The Thrill And Terror Of Making Monsters

The first season of Telltale’s Batman did an admirable job creating a version of Gotham unlike any other, with Bruce Wayne carefully managing his relationships with confidantes and would-be friends when he wasn’t punching out thugs in alleyways. Though there have been a thousand stories about the origin of Batman, Telltale’s emphasis on how choices dictate allies and enemies made this version particularly compelling. Having established this anything-goes version of Batman’s world, the second season focuses on his greatest nemesis: the Joker.

This second outing starts off rough, with the Riddler showing up in Gotham city to wreak havoc in a killing spree. He’s soon joined by fan favorites Amanda Waller, Harley Quinn, and a host of rogues from Batman’s universe. Telltale puts too many moving pieces on the board, and tedious puzzles and ludicrous plot twists (like one involving an undisguised Bruce Wayne having to infiltrate a group of supervillains) made me question whether the set-up would ever pay off.

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About midway through the season, something special happens: The majority of puzzles and superfluous plot threads disappear, and the relationship between the Joker (a.k.a. John Doe) and Batman takes center stage. Doe is close to Harley and provides a way to gain her trust. However, he’s also mentally unstable, childlike, and desperately wants to to earn your affection and respect. The way my interactions unfolded with the clown prince made it feel like this relationship was a living thing, constantly taking new shape, wriggling just beyond my control thanks to Doe’s unpredictable reactions.

At its core, The Enemy Within is a series of ethical dilemmas centered on friendship, and all those scenarios build to something fascinating and explosive. Just who is John Doe to me? Is he my friend? Someone I’m using for my own personal gain? Is he an irredeemable psychopath, or a man who can use his talents to fight for the greater good? These questions are all Joker-centric concepts that the Batman comics have tackled before, but The Enemy Within shines because it puts us in control of sculpting this iconic character.

Telltale has received plenty of earned criticism over the years regarding choices with too little impact, with series that effectively end in the same way no matter what players do. The Enemy Within upends that. Depending on your interactions with Doe throughout the series, his eventual transformation serves as a catalyst for the finale, with two radically different Jokers that lead to separate (yet equally satisfying) conclusions. The final episode in the series completely changes, with unique episodes telling completely different stories depending on whether or not Joker has joined you as a vigilante or become your nemesis. Both of those paths end whatever side you’ve chosen with thrilling (and heartbreaking) finales that perfectly cap off your adventure through Gotham.

For my part, I felt torn. I tried to serve Gotham, but I also saw John Doe as a person. I wanted to believe he could be good, not just because that would be an interesting twist, but because the Doe’s characterization and dialog is so well done that I was sympathetic to him at all times. Bruce and John also have a buddy-comedy chemistry, with Doe often wide-eyed and making goofy jokes that provide stark contrast to Bruce’s stoic nature.

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The second season’s writing has a surprising amount of craft behind it. I felt like every decision I made was a poor one, but I wasn’t forced into that box in an artificial way. Bruce and John are two people who find themselves in an awful situation. They have different needs from one another and from society as a whole, and what emerges from that combination is disastrous and heart-wrenching, but also compelling.

Beyond superb storytelling, the more traditionally gamey (and often criticized) elements of Telltale’s oeuvre also improve with that halfway point story switch. The puzzles all but disappear, and the quick-time combat scenes have an enjoyable level of creativity, with brutality backed by convincing sound design. These improvements help the story jet along at a nice pacing toward end, refusing to let any obstacle stand between you and the unfolding story.

Despite a flawed start, The Enemy Within emerges as one of Telltale’s best series and one of my favorite narrative-focused games in years. It goes all-in on allowing players to shape the intricacies of Joker and Bruce’s relationship, and it pays off marvelously. As the game sped toward its memorable and beautiful conclusion(s), I couldn’t help but just think how smart the series was, manipulating my emotions much in the same way I had manipulated John. As the credits rolled on my second playthrough, I still felt a lingering desire to dive back in from the beginning, not to see if any of new choices would dramatically shift the story but instead to experience this masterfully told story one last time.

