Telltales The Expanse Episode 1: Unraveling the Secrets of The Expanse - Review

if the best Telltale Games are known for anything it's telling a dramatic story despite the choices the players will make but also finding out ways to augment the story due to those same choices if a world in a fiction is known for hard choices it has to be the expanse the story Humanity exploring the solar system of the belters living in the darkness of mid-space consistently at odds with the earthers in a stalemated back and forth that reflects a narrative tradition built on the fundamentals of History a space-based revolutionary war if you will that gave the books and the show a fertile space to tell stories and those stories brought us some fantastic characters not the least of which is Kamina drummer and telltale's prequel to the TV show explores a chunk of her past and a chunk of my past is wrapped up in YouTube If you guys get a chance give it a thumbs up check out the channel and subscribe hit notify all and you can see not only the past but the future games that I'll be covering now you'd think hey everyone's in space not a lot can be seen or heard or found but as the books and the shows and this Telltale Game are going to prove e even in the middle of nowhere someone is going to get in trouble now the expanse episode 1 starts with a flash forward to the crew and it's pretty obvious things are going spectacularly well because the crew is putting their captain in the airlock and getting ready to eject him and just when you think you're going to be able to hit the trigger and expect a quick time to choose between airlock and the obviously evil SOB or well airlocking him because let's be honest it's the expanse no one doesn't get airlocked but unexpectedly the game flashes forward eight hours prior to the crew finding a damaged ship in the orbit of IO and going aboard to find out what happened and steal everything on board this is an excellent way to start a game because it really does allow for you to work within the story of that character and also have that pavlovian moment in your future where you get to drop somebody into space just waiting out there as a tantalizing end moment to episode number one and make no mistake you can feel that this is an episodic game it hinges on the episodic structure of all the Telltale Games prior but this time with a much shorter deep space trip between each around two weeks between each episode episode the episodes are shorter as well a bit over 45 minutes each and this review is for the first however short I like the idea of timed releases and letting the fiction sit a bit like a water cooler moment if you don't like that then diving in when it's all done is easily something you can do in a far shorter amount of time now graphically this is a huge step up from their prior games closer to the full resolution High detail cut scenes and games that we see versus that cartoony off-kilter caricature that we've seen in past Telltale Games it doesn't mean it's not without the embellished moments bits or unique looks to characters it just feels like they're better proportioned and certainly easier to read than prior games though animation is still bare bones in the normal gameplay sections in the action and narrative scenes it plays very well and about where you would expect if anything the game is a bit harmed by something I didn't expect and that's that the game is brighter than the show ever was when exploring derelict craft in shows or movies Shadows play tricks the tension versus the feeling of safety can be directly relied upon to play off the brightness of any one seen all of the expanses heavily lit even the darkest parts of the craft the crew investigate and it takes a bit of the suspense out I would suggest you go in and lower the gamma good deal when playing as it helps the atmosphere not look like a TV show from the 80s but more like the expanse itself did regardless I actually like the look of the game and I think they did a very good job reflecting the fiction in the ways that they wanted to also in this episode the tight pacing the good movement system and a Slicker design helped the few choices that you make come more quickly and seem like they matter more with a couple huge ones that leave lasting scars on you and the people around you regardless of what comes afterwards choices play out with a so and so we'll remember this Telltale style that we've seen but some of them are heady ones ones where the choice feels like it's going to come back to bite your ass but the other choice just feels like your ass is going to get bitten right away make no mistake regardless of any changes to the engine demonstrably the gameplay is narrative and story elements played out between QuickTime events and then living with the choices you made as you explore and find more narrative drummers trips into the bowels of the derelict craft have you finding more and more out about what happened prior to your arrival as well as a bit more about each character that you're exploring with while shorter I was surprised that by really reading everything I could find and exploring a bit and talking to the crew I learned more than I actually expected for such a short first episode and that plays out well when a couple of the choices come up that leave you with just enough information to think that you know what you should do but not sure you actually shouldn't do something else and that's really the perfect way in which a Telltale Game or any of these narrative with QuickTime sort of play out for the most part The Telltale Games have always done very well in voice and it's going to matter more here especially because you're bringing in characters from the expanse and luckily they got Kara G who does awesome for Kamina drummer lots of small voiceovers a slight slant to that accent that you all know and love and the odd dropped slang that the fiction is known for consistently dropped from her calling crew members names or others making obviously questionable offensive gestures behind her back the game sets out from the start with that feeling of a direct continuation of the world not necessarily the story because it's a prequel and she Nails her part as do the captain and a couple others playing off stereotypes that we've seen before in the show and just in space shows but they still have their own place however one place where the game Takes a Tumble is the developer's choice to use someone obviously younger than the game portrays its ship pilot now doing voices with huge age gaps is difficult especially when older age has a tendency to carry the years as tonal inflections that are shaped by our larynx and voice chords adjusting as we get older it's impossible to not feel like you're listening to someone pretending they're an old woman luckily Sound and Music don't have the same issue when it comes to sound this is good exactly what you expect from the dark space sound of guns going off that remind you of the show to the small creeks and groans of the ships the layer of Machinery in that blanket of electronics on-board vessels that's always playing it's done well it's a bit understated but most of the time that's because a great deal of the story is in the vocal narrative musically it's excellent directly cribed from the feel of the original show with big theme moments during space conflict and more tense underpinning ambient tracks when exploring it's good throughout and while it doesn't have a chance to shine like it did in the show it fits well however as you're playing the game and you roll from the beginning through the middle section to the end you realize it would have been much better if the episode had been at least 15 to 20 minutes longer especially shows depending on if they're based on Channels with ads commercials or otherwise have a very different story beat to them you can see that anytime you watch a streaming platform that doesn't have an ad and you see a TV show that played originally with ads and a lot of the story beats have these moments that don't play out necessarily correctly and we definitely get that with episode one I won't spoil it but I've already talked a little bit about the Flash Forward there's some issues that happen at the end that I think should have been jostled around a little bit and taken some of episode 2 and moved it into episode on but that's a review for a later day when we discuss fun factor for a second I want to say this despite a couple issues there with the Indian actually really enjoyed the characters I love jumping back into the world and seeing what this character was doing prior to the actual show and it worked quite well to give me a little bit of meat to that character's story however this is just for episode one as you guys know I rate games on a buy wait for a sale deep deep sail or never touch rating system but with this you can't go out there and buy Episode by episode episode one's highly enjoyable I do think it would have been better 15 to 20 minutes longer to really hit at that very particular point that I'm talking about but I'm not going to spoil it it definitely does have a feel of a jumping off point from the series and if you like this character well there's more of this character coming so that's always fun to see and it'll be interesting to see how these experiences and the choices the character makes Not only impacts on the rest of these episodes but also how they try to work it into the fiction itself so that you can play this and maybe go watch the TV show and feel like you know a little bit more and hell if this works maybe we'll see other prequels to the other characters in the show so that's it for me I hope you guys like the video If you do give it a thumbs up make sure to hit subscribe and notify all share the video check out the patron peace out listen come on yeah he already sent me the coordinates last score we'll ever need all of a century enough of this felota and you wonder why I have to treat you like Molly Walla

Channel: ACG

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Id: M9V9Jt25llE

Length: 8min 38sec (518 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 27 2023