Dispatch Review (Ep. 1 & 2) - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

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Kinda Funny Gamescast: Dispatch Review (Episodes 1 & 2)

Release Date: October 21, 2025
Hosts: Greg Miller, Blessing Adeoye Jr., Barrett Courtney
Topic: Review and analysis of Dispatch Episodes 1 & 2 – impressions, gameplay, narrative, and episodic release model.

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Episode Overview

The main focus of this Gamescast is a detailed review and discussion of Dispatch, a new episodic superhero workplace comedy game from Ad Hoc Studio, which includes industry veterans from Telltale Games. The group covers their first impressions of Episodes 1 & 2, the quality of the writing and performances, how the unique gameplay mechanics work, and the pros and cons of releasing story games in an episodic format in 2025.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What is Dispatch?

• Developer/Publisher: Ad Hoc Studio (former Telltale, Ubisoft, Night School devs)
• Premise: Superhero workplace comedy where choices matter—manage a dysfunctional team of misfit heroes, handle city emergencies, and navigate office politics.
• Release Structure: 8 episodes, two episodes released each week (Episodes 1&2 out Oct 22).
• Backing: Supported by Critical Role, featuring a cast with Aaron Paul, Laura Bailey, Jeffrey Wright, and several high-profile streamers/content creators.
• Notable Quotes
  • "Dispatch is a superhero workplace comedy where choices matter. Manage a dysfunctional team...and your own quest to become a hero." (Greg Miller, 09:53)

2. First Impressions (Episodes 1 & 2)

• Visual & Audio Presentation

  • Striking, TV-quality visuals and animation reminiscent of Amazon’s Invincible.
  • High production value, strong soundtrack, and an immediately engaging art style.
  • "Holy shit does this look good. I can't believe how well this is running..." (Greg Miller, 21:00)

• Writing & Tone

  • Witty, funny, mature yet light-hearted; in line with recent superhero parodies like The Boys and Invincible.
  • "It's a great superhero yarn and genuinely funny without caveats...Dispatch got some real guffaws out of me." (Greg, quoting PC Gamer, 11:06)

• Cast Performances

  • Praise for performances—Aaron Paul, Jeffrey Wright, Laura Bailey, and others.
  • Chemistry and subtle relationship moments stand out over the more overt office humor.
  • "Jeffrey Wright's character, I think—so good. Aaron Paul and Jeffrey Wright work so well together..." (Barrett, 15:51)

3. Gameplay Analysis

• Choice-Driven Interactions

  • No wandering around—core gameplay is dialogue choices and unique "dispatch" management.
  • The game allows skipping QTEs for a fully cinematic experience if desired.
  • "Your gameplay is making choices in the dialogue and doing this dispatch thing." (Blessing, 19:36)

• Dispatch Mechanic

  • Players assign heroes (all ex-villains) to city emergencies based on their stats (intellect, charisma, mobility, strength, defense).
  • Resembles a management simulation; interactive but light.
  • XP and leveling system for heroes, but early episodes keep this simple.
  • "It turns into a management simulation where you're...telling [heroes], 'save a cat in a tree,' 'stop vandalism'..." (Blessing, 25:44)

• Integration with Story

  • Gameplay woven into narrative, but panel found it sometimes broke narrative momentum.
  • No fail states—players can make mistakes without game-overs.

• Accessibility

  • Runs well on Steam Deck according to panelists, with minor bugs.

4. Episodic Release Structure: Is It Still a Good Idea?

• Panel Reservations

  • Concerns about weekly episodic releases working for modern gaming audiences.
  • IGN and major outlets delayed reviews until the season is done; potential for lost marketing momentum.
  • Potential for audience drop-off if you fall behind on episodes; binge-model might be preferable.
  • "I don't think that's how games work nowadays...most people are probably going to play after all the episodes are out." (Blessing, 37:26)

• Developer Perspective

  • Ad Hoc believes episodic makes the game more approachable and shareable; wants to evoke weekly “appointment gaming.”
  • Panel agrees: weekly content is attractive if each episode delivers a major hook/cliffhanger—but Episodes 1 & 2 do not.

• Community Engagement

  • Cast includes several prominent streamers/content creators (Alana Pierce, MoistCr1TiKaL, Jacksepticeye, Young Gravy).
  • Attempt to foster a strong Discord/community for week-to-week conversation.

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Panelist Scores & Final Thoughts

| Panelist | Score (Ep 1 & 2) | Impressions | |---------------|------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------| | Blessing | 9/10 | "Fantastic writing and performances, really engaging—can't wait for more." (20:36) | | Barrett | 7.5/10 | "Good start, but pacing is odd; wanted a stronger hook at end of Ep 2." (15:52, 16:47, 44:13) | | Greg | 7.5–8/10 | "Amazing presentation, strong story, not fully sold on core gameplay yet." (24:24, 53:35) |

Overall Sentiment:

• Extraordinary writing, visuals, and performances for a narrative game—some of the best Telltale-adjacent material yet.
• The core "dispatch" gameplay is innovative but hasn’t fully realized its potential or meshed perfectly with the story pacing in the first two episodes.
• Episodic release feels poorly suited to how audiences consume games in 2025, potentially limiting impact/discussion.
• Cast of content creators complements core performances well without feeling forced.

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Notable Quotes & Time Stamps

• On Cast Chemistry:
  "They have great chemistry on stage together. A little too good, maybe."
  —Greg Miller, 08:17

• On Game’s TV Feel:
  "If this wasn't a video game, if there was zero interaction to this, I would be fine just watching this as a TV show."
  —Blessing, 19:36

• On Episodic Release Risks:
  "You're making it so that there's not this big wave of, 'Oh, damn, I played through dispatch. Y'all gotta check out this game.' People aren't going to be saying that until maybe the end."
  —Blessing, 37:53

• On the Dispatch Mechanic:
  "It's an interesting thing. It's not super deep, but...I want to experiment more."
  —Greg, 27:03

• On Early Episode Hooks:
  "I was waiting for that like, that good hook to have me. Like, if we were the audience and we weren't reviewing this...I needed this to hit more."
  —Barrett, 44:13

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:20] Barrett reflects on busy "review season" and prepping for GOTY content
• [07:59] Introduction to Dispatch; why it’s exciting; cast & developer pedigree
• [13:22] Barrett's first impressions after playing Episodes 1 & 2
• [15:52] Discussion of relationships, humor, and standout performances (Jeffrey Wright/Aaron Paul)
• [19:36] Blessing dives into gameplay structure, choices, and decision to remove walking sections
• [24:24] Greg and Blessing detail how "dispatch" gameplay works
• [34:17] In-depth debate over episodic release format in today's market
• [41:49] Reflection on targeting streaming audiences/community with creator cast
• [44:13] Critique of episode pacing and need for sharper hooks at episode's end
• [52:00] Closing thoughts on performances and excitement for rest of the season
• [53:35] Final scores and desire for a full-season spoiler cast

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Memorable Moments

• Greg reveals he hosted a paid panel for Ad Hoc but reaffirms commitment to honest review (13:03).
• The gang jokes about spreading Kinda Funny by "paying it forward" in drive-thrus (06:23).
• Fun anecdotes about potentially binge-worthy game structure, and references to Invincible/the superhero genre.

