Review – Batman: The Enemy Within Episode 1: The Enigma
- Platforms: Xbox One,PS4 (Reviewed), PC, Mobile
- Developer: Telltale Games
- Publisher: Telltale Games
- Release Date: August 8th, 2017
Last year’s Batman Telltale series was a bit of a roller coaster, in more ways than one. The series featured some unique and original plot lines never seen in any form of Batman media, however the story occasionally took a nonsensical turn. The game also started out relatively strong technically as well, but the later episodes were marred with massive bugs and framerate drops that really put a souring finish on the first season. The Caped Crusader is back once again in season 2 of Batman: The Telltale Series, entitled The Enemy Within, as Batman must take on an all-new wave of villains terrorizing Gotham.
Episode 1 of The Enemy Within takes place quite some time after the events of the first season. The crime rate in Gotham is at an all-time low thanks to the partnership of the GCPD and Batman, and Wayne Enterprises has returned to its former glory with stocks at a record high, now that Bruce Wayne is back in his rightful place as CEO. Everything seems to be balancing out, until we are quickly introduced to Batman’s latest adversary: The Riddler. While staking out another potential threat at a casino, Bruce finds himself in the wrong place at the right time, as a hostage situation rapidly develops with The Riddler at the helm of the attack.
This version of The Riddler is quite a bit different than what we’re used to seeing. On first glance you’ll notice he has a far less comical look about him, and he’s much older than previous renditions of the character. It is established very early on in the episode that The Riddler was a notorious criminal back in the days of Thomas Wayne and Carmine Falcone’s reign on Gotham, and has been dormant for several years. Robin Atkin Downes does an excellent job lending his voice to the character, and the more serious character design that slightly resembles Christopher Waltz is an excellent touch.
The Riddler is not the only new face encountered in The Enigma. We are also introduced to the hard-nosed director of “The Agency”, Amanda Waller, who is slowly but surely pushing newly crowned GCPD Commissioner Jim Gordon out of the scene. There are also some returning faces from the last season, mainly John Doe, who is surely on his way to becoming The Joker we all expect him to eventually be.
One of the major improvements to Batman: The Telltale Series is how streamlined the large scale combat sequences are. In the previous season when Batman was met with an entire room of thugs to smash, and there were many objects in the environment to incorporate into your beatdowns, Batman would link each enemy to each object in a methodical attack plan. This season, at least for the first episode, all of these decisions are made on the fly with a choice between two button prompts to choose your attack, making each choice instinctual, and in the process speeding up the pace of the game. The engaging crime scene investigation mechanic returns from the previous season, with the aftermath of plenty of The Riddler’s deadly puzzles to piece together and examine.
As mentioned previously, the latter half of the first season of Batman: The Telltale Series featured some game-breaking bugs and framerate lags that really spoiled the game’s finale. Returning players from the first season will be glad to hear that this is one, if not the smoothest running Telltale episodes in recent memory. While we can only speak for the Playstation 4 version of the game, we can safely say we experienced no major framereate drops, out of sync dialogue, or any of the other issues that plagued previous episodes in the series.
With a much-improved technical performance, plenty of new threats to Gotham, and plenty of small plot lines brewing throughout the episode, The Enemy Within’s first installment, The Enigma, is a must-play for players who have completed the first season and are looking to dive back into the mind of Bruce Wayne.