Note: This review is an overview of all five episodes of Batman: The Enemy Within. You can read individual episode breakdown here:

Episode 1: The Enigma
Episode 2: The Pact
Episode 3: Fractured Mask
Episode 4: What Ails You
Episode 5: Same Stitch

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The Online Slump Continues

The boo-birds come out when perennial all-stars are ice cold in the opening months of the season. Fans believe these players didn’t take care of themselves in the offseason, and treated spring training like a vacation. In reality, April’s frigid weather and windy conditions impact player abilities and limit the flight of the ball. As the weather heats up, so do these players.

MLB The Show 18 is the video game equivalent of the slow starter. Online performance issues have become an unwanted annualized feature – so much so that Sony made online infrastructure a central focus of development this year. In previous years, Sony has patched up or stabilized the online experience as the season progressed. This year, the development team didn’t want the online experience to start out cold, but achieving this goal meant difficult cuts.

In prioritizing new technology, Sony was forced to remove online franchise from this year’s game. Offline season mode is also oddly absent. These are two huge avenues of play that delivered different experiences for people – whether it’s shortening up a season for a breezier path to the playoffs or spending significant time battling friends for the pennant. Both are gone.

Did the cuts pay off? As of this writing, MLB The Show 18’s online performance has not improved over previous years. It may even be worse. Along with intermittent latency issues on the field, which can lead to players running past balls or pitches accidentally served up as meat, all online avenues of play are subject to inexplicable loss of progress. A productive morning of playing Battle Royale ended with my experience points and Stubs disappearing, never to return. On another day, I couldn’t locate some cards I purchased with Stubs, and wasn’t reimbursed for them. Servers are also occasionally down during peak hours, and not just for maintenance.

Stability isn’t the only frustrating element of online. As much as I love seeing legendary players like Vida Blue taking on Babe Ruth, the means to obtaining these players is comical. To unlock the best version of Jackie Robinson, I need to get Chase Utley’s program souvenir, another program that isn’t even in the game yet and is listed as “coming soon,” exchange dozens of hats and jerseys, tally 10 hits with a different version of Jackie Robinson ONLY on April 15, and/or perform a bunch of other crazy tasks. Getting immortal or diamond-rank players in The Show has always been a lengthy process, but it’s out of control this year.

Opening a pack of cards to find hats, jerseys, bobble heads, and other unwanted things just strips away the chance of getting a player you can actually use in play. The images on the cards are also showing age. Tommy La Stella is pictured on the Braves, a team he hasn’t played for since 2014. Many players just have silhouettes as images.

The Show’s troubles are mostly contained to just the online component. As usual, Sony has refined the action on the field, which is better than ever this year. New ball physics lead to a wider variety of hits and bounces, and players react to situations in more realistic ways – such as a batter holding up in the batter’s box for a brief second to see if a ball is slicing foul, or a catcher pouncing on a squibber or blocking a ball in the dirt. Catchers get out of stance much faster and can’t be exploited as easily. Fielders are more aware of the runners and apply more authentic tags, depending on how the runner moves. Opponent A.I. is also much savvier, using more shifts and deploying different bullpen and hitting strategies for specific situations. I lost a game to a suicide squeeze in the ninth inning.

The flow of the game is also enhanced with a wider variety of shots of fans, the stadium, coaches, and players. Full-motion replays also add to the broadcast presentation, even though Mark DeRosa’s color commentary is frequently repeated or too generalized.

The control you have over the action is largely unchanged, but you get a better insight into what went wrong with your swing through the redesigned feedback system. The revamped ball physics lead to more hit types and player reactions, but I saw an unusual number of balls bobbled and dropped.

Road to the Show received the most tweaks in terms of how progress is logged. You can no longer create a player capable of reaching level 99 in every category. You must now select an archetype, which has strengths and weaknesses that are capped in specific categories. It makes more sense to hone those skills, and I love the move away from assigning experience points. All gains and losses come on the field and through training. Players get called up quicker if they are tearing it up; my Road the Show player from last year (who toiled in AA ball with a .400-plus average) was immediately called up to the majors when I loaded him up. That’s awesome.