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Summary

Kinda Funny's take on Dispatch’s debut makes it clear: this is a major step forward for narrative games, especially with the former Telltale DNA and its contemporary humor, art, and writing. Though the experimentation with episodic content is bold, the format may hamstring its impact in a crowded, binge-driven entertainment world. All three panelists are eager to see how Ad Hoc capitalizes on their stellar foundation—and whether later episodes will deliver the cliffhangers and story branching the format needs.

If you’re curious about Dispatch and enjoy superhero parodies, witty writing, and top-tier voice acting, it’s an easy recommendation, with the management gameplay being a unique (but not universally beloved) twist.

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Further Discussion:
Spoiler-free for now. Panel hints at returning for an in-depth, full-season spoiler cast after all episodes are live.

For more:
Catch the full episode on YouTube.com/kindafunnygames or your favorite podcast service.

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Transcript

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[Barrett Courtney]

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[Greg Miller]

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Hey, new girl. Hey.

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[Barrett Courtney]

For a new plant to grow, the

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seed has to die. Slanted Rated R. Only in theaters March 13th. Side effects may occur. Close your eyes. Exhale.

[Greg Miller]

Feel your body relax.

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[Barrett Courtney]

1-800-contacts.

[Greg Miller]

What's up, everybody? Welcome to the kind of funny games cast for Tuesday, October 21, 2025. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller, alongside Forbes 30 30, aka New York Game Awards. Nominated aka Poppy of All Trades Blessing, Eddie Oye Jr. Good day, Greg. Of course, the man usually behind the buttons, it's Barrett Courtney. Hey, Barrett. Always excited to have you here because this is a special kind of funny gamescast. But before then, let me remind you, of course, we're presented by Five Hour Energy. Blast through the Outer Worlds 2 in style with an exclusive skin for your raptodon in game pet brought to you by five hour Energy. When you purchase a purple berry punch or mock melon brew five Hour Energy products, you'll receive a unique code to unlock exclusive the Outer Worlds 2 in game content. Gentlemen, like I said, we'll talk about all that later. But this is a special games cast because we're reviewing dispatch. But before then. Barrett, how are you? Like I said, you never get to be on this one. How are you?

[Barrett Courtney]

I, like, we've been saying that a lot, but I feel like I've been on it a lot lately and I think that's just encompassing of review season in 2025 and how many goddamn games there are, you know, because usually in an average, on average in a year, I'm on maybe two or three games cast, right? Like I reviewed Persona 3 Reload last year.

[Blessing]

Were you on Metaphor?

[Barrett Courtney]

I reviewed Metaphor. Did the spoiler cast for Metaphor. Yeah, And I think those were probably the bigger highlights for me last year, where it's like, this year it's been Assassin's Creed. And I'm blanking on some other things right now that I feel like I was also. Yes, Silk Song. I think I did like two of the three Silk Song things that we did recently as well. But yeah, it's been a busy year in terms of games, in terms of life. I'm already, you know, we. We hit October a couple weeks ago, so I'm already starting Game of the Year work for January and so is Andy. And it's fun to start making those assets and to start to think about what is going to be like, because I have no. This is going to be the most 2021 year. I think since 2021, where that was the year Ratchet and Clank one. And all of our lists were so different.

[Blessing]

What's the Rat Clank of this year is the question.

[Barrett Courtney]

Donkey Kong.

[Blessing]

Damn. You kind of nailed it, actually.

[Greg Miller]

Bless. I've talked to you already, but are you surviving review season? You and I have talked maybe in the second half of this show we get into a little bit of review season, but you're surviving.

[Blessing]

I am. I talked about this on like a stream or something a few days ago where I think there are times when I, like, I'm playing video games, but I'm like, not feeling it.

[Barrett Courtney]

You know what I mean?

[Blessing]

Like. Like Video Game Burnout. Because we're always playing video games. I think I'm in the opposite of that where I kind of just want to play video games. And so it's been. It's been a great review season because I. I set my eyes on four different games about like a week and a half ago.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Blessing]

And I was like, I'm gonna lock in. I'm gonna review four fucking games in the next two weeks. Right. Not cause you like, forced me to or anything like that, but it's just mainly because I really wanted to play

[Barrett Courtney]

until these four games.

[Blessing]

Yeah, the passion is there, the interest is there. These are all like me kind of games. And so I didn't really want to miss out on any of them. And to my own surprise, paced it out pretty well. Where I like what I think the first one was Keeper. And Keeper was like a shorter game than I even thought it was going to be. And so, like, I knocked that out. And I was like, all right, I guess I'm moving on to Ninja Gaiden and then knocked that out. And then I was like, all right, I Guess I'll play Dispatch. Yeah. And we'll talk about it later because this is just the episodes one and two review. But it being just episodes one and two kind of freed me up to go, all right, let me stop there. Let me move on to another game that I'm playing and like really redacted, you know, redacted. And let me pace this out responsibly. And so it's been kind of a meticulous, like, you know, planned out review season for me in a way that feels nice.

[Greg Miller]

Excellent.

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Well, maybe we'll talk about that later. Because this is the kind of funny games cast each and every weekday on a variety of platforms. We run you through the biggest topics in gaming, whether they be reviews, previews, or just topics we need to talk about. We cover it on YouTube.com kind of funny games, Twitch TV kind of funny games, and of course on podcast services around the globe. If you like that, pick up a kind of funny membership. Of course, $10 gets all of our shows ad free. You get your daily dose of me, Greg Miller in a series we call Greg Way. And you get good karma for supporting a small independent 11 person business based in San Francisco. No bucks toss our way. No big deal. Like subscribe, share, ring the bell, tell your friends, subscribe, leave comments. You know, go tell somebody you see on the street in a gaming T shirt about us. You can get us of course for free on YouTube.com kindafunnygames switch tv kindafunnygamespodcast services around the globe. As you already know, we don't ask

[Blessing]

people to share enough. I feel like we asked for like, you know, the kind of funny memberships and all that stuff. Yeah. If you're listening, if you're watching show one friend the magic of kind of funny today.

[Greg Miller]

There you go. Funny show.

[Blessing]

You know, let's double ourselves.

[Greg Miller]

Pay it forward.

[Barrett Courtney]

What's that one movie with that one kid?

[Greg Miller]

Pay it Forward is a real pay it forward. Yeah, yeah, you keep it sounds like you say pave it like pavement the streets.

[Blessing]

This is what I want you to

[Barrett Courtney]

speaking of is that not the kid goes out in the streets next time you get three streets at a time and then three other streets will pave you know all the.

[Blessing]

That the next drive thru the next like McDonald's drive through or fast food drive through. You go to, you know how people will be like, oh, I want to pay for the person who's behind me. I want you to write down on a piece of paper the URL to kind of funny and tell the drive through worker, give this to the next car.

[Greg Miller]

That's good. I like that a lot.

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Of course. If you want to be a part of this show as we go with your questions about dispatch, go ahead and super chat on YouTube.com kind of funny games. I saw it earlier, it's already gone. Somebody said they'd hang out for a little bit and then leave. They want to play this and not have it ruined. We will not be doing spoilers for dispatch. Of course we'll get into what kind of game this is. But the story is very important and what you choose in the game is very important. So we won't be going through anything

[Barrett Courtney]

and it'd be messed up to spoil the game before it's even out.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. But I, when I was googling for trailers for him, somebody's already got the first episode playthrough up. So that's happening. So that is something that's out there and going on. Of course we're in 11 persons business. All about live talk shows.

[Barrett Courtney]

That makes an email this morning. I was gonna say make a lot more sense.

