Telltale's Batman is getting slammed by Steam reviews over buggy PC port

UPDATE 4th August 2016: Telltale's released a patch for the PC version of its new Batman series that should go some way to improving performance.

In an update, Telltale said many of the issues reported by players are to do with the game running on integrated graphics cards, rather than dedicated, or were the result of out of date drivers.

This new patch automatically defaults the game to run on dedicated graphics cards, and adds graphics settings to enable higher performance textures or higher quality textures. Telltale advised players check their drivers are up to date before running the game.

Meanwhile, Telltale said the game will launch on Mac soon.

ORIGINAL STORY 3rd August 2016: Telltale's new Batman series isn't going down well on Steam. By most accounts the actual content of the game is fine, if not revolutionary, but the criticism stems from a litany of technical issues resulting in a buggy, poorly optimised PC port.

The main complaints are that it has an abysmal framerate (even on high end machines) and that a host of glitches prevent the game from even being playable.

Here's a few excerpts from Steam's most helpful user reviews:

"Even after taking 15 minutes to figure out how to make the game 1080p and fullscreen, I couldn't start the game, as my mouse was stuck in a box in the upper left of the screen, making it impossible to hit the continue button on the brightness slider." -Dr. Butthole

"FPS issues are ridiculous. If I can play TWD and The Wolf Among Us with absolutely no issues, this shouldn't be as terrible as it is." -OnoDWeber

"I love Telltale Games, I love Batman, my hype for this game was off the chart. However there are lot of running issues. I have a high end laptop and I have never had trouble running a game, this game was however running at about 10fps with a lot of sound issues and a lot of crashes. Do not buy until the issues have been worked out." -TC1892

"Buggy! Great start guys, haven't even started the game yet and resolution is an issue, try to set to any res higher than 720p, your mouse gets held ransom in an invisible box at the top left of the screen." -MuskySlyStoat

"I run better than this game and I'm fat." -Thekareem501

It's not all doom and gloom for Bats, however. So far the game has 900 positive reviews and only 384 negative, but the ones rated "most helpful" are overwhelmingly in the latter category.

This isn't the Caped Crusader's first cataclysm on Steam as last year's Batman: Arkham Knight was similarly derided for its poor PC performance. In that case the game was such a mess that Steam pulled the game from sale and even when it returned it was still so buggy that Steam offered refunds to anyone affected by its botched release. Telltale likewise has a history of poorly optimised PC ports.

Our resident Batman expert Aoife Wilson wasn't entirely smitten by Telltale's Batman, albeit for different reasons. "This rendition of Gotham and its denizens doesn't feel anywhere near as rich, detailed or as layered as ones we've encountered before," she said in her Batman: Episode One impressions. "It's certainly possible that the writing will hit its stride now that the awkward reintroductions are out of the way, but as of right now it feels like Telltale's Batman is riding on the coattails, cape and cowl of far greater stories."