A game on a 2012 iMac bootcamp running Windows 7. It isn’t perfect, but it works. I can run GTA IV on the thing, so it isn’t the worst hardware in the world. So I pre-purchased Telltale’s new Batman game, because evidently I’m one of those morons who still pre-orders games. I figure, hey, Telltale are one of my favourite developers, even if they do almost constantly fuck up their releases with sudden launch date changes, engine problems, general disorder – no way that’s gonna happen again, right?
Batman goes live – holy shit! – I download and install it. I breathe a sigh of relief. Thank you sweet lord above, hath you blessed me with a working Telltale release? My hands shake as I boot into big picture mode, launch the game…there is an awesome opening logo with Batman looking cool as shit. I smile.
Problems erupt at the main menu. There’s a rotating 3D model that switches between Batman and Bruce Wayne – and my machine is acting as if it’s running Crysis (which, incidentally, it can) on max. My room rises in temperature so rapidly that Satan himself asks to turn the AC down. The game isn’t even fullscreen, it’s a little square in the corner. Sweat runs down my forehead and stings my eye, like the bitter regret of £17 gone from my bank account.
I make the game fullscreen, it runs like shit. I make it 1080, it runs like shit. I make it windowed, non-widescreen, 800 x 600, it runs like shit. I boot the game – it crashes. I boot again, the story starts with some audio but frozen video. Scene changes occur once the previous audio track ends. People ‘move’ like pictures move using a flipbook.
I exit the game, request a refund. No more. I slam my fists on the table and call for a curse upon Telltale’s collective houses. I replayed Walking Dead four times due to a save deleting bug. I waited months upon months for episode two of Wolf Among Us. I love Telltale’s stories but the studio is beyond incompetent at this point. Why the hell is the PC version so botched? Steam forums are filled with these issues, as they are with every Telltale release. How much longer will we put up with such shoddy, bug-filled, issue-ridden releases from a studio that releases the same game every few months with a different IP on top?
Everyone knows that Telltale are still riding the wave of success the first season of Walking Dead gave them – and for good reason, it’s arguably one of the best ‘interactive narratives’ ever made. But not much happens in Telltale games, and little has changed since this release. The engine still hangs between scene changes, character models are still stiff and jilted, honestly the games don’t run as you’d expect from a studio seemingly on top of the world. These guys made a story mode for Minecraft! This new release is Batman! Where is the technical care?
At some point, enough will have to be enough. I won’t be playing Telltale’s Batman until I can pick it up for a fiver in a Steam sale. I’m tired of giving my money to a studio with seemingly zero regard for their fan base beyond taking on as many projects as possible and promising the engine will be better next time.
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