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Oh yeah, we did. I didn't think about it.

[Barrett Courtney]

Right.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, of course. Kind of Funny Games daily already happened. It was about the price increase in Xbox dev kits. And after this we're playing RV there yet. If you're a kind of funny member, today's Greg Way is titled slow News Day IGN and clocks in at about 18 minutes.

[Commercial Voiceover]

Damn.

[Barrett Courtney]

I can't believe you're going after Rebecca Valentine.

[Greg Miller]

You know what I mean? Be fast on the ball.

[Barrett Courtney]

Messed up.

[Greg Miller]

Thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacob, Omega, Buster and Delaney the Psalm twining. We'll tell you about them and our sponsors and all that jazz later. But for now it's time for topic of the show. Todts.

[Blessing]

Todts.

[Barrett Courtney]

Todts. Todts. Todd.

[Greg Miller]

Dispatch review everybody. I can't believe we're here. Barrett, you mentioned this in Games Daily. A little bit. But Dispatch announced awesome trailer at the game awards. We were like amazing. Yeah. You know, Aaron Paul's in it, Laura Bailey's in it. Insane.

[Barrett Courtney]

They have great chemistry on stage together. A little too good, all of us.

[Greg Miller]

A little too good maybe.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, a little too good.

[Greg Miller]

Ad Hoc studios, the people who had split it off from Telltale. Amazing. Amazing. And then this year kept going and it seemed like, okay, maybe this game's not going to happen. Maybe we get one episode of this game this season, this year, but it's not going to happen. And then lo and behold, they come out and they say October 22nd we're putting out episodes one and two and the week after that, episodes three and four and the week after that all the way to episodes seven and eight are out in just three weeks from today or tomorrow, I guess, technically.

[Blessing]

Yep.

[Greg Miller]

Are you shocked that we made it, Barrett?

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, you know, we, we never got to do this on content, but I did get to be a part of a hands off preview event thing like a month ago where we got a little bit of time to ask the devs questions and like hearing them talk about like how passionate they were about wanting to still stay true to like this episodic formula that this team knew so well from working at Telltale, but wanting like having the drive to actually make that work in a sense of like actually being consistent about releasing episodes and not do the Telltale thing where all right, here's one episode and now we're going to go quiet for five months and you're not really going to hear from us. So it was really exciting. You know, we got so late into the year it's like, yeah, this probably isn't going to come out. And I feel like, I don't even know if I like realize this was episodic until like a month or so ago, but them like sticking to their guns and being like, hey, we've got eight episodes and two episodes are out every week for a month. And I was like, all right. Like they've, they've got some, something to prove here and they're, they're, they're showing up so far. So I think it's very exciting that we're, we're finally here.

[Greg Miller]

Perhaps you don't know anything about Dispatch. Let me give you some stats and figures. Of course the developer is Ad Hoc Studio. If you say, I heard about that, but I don't understand why. From their Wikipedia. Ad Hoc Studio is an American video game developer founded in 2018 by industry veterans from Telltale Games, Ubisoft and Night School Studio, namely Telltale alum Michael Chung, Nick Herman, Dennis Lenart and Pierre Shoret. The studio's first game, Dispatch, is set to be released episodically starting October 22nd and ending on November 12th. Publisher, of course, is Ad Hoc Studio and Critical Role. Critical Role has come in to help support this one. Scene description reads like this 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 right now in Metacritic there is no score. Of course this is episodic. So many people are handling it different ways as they go. But some blurbs I have for you that I've pulled. Frasier Brown over at PC Gamer writes, dispatch cuts out the filler, fully embracing its TV roots. It makes complete sense that this was originally pitched as a show, but what's impressive is that it's maintained that pace and energy in this new form. Some player agency is lost as a result, but not so much that I feel like my hands have been slapped away from the steering wheel. Two characters. Oh, that's right. It did the thing where I copied in the fucking caption of the photo that I so back to it. And it's with great sense of relief that I can say it's a great superhero yarn and genuinely funny without caveats like quote unquote for a video game. And that's still pretty rare. Certainly when it comes to comedy, I get startled when a game makes me properly laugh. It's so unexpected. But Dispatch got some real guffaws out of me. That's enough to keep me to stick around for all eight episodes. Meanwhile, over at the Gaming Bible, Kate Harold gave it a 10 out of 10 these first two episodes. There's still a long way to go with six episodes of dispatch yet to drop, but I find myself almost entirely without trepidation as we look ahead. Dispatch's opening two episodes have assured me of what an exceptional experience this game is going to turn out to be. Ad Hoc Studios has nailed it. Across the board, Dispatch boasts engaging storylines, amusing humor, perfect cast performances, and beautiful animation, all backed up by a unique and compelling gameplay system that allows the experience to swing sing. This is shaping up to be one of the best games I've ever played, says Kate over there.

[Barrett Courtney]

Wow, strong words.

[Blessing]

That's glowing.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah, that's a 10 out of 10. That's what you'd expect out of it, right? Of course, we have played these first two episodes. We did have access to all four though, Barrett, and you made a reference to this earlier. You boys stopped at 1 and 2.

[Blessing]

Is that I stopped at 1 and 2.

[Greg Miller]

Okay. I went on, of course. And that's where we come into an interesting caveat for you. I talked about this in Greg Way last week, but for your own edification, as you hear us talk about these, it's worth noting that I went down and did a sponsored gig with them where I hosted a conversation with the voice cast. So I have taken money from Ad Hoc Studios Recently. And I want you to know that as I'm still going to give you my opinion of the game, which I gave to them in person straight up when we were there.

[Barrett Courtney]

And to be clear, even though you went ahead, this review is only.

[Greg Miller]

Only one and two.

[Blessing]

And I'm not.

[Greg Miller]

And again, I would never ruin the twists and turns, not only of the story, but of these episodes or anything. I want you to get in there, experience it. So, Barrett, Courtney, you're on the desk. You're here hanging out. What do you think of episodes one and two?

[Barrett Courtney]

Dispatch? The first two episodes I had a really good time with. I think this being a game that I've been looking forward to for almost a year at this point, but not being so, like, you know, rewatching trailers all the time, like, being like, obsessed with it, I was. And, you know, being able to preview it like, a month ago, I think I was expecting a little bit more from these first two episodes to hook me in, because it felt like these first two episodes don't do anything more for me at least, than, like, the trailers did. It's kind of like, you know, setting you into the premise, getting you a good idea, a better idea of, like, who these characters are, what the relationships are, and getting you into that gameplay that I know a lot of people were taken by from the. Was it like another Steam. Steam Next Fest demo or something like

[Greg Miller]

that earlier in the year.

[Barrett Courtney]

And so a lot of it was like, all right, yeah, this is the game. And I'm. I'm excited to get another hook in me past that. And I think where this week's pair of episodes leaves off, it doesn't quite get, like, an extra hook in me. Like, I'm already sold. I'm already on board. But these first two episodes didn't, like, bring in a new factor where I'm like, oh, man. Like, now. Like, now I'm completely sold on this. I'm like, this is the only thing I'm going to be thinking about for the next month or so. I think the humor is solid. You know, it does a lot of, you know, potty humor, a lot of swearing, which, you know, if you all know me, is kind of my forte as well. But nothing that, like, really stood out to me as, like, unique or new. I think the world is something that I'm wanting definitely more from. I think even the way they're depicting some of the powers is really fun and interesting. The main character, who is Robert Robertson, right, His whole premise, like, I. I love the. The premise of like, you know, he's essentially almost like Iron Man's grandson who has inherited the. The suit. But it does not have the smarts of a Tony Stark. So it's just like he's this kind of guy and kind of a dude and is thrown into this situation where his suit no longer works and he's now working at this dispatch location. And I think like the premise is there and it's solid. And I think the, the thing that really stood out to me was more of like the. Not the humor or even like the kind of like main relationships up that they're setting up, but more of like the more intimate, subtle relationship stuff that they're building. Like Jeffrey Wright's character, I think.

