Batman: The Enemy Within: Episode 4 - What Ails You
Score: 92% Publisher: Telltale Games Developer: Telltale Games Media: Download/1 Players: 1; 2 - 12 (Crowd Play) Genre: Adventure
Previously on Batman: The Enemy Within: Batman: The Enemy Within: Episode 4 - What Ails You will finally reveal what The Pact is after and what is so valuable that it forces these various villains to work together. Unfortunately for Bruce Wayne, he will have to deal with more than a few of his recent decisions if he hopes to confront the gang and hopefully stop them before they do any more harm. In the events leading up to What Ails You, Bruce had to track down a secret lab run by a shadow organization and then figure out the best way to keep Harley and the rest of The Pact from getting that information. Unfortunately, this wasn't an easy task and Harley decides to finally track down who the rat in her organization is. The resulting conflict means either you turn on Catwoman and claim she is the traitor, or you take the blame yourself. If you chose the latter option, Episode 4 starts off with Bruce trying to break his way out of Mr. Freeze's cold chamber, while the option of turning Catwoman in means that she will face some dire consequences and Bruce's relationship with Selina will be considerably worse off.
Confronting The Pact: Batman: The Enemy Within: Episode 4 - What Ails You's first task is to confront The Pact at the lab where they are hoping to get their hands on a super secret virus. If you blew your cover and had to escape from Freeze's cold-box, you will take on The Pact as Batman after they've already done a number on the facility's staff. If you turned on Catwoman, then you will join The Pact as Bruce Wayne and work to stop the theft from within. One option results in a fairly lengthy and dynamic quicktime fight sequence, while the other forces you to play through a puzzle in the hopes of gaining access to the virus before Bane breaks down the door. Either way, these confrontations mean that your relationship with The Pact is at an end, but then again, due to a betrayal by one of the other members of the group, The Pact breaks down anyway and each of its members are left to fend for themselves. Once Bruce/Batman learns the true power of the virus Harley and the gang are after, he will have to decide exactly who he can trust and how far that trust should extend.
Calm Between Storms: Batman: The Enemy Within: Episode 4 - What Ails You has a middle act that lets the player take a break from the action sequences of the fist scenes and the high-tension standoff that wraps up this episode. In this part of the game, Bruce will have a chance to talk to a few people and, depending on how you acted in the past, maybe even learn that more people than you expected know of Bruce's secret night life. Exactly how you deal with those people and those accusations are just more of the choices the game throws at you. As always with a Telltale game, be wary of what you choose as characters will remember what you said and if they learn something different, what was an okay relationship could sour quickly.
Diverging Paths: Batman: The Enemy Within: Episode 4 - What Ails You seems to be a drastically different game based on your choices from past episodes. Criticisms about choices in Telltale games having little-to-no affect on the actual gameplay experience should be toned down a bit after considering the various ways events leading up to this episode's conclusion could play out. Between having drastically different beginnings because of Episode 3's final choices and how this episode's last scene could play out, based on the relationships you've cultivated, the number and nature of people who are for and against Batman has a wide range of possible combinations. It will be interesting to see how those relationships will come into play during the season's final episode, Same Stitch.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
Related Links: Batman: The Enemy Within Home Page Batman: The Enemy Within on Steam Our Batman: The Telltale Series Coverage Our Batman Coverage
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