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Arkham City Day#5: Night at the Museum

Day#5 is probably the most reminiscent of Arkham Asylum so far and that’s a mostly good thing. There’s a nice setting in the middle surrounded by an OSSIM predation scene and a couple of boss fights — one decent and one stupid. Still, it’s not even close to the stupidity of the bosses of the original game, which if you read my post on it, you will know I thought was the single worst thing in an otherwise excellent game. But, and I know I keep saying it, this story is just SO STUPID it’s hard to ignore. I hit my tenth supervillain this session — MY TENTH. Need I say more. Spoilers within.

I start again with the stupid fuse box thing again, and what’s the best thing about it is I have to do the whole batarang the button behind the electrified fence again. Another ten minutes of my life gone forever. I am pretty much ready to give up on this puzzle, and despite how much I HATE doing it, I am almost looking it up online to see what the solution is. However, I decide give it one last go and realize that the Riddler trophy I found was under an elevator. I this time get in the elevator and take it up. There’s a explodable ceiling above the elevator, so I blow through it and then another wall to a balcony over the room I was trapped in. I turn off the electrical fences, but I don’t go back. I just continue moving on this new floor. There’s one more wall to explode, and doing so cuts to a CS of Batman walking into a room and getting his arm frozen to a wall. I see the Penguin with Freeze’s ice gun, saying he’ll kick Batman’s ass again. He then freezes a cop who is running away and runs out of the room. I get control when Penguin leaves.

I’m in room with a large half frozen lake in the middle. I  have to walk slowly on the ice to not break it. The frozen cop is calling for help, so I head to him first and hit A to save him. I thus save the first guy and he CS tells me that there are two more cops in here. I get control to go back to my search. About halfway through the room, the ice stops and it’s just water and I can’t enter it. To traverse the lake, I have to batclaw down a pallet, jump on the makeshift raft,  and then use my batclaw to grab hooks on the wall to pull my raft around the room. Penguin over the intercom points out that’s there a big shark in the water which then briefly appears near my raft. I raft over to a platform and  save two more cops. In CS, one of them tells me there are more deeper inside. I stat rafting toward an exit to the room, but I die once because I stupidly drop into the water. When I respawn, I get up to a ledge.  I hear down a hallway to a new room, outer ring of a hallway with open walls facing into some pillar in the room center. On the pillar, I see Penguin on a central pillar with freeze gun. I can’t reach him because he’s constantly strafing at me with the freeze gun. Since I can’t take Penguin yet, I go back out and across the ice room to another exit. In that doorway, I beat up a few guards in a pitifully handled fight. I then find Freeze in a museum display case. He’s alive so I need to find a way to free him. Looking around, I notice a wall I can blow up wall. I spray the wall with my gel and then in CS a big guy grabs Batman and throws him into the room. Said big guy and thugs enter the room to fight. I die once because of my low health from the previous pitiful fight, but then I win, taking out the big guy with multiple feedback-less beatdowns. I free Freeze and he and Batman have a CS conversation. The Freeze model is awesome, by the way. Batman threatens Freeze about how to stop the ice gun Penguin has, but he won’t talk because he doesn’t want to give batman ways to hurt him in the future. Batman becomes a complete dick in this scene, first threatening Freeze’s comatose wife and then pulling the cold gel thing (presumably keeping his temperature low) out of Freeze’s chest, effectively torturing him. This gets Freeze to say that there’s an override chip in Freeze’s suit. Batman gives Freeze the cold thing back and goes to get the chip. I get control to leave, pausing to ponder (to no avail) how to get a Riddler trophy that blocked by a steam pipe.

I head back to the ice room and sail on my batclaw powered raft across the room to a new area where the suit is. At the door to this area, I talk to two cops who say they gave info to penguin under torture. I move on to listen to penguin torture a guy as I go across the room to see a room filled with guards. This is a predation room, but the twist is that there are thugs with thermal vision and bombs so can’t hide on gargoyles. I die once in this scene because I don’t remember what those thermal things do. To win, I have to run around the level, crouching and hiding in tunnels. Right, THIS is Batman fun. I stealth takeout one guy, jump two more when I roll out behind a pillar and use a smoke bomb to stop their shots, I glide kick out one, invert snag one from a gargoyle, and finally sneak up behind the last guy as he holds a hostage. Oh that is so very fun. The room is clear. I level up and get thermal protection to keep me invisible from that vision in the future. I talk to the cop hostages, and then find the freeze suit. Batman CS takes a cold cell out of the suit and tells a cop to give it to Freeze. Batman then takes something out of suit and make Freeze override device. There is a very Mass Effect style audio reward track for the new tool back.

Now ready to take down Penguin, I head back to the center room. It turns out the ice is beginning to thaw. I pull my raft across the room when the shark attacks. I have to qte beat it up, and I do so easily with some simple attacks and get across the room. Back in the room with Penguin, I don’t know what do with this disruptor. It’s not in range when I try it but I can’t seem to get closer to the Penguin. After a couple of minutes running in circles and experimenting, I finally find a corridor to Penguin. I get close to him with a well timed dodge and use the disruptor. As the Penguin wonders what happened to the weapon, Batman CS knocks Penguin to the ground. They taunt each other for a spell, and then Penguin blows up the ice pillar Batman is on. Batman falls into pit with giant giant guy. Penguin shocks him awake in a long CS of shocks. Turns out it’s Solomon Grundy. He’s nice and scary as a villain. FIGHT! I have no idea what I’m supposed to do at first, but oh a tip tells me. Grundy is periodically shocked by three power cells in the ground that recharge his health. The key is to blow up the generators with gel. It takes a few tries, but I do take him down without dying, blowing up all three cells and then punching the crap out of him.  I have to go finish him off with one more blow before I can leave the room, but of course he wakes up again and I have to use the set of explosives all over again. It’s a boss fight, and it’s kind of dumb that way all these game bosses are. I do beat Grundy and then charge an armed Penguin to take him down.

We cut to a CS of Freeze beating up Penguin and then throwing him into a glass case. Freeze tells Batman that the cure for the disease he has is too unstable. Any vaccine needs an enzyme to bond it to DNA. Batman thinks of Rash Al-Ghul (AND WE HAVE A WINNER – VILLAIN # 10!!!!) because his longevity shows that he has enzymes to keep things stable. At this point, a servant of Al-Ghul (who happens to be hanging out in the museum — sure, whatever) runs away from the space, with an insult for Batman and warning him that Al-Ghul will be waiting. Batman can follow the blood trail from the agent breaking out of the case. I see the blood trail in detective vision and CS contact Oracle. Oracle brings up that Batman had some history with Al Ghul daughter — that’s just want a Batman game needs, romance. I head outside to start the game, but it’s late call it a night.

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