[Greg Miller]

So good.

[Barrett Courtney]

Aaron Paul and Jeffrey Wright work so well together with those characters that like those smaller moments of familiarity and comfort that you feel between some of these characters really stood out to me more so than like the office comedy humor stuff that it has going on, if that makes sense. I would say like my biggest thing with the first two episodes I would say is pacing I felt like was a little weird, which is why I think this is like the first two episodes to me are like a 7.5 good. I think it's a good starting foundation. I will check in every week. But I think the, for me, I thought the kind of pacing out of kind of the big tantalizing thing of this game that makes it unique from a telltale game or another episodic game, like A Life is Strange or something is the kind of strategy dispatching stuff that you're doing, which I don't feel like I got enough of personally in these first two episodes.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, you do like two thing.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, you do like kind of a, like a tutorial version of it at the very end of the first episode and then you get your first like actual chance with it in the second episode. And I think even just like the way that they pace that out is kind of weird. And even just thinking about it in terms of comedy, like, I think it would have been better if those two things were closer together because your, your tutorial vers is like how a normal day at dispatch dispatching work goes, working with normal heroes and then you work with these all like all shitty ex villains who are cracking jokes and are, you know, taking bets on when you're going to quit and all that stuff. Like there's just something about some of that that I think could have been paced a little bit better. But you know, I'm still excited for it and I'M excited to see where it all eventually goes.

[Greg Miller]

Bless top level. Where are you with one and two?

[Blessing]

I think this game makes such a good first impression. I have a lot of thoughts as far as like what it's doing as a video game and how much I. I could just watch this as an Amazon show if it was. I didn't I say Amazon just cause like just Invincible. It looks like Invincible's art style looks like Invincible. It reminds me of something like the boys. It feels, I mean it's so much in the ilk of a lot of the superhero parodies that we get nowadays, right? Like things that are kind of, you know, flowing off of. Oh, you've seen this. Oh, you've seen Suicide Squad. Oh, you've seen the Iron man, right? And it's making fun and like kind of doing its own twists on a lot of these things, which we've seen a lot. But what I will say is that even though this is, this is well worn territory, I think this game keeps it very fresh and I am not tired. Like I don't feel a sense of being tired of this thing while playing this game. Right. I think the, I think it has really great writing, I think the characters are really engaging and I think the dialogue is just. Is fantastic. I think the game is really pretty which is where the first impression thing comes from for me. Where as it starts I'm like, wow, if this wasn't a video game, if there was zero interaction to this, I would be fine just watching this as a TV show. But then you get into the video game of it and I like the choices you're making. Obviously with it having this lineage of formerly Telltale people working on this. You get the pop ups that are like this person will remember this and all that stuff. And I want to see how that stuff plays out because. Because I think they set up some really interesting things with that. But even beyond that, you talk about the dispatch part of it and I actually didn't mind how it plays into this. You know, it's so interesting looking at this in contrast to a Telltale or a Life Is Strange. But I'll stick on Telltale because that's where the lineage is. And when you think of the interactivity with Telltale, it is walking around these like limited spaces and like picking up items and maybe those items come into play later on. Like more traditional sort of choose your own adventure game stuff for this game to go. Ah, no, you're not doing any walking around. Like there's no walking around in this game.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing]

Your gameplay is making choices in the dialogue and doing this dispatch thing.

[Greg Miller]

And at the beginning they even say like do you want the cinematic experience? Like you can take all the choice. You can take all the motions out of it of like doing, you know, QTEs or whatever. We can play that for you and you can just make choices.

[Blessing]

That's a good call out. Yeah. So there's QTEs as well, which the game is like do you want to do them or not? I think it's kind of ballsy and that's. I think where there's more of a conversation there as far as. Does that work? Does that not work? Like how does that compare to if you're able to actually control these characters? I really like it though. There's something to it that I think it's deep enough to really actually put you in the role of this dispatcher and making choices and actually having a gameplay flow that is fun in the moment but doesn't overstay its welcome. And there's a lot of flavor there as far as is how they use that to develop this cast of characters that are essentially a suicide squad like cast of villains that are trying to be superheroes or whatever. I think they do a great job with all these things. I come out of this if I'm gonna give it a score with a 9 out of 10.

[Greg Miller]

Oh really?

[Barrett Courtney]

First episode.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, great.

[Blessing]

I think the first two episodes are amazing. I think they're fantastic and I really can't wait to play more.

[Greg Miller]

I love Telltale. I love Telltale games. Back in the day I think so many people know me from Walking Dead or Batman post shows or anything where I've just me and Mitch talking about seasons one or up at Noon or yada yada. So like them being a Bay Area company, I knew Telltale so well in terms of both the experience. You didn't know that.

[Barrett Courtney]

I did not. No idea.

[Greg Miller]

They used to be up in San Rafael.

[Blessing]

Okay.

[Greg Miller]

Rest in peace. But then they rose. No. San Rafael still very much. I got bad news guys. I just got news. No. All that I. I feel in love. So like coming in here especially for them to tackle superheroes. Especially for them to tackle superheroes in a grown up way, a mature way. What. And maybe immature way. But it's what I always say, right? What do I want from when they an invincible game. What did I always want from a Superman game? Give me a Telltale game. We know these guys are all powerful. So give me choices. Am I going to save Lois or am I going to save the Kents and make that matter. And they gave us to a degree with Batman and made interesting choices with the lore back then. Yeah, I was stoked for this. I was excited for this but I was prepared for another Telltale game jumping into it. My first impressions were holy shit does this look good. Holy. I can't believe how well this is running. Telltale Games always ran like trash and I know that's not to put this all on the shoulders of ad hoc they there's a whole bunch of stuff in Mismanagement Studio and yeti that they had nothing to do with. So to get in here and have it actually be that like the music is fucking awesome and feels like I'm watching a Amazon TV show. The visuals look like this. The performances are so good. We've been talking a lot about Jeffrey Wright, Aaron Paul. Laura Bailey's in this of course. Who we know from everything, right? Matthew Mercer, Alana Pierce. Shout out to Alana who does great in this game as well right. Thought Squad who I now know who's amazing. Aaron Yvette who's been in like every tail game forever. It's just they have such a great thing going here for the presentation and what they're doing and the story like episode one being sub an hour even in a gu like you can.

[Barrett Courtney]

I would say both of them are probably 45 each. I replay the blasphemy.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah yeah. And so like you're to the one I read earlier the review from Frasier who's like they cut all the fat and this is like you know it's. You're no filler. 100% true. Like I was in the entire time. The only time I felt myself falling out of it was the dispatching like the gameplay you do in this again Kevin, if you can throw it up. I sent you gameplay pulled from the demo. This is off a full play by gamers little playground When Kevin gets it

[Barrett Courtney]

up through slack gamers little playground.