Franchise mode is improved, not from additions, but the streamlining of menus and tasks. All aspects of managing a team are broken up into phases that cover the draft, trades, mid-season play, and more. All of these areas feature shortcuts and can be turned to manual or auto with just a click of a button. Sony also added Retro mode as a style of play for Franchise, which is a bit odd given the arcade framework works against the simulation stats to a degree, but it is fun to compete in a throwback game from time to time. CPU trade logic and roster management looked spot on; it's nice to see cold players getting benched for a game here and there. That's a touch I never expected to see.

Load times for all avenues of play are better, and the play on the field is once again a showpiece of iteration, but the online aspect of the game – where Sony is focusing the most for additions – remains unpredictable at best and completely broken at its worst. As the season goes along, the experience will hopefully get better, but for the hardcore baseball fans that purchased the game early, it can be a nightmare.

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A Bit Too Elementary, My Dear Pikachu

Pikachu was never intended to be the face of Pokémon, but thanks to the popular show, the adorable little electric mouse became the default mascot for the franchise. This critter also wiggled his way into my heart; despite the hundreds of unique pocket monsters Game Freak has created over the years, Pikachu remains one of my favorite travel companions. But none of our adventures have ever looked like this. This version of Pikachu wears an adorable deerstalker hat, talks in a gruff voice, and has the attitude of a noir detective. Somehow, this odd combination makes Pikachu more endearing than ever. The coffee-obsessed sourpuss is a welcome companion during an otherwise-average adventure.

You take on the role of Tim Goodman, the son of an acclaimed detective who was investigating a rash of violent Pokémon outbursts across Ryme City. After Tim’s father goes missing, Tim partners up with Pikachu and the new gumshoes hunt for clues that lead them to the bottom of the disappearance. The larger mystery is surprisingly serious, but I was rarely invested in the overall narrative – and you can see the main twist coming a mile away.

Fortunately, the shenanigans I got into with Pikachu along the way were far more memorable than the overarching story. I liked watching Tim and Pikachu bond over their love for black coffee, and laughed when Tim mistook Detective Pikachu for a “normal,” non-talking Pikachu. The title character also has a lot of lovable personality quirks – he can’t resist sweets and gets excited when he hears his own echo in a cave. I found it endlessly charming to watch one of the most adorable characters in gaming talk like a gruff, middle-aged man while pacing the room with his hand on his chin. At any point in the game, you can touch Pikachu’s portrait on the 3DS’s touchscreen to see what Pikachu is thinking, and I often spammed that button because I was fascinated to see what he would do next.

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The fact that Pikachu is so engrossing is fortunate, because the actual puzzles leave a lot to be desired. Each chapter contains its own mini-mystery that might have Tim and Pikachu recovering a missing neckless, saving a stranded Pokémon, and investigating the nefarious inner workings of a chemical research company. During each mystery, you gather clues by talking to bystanders and examining your environment. Once you’ve collected all the clues for each area, you interact with an incredibly simple matching game where you pair the mystery with a solution and then back up your claim with the supporting evidence you’ve gathered.

Finding these solutions requires no thought or effort; even if you didn’t pay attention when talking to people, selecting the correct answers is easy thanks to brief summaries in your notes. Pikachu also holds your hand through this process and nudges you in the right direction. Even when you make a wrong guess, he tells you to try again, so failing is impossible. This makes the stakes incredibly low, and as a result, provides little satisfaction when you arrive at the solution.

Despite its title, Detective Pikachu isn’t for people who like a good mystery. Its larger narrative isn’t sophisticated, and I felt like I was just going through the motions to solve the smaller mysteries along the way. Even so, Pikachu made a delightful Watson to my Holmes, full of genuine charm and laughs. I enjoyed exploring this Pokémon-filled world with a surly Pikachu so much that I almost didn’t care how we filled our time.

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