I haven't caught up much with Sci-Fi lately. Time to change that, what a nice time to get started when I already had a binge fit with The Expanse TV series. Is it the Game of Thrones of Sci-Fi shows? Despite the book writers working under George R.R Martin, really not there yet.
So where does that put this game? Well, it's a Telltales game. That's why. They've comeback from the grave and had a co-developer, Deck Nine to deliver an actually solid experience and that after they made the announcement they're working on the sequel to Wolf Among Us. It's not a mixed bag, but I do have certain reservations. Should that worry me? I don't know, let's find out.
Unsettling Times Ahead
If there's a big point of interest in The Expanse stories, it's always something to do with the Belters. This prequel to the show, not the book, follows Camina Drummer as an XO in the Artemis ship before she became an XO for Tycho station. But with a new set of characters.
The first interesting thing I see after the cutscenes end out is that the game is mostly played in third-person. With unskippable dialogue and gameplay cutscene, because repeating something even if accidentally interacting is kind of a big-no. This is old game design flow that for some reason they haven't worked around in this one.
But after being done talking to the crewmembers and seeing the game's world building and characters being faithful to the source material, I've decided to check out what else is. And it opens up to exploring derelict ships as a scavenger should. I actually don't mind this part.
The first ship I get to explore, has various items that provide information over what happened in the ship, but also has items to scavenge and collect that comes to use in lots of ways. I like that I get to use a blowtorch to open stuff up by pressing more buttons too.
And the interesting part about the ship our crew search is that it's a UNN ship, just recently launched and a pirate crew savagely attacked them to the point of shooting their heads off. This was foreshadowed when we showed up in the cockpit with floating disembodied heads. Talk about creating tension all the unsettling ways. And the stuff just gets better.
The thing is though, zero g gravity movement and camera while are fine, when using KB/M, it's designed differently, and for some reason drives me to feel nauseas. Which made it more difficult to look around the wreckage and find things, I did get a second objective to find a laser crystal.
Picking Sides Of The Fences
Of course, after finishing up with the ship and finding the thing we were looking for, I've arrived at a junction point of the story where the decision I make there sets course for how things will role out. It's not going to change the main story entirely, just how it'll play out.
Typical Telltales game, but the writing and depth that the characters have each time made me reflect on every decisions I would make. This, and finding interesting items effects the outcome of each chapter. Chapter is having to deal with someone stabbing you on the back, and being in charge of a mutiny, I get to decide whether the captain stays locked in the brig or is spaced out.
To get invested in something like this, obviously the writing and voice acting has to keep up there, and it really does. Hell, for a game that could have easily followed today's terrible trend, it did good keeping the substance, and making sure it's well grounded in its narrative.
Which is why episode 2 is how things get interesting. It starts to flesh out more of the crewmates, depending if I made choices and got things enabling me to connect with each of them. Makes sense, given how limited things are in space, and scavengers looting places can help them get stuff like food, oxygen, drugs curving other drug addictions, mushroom seasoning, etc.
The next place I got to explore is between 3 derelict ships from Mars, Earth, and Belter. The kind of battle that ensued where both Earth and Mars wanted something the Belters have, but the other party being victims of both, refused and so battle ensued where nobody won.
I did mention the exploration being the neat part of the game, but man, sometimes finding second objective is such a headache. In this 2nd episode, finding medicine for a Belter crewmate dealing with drug overdose, really ticked me off. I explored like 4 different Medbays, and it only took a YouTube video to find out that it was hovering outside of all the ships.
I wouldn't blame Telltale for this, considering Deck Nine helped them out with this only for the third-person mechanics. But I've even seeing areas outside the game wall, and that's because the camera doesn't always do well. It took time to find that crystal, no wonder only 45% who played found it, funny enough, only 30% found the drug to calm the angriest Belter in the ship.
Who's The Real Belter Now
Alright, some gameplay issues aside, and somewhat a fling with one of the ladies of the crew, we reached the one destination pinpoint by the data retrieved in the first episode. It took 3/5 to reach here, and let me tell you already, all the choices really lead to climactic moments of the game.
We found an abandoned station that turned out to be a facility experiment on children with extensive bioengineering using alien lifeforms. This takes place 3 years before the show, so already seeing where JPM's crusade has taken people. And for Drummer, this place gets real personal.
Someone started firing at us, and queue one of the known QTE sequences of pressing or holding a button on time to take the guy out clean as possible. After going through his data, turns out my crew weren't the first to arrive here, and sure enough others are looking for the place as well.
Soon as they finish up, and thank god for no secondary objective item seeking, we find the MK Core. But Drummer instead of seeing money, saw that it was a terrible WMD created using the lives of innocent children and saw fit to destroy it so no one uses. Took some time to convince the Martian booty call that, but she listened.
Of course, the angry Belter and his twin didn't. The nice twin got his leg stuck in the first episode, and I chose to save it instead of the cargo. I got his brother the meds he needed, and this was the thanks I got. Even though he tried spacing me, didn't work out, and the Martian wasn't killed. Least not yet.
The Telltale game is alright for a cheap entry into Expanseverse. There are multiple ways things could go out. I could have pissed off the pilot, who has serious anger issues. Could have made things worse with the Twins, could have kept the captain and see where the story goes with him, and there was an option to create animosity with the Martian.
Should I be worried about the Wolf Among Us sequel they're working on? Maybe half of the reasons here being probably. Telltale does storytelling really well. If anything, I wish more was done, runtime felt short. The entire 5 episodes already out, and I had a blast playing, especially with 2nd and 3rd.
I am trying a new format, I hope this one works for you guys, will continue to write if so
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