[Greg Miller]

You go in, you pick who you're putting on the mission. You have to look at what their strengths are on this pentagon here that has like you know fighting, their brain power, their defense, whatever their speed and then you. They have a you know if they're gonna succeed, fail. When you come back with a mission you get XP that you can then put into their points to make the characters better. It's didn't take me out but it was the part where I was like oh man. Full breaks on the story we were doing to go in here which isn't 100 true. Because they do a great job of having all the superheroes you see down there that we're covering but like Golem Prism Coop talk to each other and it's entertaining and it's pushing the plot and it's. It'll pull from what we just did and what choice I just made and into this whole thing. Like the whole thing, it's frictionless because you could fail every mission and keep going. There's not going to be a game over. There's not going to be a thing. But it was for me. Like, oh man, I invisigal said something. There was a great plot point right before this that I'm more interested in getting back to. None of it overstays its welcome. It wasn't long enough for me to feel like, oh man, I don't like this. Whatever. Da da da da da. And again, this is early. It was the tutorial. It was just episode two where you're really doing it. Hopefully it warms up as I make the team and I put more stuff in there. I'll be more stoked with it. But everything around it, I think for me was that to your. I'm amazed. This is amazing.

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

And then this came in and I'm like, well, now we're talking about how do you review a video game versus how do you review a thing. I'm mainly watching even though I'm doing, you know, QTEs in it and stuff. In this hacking game right now for episodes one and two, I'm. I was gonna say I'm 7.58. Like I think the experience of what you're doing here and going through it is probably great. I'm not sold on the gameplay portion necessarily of it and not sold saying it's good. This still is, you know, for some reason, PC gaming, am I right? I booted in here and it looks like maybe my save got copied over wrong or whatever. And I don't have my save. So I'm gonna need to replay episodes one, two, three and four, it turns out. And I'm excited about that. That's not like, oh, what a bummer. It's like, oh, I'll put. I'll get a place, I'm gonna play it on PlayStation, get out, have Jen be there and go through. You know what I mean? Get some trophies. But it's like I'm not bummed out by that. And I think coming back, I had a lot of what you talked blessing about with your demo. When you did the demo, you talked about Finishing it and being like, oh, I didn't realize it was this kind of game. And you went and ran it back. I think me jumping in and now understanding a bit more. Because when you're looking at all the, you know, the ideas here of what a character's strong with. Right. What the duo is strong with, when you put more people in there, that is, that decides if you win or lose. And I wasn't good at that in my first time out.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah.

[Blessing]

To explain it for people who might not be aware.

[Greg Miller]

Right. And also for audio listeners. I'm doing a good job.

[Blessing]

And for audio listeners. Yeah. Like when you're in the dispatch mode, it essentially turns into a management simulation where you're. You have eight different heroes that you're commanding and telling, oh, hey, there's a cat stuck in a tree here. Can you go and do this and save them?

[Barrett Courtney]

Right.

[Blessing]

Oh, hey, there's this vandalism happening over there. And based on what type of help, help people need or what type of thing is happening, you then have this cast of super villains, or formerly super villains, now superhero.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. The idea is you're running basically as it was. We said it was. But yeah, suicide's what. These are villains who are looking to be reformed. So they're here trying to work off

[Blessing]

and they each have their own stats to them. And so it's things like intellect, charisma, mobility. I think strength might be one. Right.

[Barrett Courtney]

And like defense.

[Blessing]

Defense, yeah. And so based off of those stats, you have to read, okay, who's somebody who's best equipped to save a cat out of a tree, basically, who's the person that's going to be able to show up to this big opening of a new area of the city and we need somebody to speak on behalf or whatever you have to make those decisions.

[Barrett Courtney]

Or two people that you can know might be able to work well together to sneak into a thing.

[Blessing]

Exactly. And so as you go, you can also level up characters and maybe increase stats and things like that. You have these different scenarios that, that put. They put you in the role of a 911 dispatcher, essentially. Yeah. Except you have superheroes that you're there that you're throwing out here.

[Greg Miller]

And so, yeah, it's an interesting thing. There's. It's not super deep, but it is like, I feel like there's that thing of like, I didn't understand. Oh, I really should be assigning two people to max it out. I was like, well, I want people on my, my bench. So if another call comes In I don't fail the call. But again, it's very lenient in terms of like leveling up and moving things around and like, I want to experiment more.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah. And talking with the. Or listening to the devs talk. Like a month ago, it was funny hearing them talk about like the. The reaction from the. The Steam demo and then they're. They were saying, like, people take that stuff way more seriously than like, we do in terms of like, how good you need to be at it and like how deep it is and all this stuff. Like, it for them, it sounds like just another fun aspect to like, actually have a gameplay element that makes sense for the story that they're telling and then also, you know, build story around that as well. So, like, I'm really. Again, it's tough to really talk about these. These first two episodes alone. Right. Because a lot of it feels like setup. I'm interested from a gameplay standpoint if there's more like story payoff from this part of the game than just upgrading your characters. Like, you know, they also have stats that like, they have like a leveling system where, you know, the. Let's say Malevola levels up. You can make her give her one charisma point or one strength point or whatever. I wonder if that comes into play of like, oh, if you get certain characters to certain levels by a certain story beat Y, does that unlock or something like that? Like, I'm interested to see if we get payoffs in terms of story and not just gameplay and how that all integrates together. That stuff I'm really excited and interested

[Greg Miller]

for and I guess that that's part of it for me and that you'll see as these episodes go on.

[Barrett Courtney]

Right.

[Greg Miller]

As we get deeper and deeper into the season. Is the idea, Barrett, to your point of. Are the actions I'm doing inside of here going to affect it outside? Because, like, right now, in a perfect world, what I would love to do is that this was a spoiler cast and I say, hey, there was this big choice. Did you do this or that? Like, and what about this little choice

[Barrett Courtney]

like that we should do a full season.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. At the end, those are the permutations I'm the most interested in and not, well, did you win the battle and did the thing? And so are we building to a thing where it's like, oh, shit, I really should have because now there was this big deal and you would assume so, but who knows?

[Blessing]

That's my thing is I think I'm coming out of these dispatch sections not Necessarily thinking about how I affected the game or whatever and more so understanding the characters better. I think this is just an avenue for you to learn who Coupe is or learn who Sonar is and understand invisighal. Like you have have these eight characters that I'm sure are going to be more consequential to the story as you

[Greg Miller]

move forward, especially as you make choices about them.

[Blessing]

Yes. And so like this kind of being your way to interact with all of them at the same time and having them interact with each other while you're doing this thing in between, of dispatching them out, I think works really well in integration to the story and just

[Barrett Courtney]

more of like thinking about how they could play with each other. Like if you make a certain decision in just like the, the story part of it, does that, will that eventually like affect, you know, gameplay stuff here? Right. Like if you decide to be, you know, an asshole to flambe at some point. Like does at one point he say like you tell him to dispatch and he just goes like the other way or something? Right. I'm interested to see like how that could ebb and flow and, and all that stuff. And I'm interested to see like if how deeply they actually thought about, you know, with this being another avenue for storytelling through gameplay, how that all kind of messes with each other. And again, it being the first two episodes, it's kind of hard to see the full vision, which is why I'm like, I think I'm a bit cooler than, you know, seemingly a lot of other people on it, but I'm excited to see what the payoff is.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing is I'm excited for more. I, you know, again, even being like, yeah, the management, I could take or leave. Like I'm still like, I want to go see where the story's going. I think they've done really a great job of making a compelling cast. Like when you go through and actually start getting into the weeds of these people and making the choices with them, like, okay, okay, I'm starting to vibe

[Blessing]

something that's not necessarily factoring into my review of episodes one and two because it's slightly unrelated, but it is very related to the game as a whole. I don't like the episodic thing.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, I want to talk about this.

