Dispatch | Star Wars: Rebels, Season Three
- DB
- 7 hours ago
- 6 min read
Good vs evil everywhere this week, and it's all good.
This is what I've been playing and watching over the last seven days...
MOVIES
I still really like this film, even if it's not among my favourites of Christopher Nolan's movies, solely because I think this may be the movie of his that loses the most watching it at home when compared to the big screen.
No idea why I picked this out to watch again, but it's still as much fun as the last time I did so, even though it really isn't and wasn't the 'saviour of cinema' it was made out to be on release.
GAMES
Dispatch
Game summary: 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. (Steam)
Dispatch is a really good, verging on excellent, game that has some flaws that stop it achieving greatness in this series of episodes, but could be ironed out to possibly produce something incredible if a potential second season comes along.
To start with, it looks great from start to finish with the art style and animation complementing each other beautifully, although somewhat spoiled in major action sequences where you have to divert your attention away what's happening to complete QTEs (assuming you have them turned on).
This is one of the issues that can be ironed out, with simple single button presses or movements replacing anything timed so you can more easily follow the action rather than waiting for a QTE to shrink to the right point before being able to do anything.
Dispatch also sounds great too for the most part, with a huge number of major voiced roles and excellent casting to play them all, even if the sound mixing was a bit wonky for one of the characters in the first two episodes released - I imagine deadlines were approaching and is literally not an issue in the other six episodes that followed.
A special mention for Erin Yvette, who I think is vastly underappreciated by many - I loved her as Sasha in Tales from the Borderlands, Snow White in The Wolf Among Us, and Alex in Oxenfree, and she's equally wonderful here as Blonde Blazer.
That said, the music didn't really land with me, especially with the main theme feeling pretty generic and easily the worst part of the climactic battle in episode 8 for me.
The gameplay itself is pretty simple, mostly consisting of dialogue choices and QTEs, so most people should be able to pick Dispatch up and enjoy it without any major gaming experience at all, which is always a plus.
Saying that, there's a lot of swearing, blood, multiple dicks out and a pretty explicit masturbatory fantasy, so you might not want to expose younger children to this just yet.
I do have a few gripes with the story progressing as and when the plot demands it rather than because of logic or anything character-driven, but I don't imagine most people will care because the biggest enjoyment of Dispatch is how great the characters are.
Again, the voice-acting is great but the developers, AdHoc Studio, managed to make them all not just distinctive from each other so as to be enjoyable on their own merits, but also to blend so well as a group despite their differences, which is a really tricky thing to pull off and yet made to look easy here.
Another minor issue for me was the over-sensitivity of navigating the hacking sections, specifically when trying to avoid antiviruses - and having my avatar move either too far or too little and forcing me to repeat a section.
This is a really minor problem as it only set me back 10-15 seconds each time, but maybe it can be refined a little if only to stop one misreading of the controls from being a failed attempt.
Not wanting to end on a criticism, I just want to repeat how much I enjoyed Dispatch and am glad I waited for the entire season to be out because each episode is only around an hour long, making it pretty quick to get through and I enjoyed each outing so much that having to wait a week for two new episodes would've been torture!
Dispatch is verging on being an excellent game, and I really hope we get a second season with these characters (and third and fourth and fifth...) because they are just so much fun to spend time with. [8/10]
Also currently playing: 911 Operator, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Slay the Spire
TV
Star Wars: Rebels, Season Three
Season summary: Ezra and Sabine take on new roles and challenges as the rebels prepare for their biggest mission yet—a direct assault on the Empire. (Wookiepedia)
Episodes 1 + 2, “Steps Into Shadow”
Nice to see Grand Admiral Thrawn show up as the next major protagonist; less excited about Ezra’s dabbling with the Dark Side making him feel more like a moody teen.
Episode 3, “The Holocrons of Fate”
A decent enough episode, although setting up a meeting with a familiar face in the future with the mention on ‘twin suns’.
Episode 4, “The Antilles Extraction”
A pretty throwaway episode about Wedge Antilles joining the Rebellion with Sabine’s help.
Episode 5, “Hera’s Heroes”
A proper introduction to Thrawn as antagonist, happy to let the heroes have the odd win if he gains some insight from it.
Episode 6, “The Last Battle”
A really great Clone Wars-centric episode with a struggling Rex reluctantly teaming with battle droids to take on the Empire.
Episode 7, “Imperial Supercommandos”
The episodes focused around Sabine and/or Mandalorians really just don’t work for me and this one was no exception.
Episode 8, “Iron Squadron”
A worse version of the DS9 episode “Valiant” – I’m hoping this episode leads to something much, much bigger otherwise this is entirely skippable.
Episode 9, “The Wynkahthu Job”
Another throwaway episode – Hondo is starting to become as irritating as he was during Clone Wars…
Episode 10, “An Inside Man”
Kallus is revealed as the Rebel informant, Fulcrum, in a return to form combining with a return to Lothal and another glimpse of Thrawn’s ruthlessness.
Episode 11, “Visions and Voices”
A return to Dathomir and the confirmation that Maul and Ezra are both seeking the same answers without realising it, albeit for entirely different reasons.
Episodes 12 + 13, “Ghosts of Geonosis”
An interesting return to the location of Episode II’s climax and the return of Saw Guerrera, who continues to be one of the most complex characters in Star Wars.
Most of the time he’s helpful, but his extremism drags him into almost complete villainy here, even threatening to carry out a genocide to get his way before reigning his impulses in.
Episode 14, “Warhead”
A fun episode with Zeb being forced to work with Chopper and AP-5 to protect their base – I love those droids so I loved this episode and wow at the sight of that Star Destroyer going up in flames…
Episode 15, “Trials of the Darksaber”
Wow, a Sabine-centric episode that I really enjoyed, especially getting to learn more about her past.
Episode 16, “Legacy of Mandalore”
I really enjoyed Sabine’s development here, even though it means her leaving the team… for now.
Still can’t stand Mandalorians though – can’t we resurrect Revan to drive their society back into the gutter again?
Episode 17, “Through Imperial Eyes”
A really great episode filled with bluffs and double bluffs, ending with both sides thinking they have the upper hand – man, Thrawn is great!
Episode 18, “Secret Cargo”
Effectively a ‘part two’ to Andor’s “Welcome to the Rebellion” and appropriately serious as a result, with some great space action and the birth of the Rebel Alliance – great episode.
Episode 19, “Double Agent Droid”
While I do like AP-5 and Chopper, this episode is easily the least I’ve liked them and, with most of the main crew missing for most of the episode, it’s a pretty shit follow-up to “Secret Cargo”
Episode 20, “Twin Suns”
Holocrons. Tatooine. Obi-Wan Kenobi vs Maul for the last time. “He will avenge us.” A twin suns sunset. The Force theme. Fucking epic.
Episodes 21 + 22, “Zero Hour”
Lots of action. Then lots more. Then even more on top of that. Thrawn was so close to victory and pretty much ending the Rebellion…
Star Wars: Rebels' third season is a definite step-up from the first two, mainly due to never feeling aimless for any real length of time, and being able to more clearly place it in time thanks to the now-existing Andor links only helps. [8/10]
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