Penises set Dispatch apart, and I mean that quite sincerely

Great subverted expectations.

I think a lot of Dispatch can be distilled into a single moment at the beginning of the game when the player comes face to face with a penis. There it is, dangling visibly between the legs of an unclothed, toxic-drenched super-villain you’re about to fight. The camera all but centers on it. There’s no way you can miss it unless you’ve flipped the nudity switch off, in which case it’s replaced by an even more conspicuous black box that only amplifies the naughtiness of the part hidden within. But most people don’t turn nudity off because they’re expecting boobs. That’s what we usually see. In Dispatch, however, it’s a penis we see waggling unavoidably on our screens.

This is “100 percent the meta-joke” by the way – misdirecting people with a nudity slider and then showing them a penis. That’s what narrative director Pierre Shorette told me in an interview recently. He said: “Being able to see streams where people leave it on and then they’re like ‘what the fuck!’ and freak out to hit pause and turn the censors back on: it’s very funny. People are uncomfortable around dicks.” And though it’s a crude joke, it highlights how Dispatch steps beyond boundaries to do things differently.

Here’s another example, and I’m sorry if it spoils another moment for you but, again, it’s from early in the game and of little consequence. So: there’s a superhero in the game called Phenomaman, who’s clearly modelled on Superman – a being from another planet blessed with extraordinary powers like super strength and speed, and flight, and who’s seemingly invincible – and you’ve just kissed his ex-girlfriend and you’re telling him that fact. A risky situation. He’s depressed and he could crush you like a bug – and not a hardy bug at that. You confess, then, and brace for the worst. But