[Blessing]

Yeah, because I don't know, I guess I see what you potentially benefit as far as having the week to week conversation. I just don't think that's how games work nowadays.

[Greg Miller]

Well, it's an interesting thing that I'd love to talk about right after I remind you about how Kinda Funny works. Of course, we couldn't do this without your support. Pick up a Kinda Funny membership over on patreon.com kindafunny YouTube.com/kind of funny games Apple and Spotify to get all of our shows ad free. Get your daily dose of me and an exclusive podcast series called Greg Way. And of course, get good karma for supporting a small business. But right now you're not using your benefits, so here's a word from our sponsors.

[Blessing]

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[Greg Miller]

And we're back. Of course, as we said at the top of the show, maybe you weren't paying attention though. This is episodic. Episodes one and two dropping tomorrow, Wednesday, October 22nd, and then two episodes all the way down to we're done with seven and eight. The question is is episodic still the right move? My other question and we can tackle them any order is, is dispatch going to sell $30? Is the question here. Obviously we're working with 1 and 2. 7.5 for Barrett and 9 from Bless, 7.5 slash 8 from Greg. On these ones, I think lots unpack, but they're the same. Similar conversation maybe.

[Barrett Courtney]

In terms of selling. I think it was an interesting choice and not to give me, you know, some grace to understand where I'm coming from here. Not to be like, oh, I want the full game now type of thing. But I think if you're looking for this new IP to. To like really hit and to like have people know like my. My best friend Ricky who's like into video games but you know, not super paying attention to them all the time, loves Telltale's wolf among us. Loves this episodic stuff. For him to know about this type of stuff. I think you need that like almost full season review today. Yeah, Maybe not the final episode, but like a full thing of like. So you have outlets like IGN who aren't giving it reviews today.

[Greg Miller]

Do they even review it?

[Barrett Courtney]

I don't think they. I was looking for episodes, so I wonder if outlets like that are waiting for the final episodes to come out in a month. Yeah, and I just think, I think in terms of like a selling marketing beat, like I get wanting to do the conversation conversation week to week where with the audience, but I think to sell and to have an audience, you got to tell them like, hey, the reviewers played this entire thing and they say it's worth it. And they're like, you should be excited for the week to week conversation because it's going to keep you, it's going to keep pulling you. And I think this was a weird, maybe possible misstep into like selling people on jumping in for the first week.

[Blessing]

Yeah, I 100% agree with that. I also wonder, is there. Can you buy this, this just the first episode or just the first two episodes? No, you gotta buy.

[Greg Miller]

I think there's a demo. The chat has been saying that the

[Barrett Courtney]

Steam demo is still up.

[Greg Miller]

According to chat, it's just episode one, I believe.

[Blessing]

Oh, okay. Is that what it. Cause I remember because I think that's another reason why I'm kind of with you, Barrett, as far as it's kind of a weird, I guess like marketing slash, just a progression of how you've done this embargo. Because back when I played the demo for this game, it was basically most of episode two is what the demo I played was. And so, like, for me, it's weird. If I'm ign, I wouldn't review it either until I have the full thing.

[Greg Miller]

Right. I mean, you know, we've talked about this in our content meetings every week, but I mean, behind the curtain here it is that idea of, like, I would love to review Dispatch every week. I would love to. We're not going to do that. I'm worried about what the views of this episode will be, let alone like our. If we were to do.

[Blessing]

If we just do episodes three and

[Greg Miller]

four, it would be just through the. Yeah, you start the. Well, I didn't play episodes one and two, so I'm not gonna three and four or watch three and four. And like, you get into that mix of it. And so I think that then brings us to your question of, like, was episodic a thing anymore? And, like, there's this argument. Sure, that could work in their favor of it's episodic. And if you have two bangers, every week there is a conversation on shows, message boards, discords or whatever that keeps it in the conversation. Yeah. But there's also really easily any time this happens that you fall behind, you buy this, you, you want. You play episodes one and two, three and four, you're busy. Four and five come out and everybody loves it. But I didn't do three and four. I mean, it's like you get into that mix of we're no longer competing just for video game attention. You're competing for everything, whether it be TikTok entertainment or music.

[Blessing]

I think that. I think it work. That works if this is dropping on Amazon Prime. You know what I mean? I think that works if this is dropping as a Netflix video game. But when we're talking about buying the game for $30, you have to then, to bear's point, sell people at the beginning that they're going to play this week to week and like, keep up and do all that stuff. And. And I don't think. I mean, most of the people that are gonna play this are probably gonna play this after all the episodes are out, I'd imagine, because they're gonna watch.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, Chad's been saying that they wanna wait for it.

[Blessing]

And so I think what you're doing then is disjointing the conversation. Right. Like, I think you're. You're making it so that there's not this big wave of, oh, damn, I played through dispatch. Y' all gotta check out this game. It's like, people aren't gonna Be saying that until maybe the end. And then at that point, have you just lost the.

[Greg Miller]

And I. And I worry about it too. On that point of like and I and I. Even the conversation we're having, I feel like is a conversation out of time. Because, like. Like at ign, sure, we would do and do. Hey, we're going to have the discussions between Mitch and Greg about the episode. But like, I don't. IGN and GameSpot don't have any coverage up right now of this review embargo. And that's not knocking them. It's a busy time and they're a huge website and they need to serve the most people. So it's this question of then is there going. I don't feel like there's a place to go to have the conversations if you wanted to have them. I want to have. I love what I've seen. I love ad hoc. I. From what they've done before. I'm gonna be a part of this conversation. I feel like you need a. This is where you go when the episode happens. Then you watch this show, you go to this discord. You go to this channel. I'm sure they have an ad hoc discord. I'm not a Discord person. I want to talk to y' all about it. But if I come in and Barrett had a new Hot Mulligan's album. He didn't play this the night before. It's like, well, okay, when are we gonna do it?

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

And I also think you run the risk of. And this is just basically, this is like how fucked it is to try to market a video game. You run the risk of it is a banger. And these sites are covering it every week for the next month. At what point does the person who is waiting to see if they should buy it just get sick of seeing Discord thumb or dispatch thumbnails and headlines and stories. They don't want to watch it because they're waiting for the full thing. And then they just. I don't know.

[Barrett Courtney]

That's why. That's why I think, like, it would have been smarter to do again what Netflix and like HBO will sometimes do. And TV shows is like, here's the entire season except the finale, you know?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

Just so you can have like a general sense of like, oh, this entire season has a sauce. Maybe it drops off by the. Maybe the final. The finale it all up. But, like, you have a full understanding of what the season is so you can tell the audience, like, hey, this is something worth to check in on every Week.

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

And so I, I just, I, I do think that this very important first bit beat a day before release, I think was a big misstep.

