. But there are other options, and I don't need to get dragged into all that mess.
Not when Invisigal is right there, all messed up and funny, and saying things like "I had a dream we were banging". (Except she doesn't say "banging".) She's giving my rear the once-over when I'm trying to work, and it doesn't even come off as creepy. There is no way I'm going to pick Miss By-The-Book-Maybe-A-Ticking-Time-Bomb Blazer when there is someone with an actual sense of humor standing right there staring me down. C'mon, y'all. Keep it real.
I guess the overall point I'm getting at is that I'm doing my best to be less invested in my work performance at SDA, while becoming slightly concerned about how invested I am in my superhero love life.
Did Dispatch trick me? Am...am I playing a dating simulator?