[Blessing]

I have an article here from IGN, Ryan McCaffrey, September 16th, where he has a quote from people from Dispatch talking about the episodic thing where they say, quote, we think the release format is an underrated part of the player experience. Ad Hoc co founder and Dispatch creative director Nick Herman said episodic is a format that makes the story easy to slip into, easy to keep up with and easy to share with friends. We want the launch of Dispatch to be appointment gaming, but with the weekly cadence of a TV show, as opposed to asking people to wait months between each release. And I, I understand it. I just don't think that's how video games work. I think that's my thing with it. I think for. Honestly, I think if you were going to do this, I would have really targeted the streaming community of, hey, play this live with your audience.

[Barrett Courtney]

Well, let's talk about the cast then.

[Blessing]

Sure.

[Barrett Courtney]

Because you do have Alana Pierce, you do have Moist Critical. You do have Jackseptice. Yeah, exactly. So I, I do think there to be a bit of, hey, we've got, we do have these big streamers who will probably play their game and hopefully that, that helps in terms of, you know, it also being a B. And yeah, you have Thought Squad in there. You have Young Gravy as one of the voices, you know. And so like, they, they do have a cast. And I think that cast is also a big marketing thing.

[Greg Miller]

And this is such a weird push and pull of what it is and what it is to make an indie game in this day and age. It's like, who are you trying to serve? Right. You can't try to mark go to everybody. That's just not how it works. So I opened their discord here. They have just shot just shy, excuse me, of 10,000 members, right? So it's like, if you're trying to serve that audience that is going to come here and is going to nerd out and is going to talk and stream on their channels, like, yeah, I don't know, this is clearly something every video game struggles with. How do you capture market share and attention and keep it going?

[Barrett Courtney]

And I do think the, like, I'm more coming at the criticism of the episodic thing. Just more of like the marketing standpoint. I think in terms of like the audience thing, I do get the passion, I do get their belief and understand their belief in this formula. And having an audience in a community that comes together every week to talk about it. Maybe it's, you know, they're not going to the igns and game spots to check in on reviews, but that's because they're just going to have conversations with, you know, their fellow friends that they've made in this community. Right. Which I think is like, I think is admirable for them to try for like their first game out from Telltale to see if like, like if we can do episodic and actually have it be consistent for the first time in forever. Because we're not working on an engine that is killing us. And you know, we, we have a specific vision and we're using it in an engine that we can use to actually build something that works around a story that we want to tell and we tell it within a month and it's done. Like, I do want to give them like the, the leeway to see if that works for them.

[Blessing]

See, I think my thing is because I, even when I ask about episodes, I ask it, I think even less so from the point of marketing and more so for the point of does it serve the actual game. And I think my, I think part of my beef with it comes back to the original point. You were talking about Baird and your first thoughts in the review being that the pacing can be kind of weird in this game where we're talking about 45 minute episodes and a chunk of that is eaten up by the dispatch part of dispatch.

[Barrett Courtney]

Right.

[Blessing]

Like, you know, the actual gameplay part of the game, which I'm okay with. I think that's fun. But I think what that leaves you with is 20 something minutes of story, something around there. And so when you're talking about giving me two episodes a week, for me I'm like, I don't, I wouldn't really want to wait that long. And I'm saying this is somebody who. I have the first four episodes. But I stopped myself because I wanted to just have the first two for this review because I didn't want to go ahead or get ahead myself. But yeah, like, for me I'm kind of like, is this something I would wait every week for? Is this something I would, would want to have that break in scene? Not really. Yeah, I want to just, I, I

[Barrett Courtney]

want to sell me on it. And that, that was my big disappointment for these first two episodes is like again, you know, the, these first two episodes just feel like the trailer of like they're, they're selling you on the, the, the character, the Premise, all of this stuff.

[Blessing]

Yes.

[Barrett Courtney]

And I was waiting for that like that good hook to have me. Like if we, if we were the audience and we weren't reviewing this and you know, we didn't have early review copy, I wanted that final hook to be like, like, oh, I can't wait till next week. And like, I want to think about like all the possibilities where I think like the how episode two ends. And I again, I won't say anything. It's like, I don't think it's interesting enough.

[Blessing]

I agree.

[Barrett Courtney]

And it's like, oh, like I needed this to hit more just because. And I, I think that's again, to not say anything specific. It's more of like not where they come at it from a superhero story, but more so from like an office comedy thing.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

And that I just don't think it's like a very interesting or new like avenue to go down where I'm like, okay, I was, I was hoping for something here's different.

[Greg Miller]

A little bit of a counter to it and it's jumping off of Blessings. Last point there. When these do come around every Wednesday for the next three weeks. Right. Especially if I'm gonna replay them all now, I will be excited, I think, if I don't fall behind. Because it is that idea of as short as my gaming time is. Oh man. This thing that I can accomplish in 45 minutes. Yes. That I can do with Jen before she goes to bed. And I like that will work for me. And I know that everybody's different but like in terms of the amount of times I sit down and it is like I'm on a review and I know I have double digit hours in front of me. Ugh. Whereas like this one being like, well, let's do this. Knock that out in between things. Similar to how, you know, I was excited for skate of like jump in and do three challenges before I do the next thing or when I'm done with the next review, jump in. You know, I mean, yeah. Have that little palate cleanser skate a ween today. Can't wait. Like, yeah, like that. I think there is an angle to that and it. But I think it'll almost be like a. Oh, I forgot about it. I'm not on the edge of my seat. Like I got to know what happens next. Oh my God.

[Barrett Courtney]

There are interesting threads. But again, like, I think that last beat needed to really like, oh man, I need to play Episode 3 right now type of feeling which, which I didn't get.

[Blessing]

And that for me that is like. That is, I think, something that makes episodic worthwhile nowadays. You know what I mean? Like, we're in the streaming era. Everything is, hey, we're dropping the whole season once.

[Greg Miller]

If they stop doing that now. Because I was eating them a lot.

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

Sometimes they're shaking it up, you know, Andor does three, like, what was it? Three, four episodes.

[Blessing]

Oh, yeah. Stranger Things doing the same thing.

[Greg Miller]

Did you know Diego Luna is named Andor?

[Blessing]

Wait, what are you saying? What are you saying to me right now?

[Greg Miller]

Andor isn't a planet. It's the guy from Rogue One.

[Blessing]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Ben got a Lego and I saw the name there. I was like, ah, you didn't know that.

[Blessing]

You thought you. Okay, we know it.

[Greg Miller]

I guess I've never watched Andor. I watched Rogue One.

[Blessing]

I'll hold that again because I think I probably thought the same thing before I started watching Andor. And then they called me casting Andor. I was like, oh, yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

It still upsets me that you call Ahsoka Queen Amidala.

[Greg Miller]

That's just a joke, though. That's just a joke, though, to make people know it works. This is a real thing that happened.

[Blessing]

To get back to the point I was about to make, though. Yeah. Like, I think the. We're in a place where. Yeah, like, they're going back and forth. Stranger Things is doing the same thing, but even stranger. Last season of Stranger Things, which did a similar thing of.

[Barrett Courtney]

I think they did like half season.

[Blessing]

Half a season. Right. But that half season ended with a cliffhanger. Like, not.

[Barrett Courtney]

That was a good one.

[Blessing]

And not that everything needs a cliffhanger necessarily, but you need.

[Barrett Courtney]

You need some hook.

[Blessing]

You need to make me go, damn, I can't wait for the next thing. Right.

[Five Hour Energy Announcer]

And I.

[Blessing]

And I still can't wait for it. Cuz I'm giving us a nine out of ten. Right. I really, really enjoyed these first two episodes.

[Greg Miller]

There was a game that did episodic, but it wasn't episodic. It was all Life is strange 3

[Blessing]

Life of strange True colors. Yeah, I did that.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, maybe. I remember they had great cliffhangers where

[Blessing]

I was doing the polish, for sure.

[Greg Miller]

I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this thing and stop. And then I was like, oh, I got to see how this starts. And then you'd be into the next one.

[Blessing]

Like, this is, for me is right now. This is a game that I would have liked to binge. And I. I think your point about, you know, if you're not like, if you. If you're not buried in things or like you're going to be ready to play this if you're not, I think that's doing a lot of heavy lifting, Right. Like, I think whenever it is for video games. Oh, yeah. When the next thing drops, I'll be there for it. I think that fails most of the time.

[Greg Miller]

I'm not. It is doing heavy lifting. I don't know. I don't think that's where we are anymore. I think it's way harder to capture attention and keep attention. So I do worry about this. I think you can look no further than dlc. We talk about this all the time, right? If people who buy games get the season pass, get the deluxe edition, and they never open the dlc, they never download the dlc and they loved that game. It's just. Just that they never actually finished it. They put too much there or they've just. They're so far gone, they turned on the dlc. It's like, how do I play this anymore? I don't remember it. Those aren't the issues here, which I think works to its advantage of. It could be you miss three weeks or you fucking do episodes one and two, and then a year from now, like, all right, you could jump back in because this is just swiping the stick and like, you know, very easy qt.

[Blessing]

That's the thing is, I think the thing that it has going for it is, for the episodic thing is that it is such a. A frictionless game. Right? It is like it. This can damn near damn near just be a TV series. Like, the interaction is limited until you get to the dispatch stuff. But I think that does kind of work for being something that's easy to turn on and go, all right, you know, two episodes, two new episodes are out. Let's put on some dispatch and play it real quick and kind of be done with the Internet.

[Barrett Courtney]

One thing I want to circle back to is the cast. Just because someone was like, oh, oh, content creators being. This is selling me less on the game. I would say don't count them out, because I think they're actually pretty well cast because I know they're fantastic. People can have a certain feeling about, like, well, you know, we could have gotten actual, like, voice actors in here and all this stuff. But I. I think they're, like, well utilized and I don't think they overstay their welcome. Like Charlie Moist critical voices. The. The bat sonar dude.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

And he has like, maybe like six or seven. Seven Lines. Right.

[Greg Miller]

It's a lot of the throwaway stuff you're getting inside of these things. Aaron, Paul, Aaron, Yvette and Laura Bailey and Jeffrey. That's the cat.

[Barrett Courtney]

And you can tell, like, Laura Bailey is one of your suicide Squad people. It's like, oh, that's the one voice actor. She's gonna be important. And everybody else is just maybe satiric. But again, after only two episodes, maybe, you know, maybe I'm underselling of, like, how big they're gonna be, but, yeah, you also have young gravy in there who, like, from my understanding, is like, kind of a social media musician dude. I don't know, but it's like, that man's not a voice actor. But, like.

[Greg Miller]

But here's my thing is I've played plenty of games, and I've been in games where I shouldn't be in that game, but they put me. And I don't. Everybody I've heard here, nobody. I've been like, o, you're not a real voice.

[Five Hour Energy Announcer]

No.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah. Like, everybody fits their role, like, well. But again, I'm interested to see, like, do they continue to have this level of just kind of like, oh, they're just talking a little bit during the dispatch sections or, you know, do they get more character stuff? Do they get more. Do they become more important in the story? I do want to shout out, there is one scene with either Samoan or Hawaiian character in the game that Alyssa had fallen asleep right before I got to the scene, and I had. Yeah. So I. I went back to that scene to have her watch it. It's the voiced by the rocks stunt double. Oh, and he's from Honolulu. And they just, like. It really felt like they just didn't even write the scene. They're just like, just. Just talk. Just go like, it is full on, like, pigeon. And it is hilarious. And they do such a good job of, like, letting him do his thing. And that was like, a standout scene for me. So I just wanted to show out out his performance because right now his character seems like a bit of a smaller character. But then I'll be interested to see, like, how important he becomes and how, like, off script or whatever, they'll let him go. Because there are some. There's some deep polls where I'm like, oh, that. That's stuff I've only heard while Alyssa's also talking to people.

[Blessing]

I know we do. We. We dove deep into the episode of conversation, but, like, I can't stress enough how much my love and adoration of this experience so far for the first two episodes is so carried by just the story and the performances of the characters. Like every scene I'm in like this. I'm liking this as much as I like an Invincible, which is not what I. For me that's such a high bar for what I get out of the Invincible show. And I know what everybody gets out of the Invisible show. But this is doing such a good job at being one of those and I can't commend them enough for like how good the writing is in this game.

[Greg Miller]

A thousand percent. I'm right there with you on all of that. Yeah, it's just that gameplay where I'm like, I'm not sure if I'm going to be all about this for the rest of the episode. Episodes.

[Blessing]

No, fair enough.

[Greg Miller]

But you'll find out.

[Barrett Courtney]

Last thing we played on Steam Deck. How did it work for you, Bliss? Someone was wondering.

[Blessing]

It worked well for me on Steam. It worked perfectly for me on Steam Deck.

[Barrett Courtney]

Okay. I was getting some screen flashing every once in a while. Like just like frames of black every once in a while. And then like even having like the Steam Deck plugged into the like dock for the the tv. Like besides that it like works pretty well. I did thought, I did think I was getting a visual bug for some of the like chance roll things.

[Greg Miller]

Okay.

[Barrett Courtney]

In the dispatch stuff. But then looking at the gameplay from the demo, it looks like that was actually on purpose and like it just looks the way they present some of the things that you help with. They only show like a piece of the stat, like a skill bar or whatever. And that some of that presentation was a little bit weird. But yeah, besides the every once in a while frames of black ran really well on Steam.

[Greg Miller]

Nice. Hell yeah. Okay, so to round it back out for the first two episodes, Barrett's got a 7, 5. Bless has got a 9. I'm somewhere between a 7, 5 and 8. Probably more to 8. Like I said, I think amazing everything. And then the gameplay is when I was like, I don't know. Yeah, we'll see how it nets out over the next few weeks. I'm sure even if we don't do reviews, you'll hear us chatter on it about games, dailies and yeah, I'd love to at the end of this come

[Barrett Courtney]

back do like a spoiler cast, full season review type of.

[Greg Miller]

Oh yeah. Everybody, this has been another episode of the kinda funny Gamescast, if you didn't know. Each and every weekday we come to you with the biggest topics in video games whether they be reviews, previews or just topics we need to talk about. If you like that of course pick up a kinda funny membership patreon.com kinda funny YouTube.com kindafunnygames apple Spotify you can toss us 10 bucks get all of our content ad free. Get your daily dose of me in a series we call Greg Way and of course get good karma for supporting an 11 person small business. We will remember that your programming day is not over. If you're watching live they're about to play RV there yet. RV like recreational vehicle RV there?

[Blessing]

Yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

Do you think it's like Dracula?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah maybe. That'd be cool huh? We got a bit going on Dracula.

[Blessing]

I don't know why I thought you

[Barrett Courtney]

like Ryan Gosling

[Greg Miller]

if you aren't watching live. YouTube.com kindafunnygames podcast services you can catch everything later. For now now until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.