Batman: Arkham City - Page 11

The combat system is just the shit. I'm sure there are other combat systems that are more technical, but Arkham City just has the most rewarding to me.

 

 

It's like making love. Relatively easy to pick up, tricky to master and always ends in slow motion with a whoosh sound.

 

And sometimes whips.

If the next game has Talon and the Court of the Owls as a major antagonist I may die of happiness.

I beat this over Christmas. The story was definitely not as tight as AA. Dr. Strange and Two-Face really were wasted. The story felt like a very rushed first draft. 

 

I still need to solve all the riddles, beat Zsasz, do the alternate reality training and the challenge rooms. Then New Game+ awaits...

 

There are hints of Scarecrow returning in the next game. Which is great since the fear hallucinations were the best parts of AA. The Azreal quest also ends on a prophecy that could lead to something.

A game where you split playtime between playing as Batman trapped in that psycho-maze and the rest of the Bat-family holding down the fort while Two Face made some plays for control of Gotham would make sure I never left the house.

Oh yes, I can see it, reversed controls MGS style and other mindfuckery gameplay. My geekboner is preventing me from leaving work on time now.

 

Holy shit, I finished the story mode this weekend (thanks to my wife and son for going out of town for a week so I had free reign over the TV).  I caved and bought the "Arkham Download" pack to get all the skins, the Nightwing/Robin side things, etc.  I've played with the Sinestro skin and the Batman Beyond skin (which I really like).  As much as I was frustrated with the combat system in the beginning, I'm starting to get it now.

 

Also, I started a new game+, and holy shit, without the counter notifications, I'm getting my ass kicked.  It took me about a dozen times to get through the initial "Bruce Wayne breaks his shackles" very first battle.  So I've gone back to my original game to finish the side missions.

 

Is the Zsasz thing as hard as it seems?  I accidentally answered a phone, and then had no friggin' clue where to go to answer the next one.

 

The one complaint I have is that for some of these buildings, especially the steel mill, it takes me forever to find the door to get in.

I left the Zsasz side-mission as long as I could because it is pretty tricky. I would often have to take a few tries to find the other phone. Make sure you're not in predator mode when you're searching for the it as there is that little compass at the top of the screen that can at least show you which way you need to go. Have you done the first round of A.R. training? It gives you an upgrade that helps you get across town faster.

 

All I have left to do in the game is find the Riddler, but it seems like you have to solve a ton of puzzles/riddles before you get the location of the next hostage. I think I mgiht give the + version a try soon.

The map needs an overhaul, I got hopelessly lost in the sewers. It drove me mad.

Keep at the plus mode. I was having my behind handed to me but it gets so good. Once you master it it's so damn satisfying when you catch someone's fist 'yourself" Eventually you won't want the indicators back, they become distracting.

I've done the Azrael thing, found Nora Fries (thanks to a quick search on Google), and am about to check the 3 buildings to search for Deadshot.  I've been finding the Riddles here and there as I play along.  That fucking Wayne simulator for the gliding is really hard.  Guess I'll need to do that before Zsasz.  I'm going to try and finish most of this stuff before I go back to the "+" game again. But I am getting the hang of the battle stuff using the counters--I took one those guys in the court house (I think it's like 20 guys) and it only took me 3-4 times before I beat them all.

 

On some of these Riddler trophies, it appears that you have to be able to set off multiple pressure sensors on the ground at once.  How do you do that?  Have I not found some upgrade yet that will accomplish this?

If I remember correctly, you get a finishing move after a dive bomb. When he slams into the ground, he sets all the sensors off at once. I havn't played it since October, so I may be mis-remembering.
 

 

Those sensors are most likely the ones you have to land on. Inbetween landing on all of them you can't youch the ground. It can be very challenging. Basically, land on one sensor so it lights up, then rappel up and glide around until you are able to dive down and land on the next. Rinse and repeat.

Either that or use the line launcher with the tightrope upgrade. Geography allowing, it's a lot easier than the rappel and glide method.

Just finished B:AC this past weekend.. 71% completed, with every question mark found, and only a few riddles( about 18 or so) left to find.  I found all the riddler trophies displayed on the map, but am still missing quite a few of the riddles and have no clue where to look to find them? Any hints?  

Go into detective mode and leave the Riddler's henchman (he's green I believe) for last and you can interrogate him for locations for more trophy locations.

I had been doing that, but I guess I sort of assumed that after you interrogate a few, then no new riddler secrets pop up? am I wrong in thinking that? 

There are a shit ton of them (guys to interrogate).  I still run into a few when I'm just swinging across the city.  Also, I have found them inside of buildings as well.

 

I'm 52% complete.  I've picked up most of the Catwoman Riddler trophies.  Some of these other ones...I have no frickin' clue how to get them.  Guess I'll hit up Google once I'm to that point.

Edited by Martianman - 3/26/12 at 7:11pm

Damn.. I must be missing a few of the green dudes in some random buildings somewhere or something... I checked my stats last night and was at 71% complete(overall percentage), with 382 riddler trophies collected out of 400.. So the remaining 18 must be in some building..  hmm.. should I keep looking, or move onto Saint's Row:The Third.. decisions, decisions...

If memory serves, the Riddler henchmen should respawn in outside locations until all the trophies are marked on your map. I seem to recall the area around the museum being the best place to find them. The thing is, the trophies hidden inside a building won't show up on your map until you are actually inside that building (I think there was also a way to switch to that building's map from the general map screen). I didn't do the Zsasz mission until the end, and it drove me crazy because I was missing two trophy locations on my map that didn't show up until I found his hideout, because that's where they were. 

Percentage also covers sidequests and NG+ though so I doubt missing 18 Riddler trophies would be 29%. Also, the riddles where you have to frame a certain picture or item counts towards the completion percentage as well as the Riddler Challenges (the fighting, stealth missions/levels).

Sounds like the next DLC will be story based and focus on Harley Quinn and Robin. Playing as Robin in an open Arkham City? Yes, please. Hopefully they do one for Nightwing as well.

I'm just now getting into this. Loved the first, but Skyrim and SWTOR kept me distracted until now. Having a lot of fun, but some of those Riddler challenges are a bitch. Damn my obsessiveness!

 

The chance to move through Gotham City with other characters would be great, provided they don't move just like Batman. I'm no fan of the sidekicks, but getting around as Catwoman is fun, so I'd try it.

I have not tried any of the challenge rooms with Robin or Nightwing, but I am told they have a different fighting style. I didn't really try Catwoman during the main game (outside the cut away missions), so readjusting to her fighting style was a real bear when I tried to do her post game missions.

Edited by MrTyres - 4/4/12 at 2:32pm

I was referring to the riddles in the main game - haven't done many of the challenge rooms. I tried Robin and Nightwing a bit- they're fun. So far my highest score in a fighting challenege was with Nightwing. 

Some of those riddle are freakin' hard to find.  I've stood in areas marked with a ? and "scanned" like 20 times before it finally took.  And the worst is when you get "Object is partially blocked" and you're standing in front of a fucking building with nothing else around.

 

Was on vacation the past week, so I'll get back into it sometime this week.

Got about half of the 440 Riddler trophies so far.  I just did a huge sweep of the Bowery and pretty much got everything save the few Catwoman trophies.  I'm starting to get the hang of how to work the stuff too--one of the last ones I got had 4 different ?'s that you had to hit at essentially the same time.  I didn't realize you could use the explosive gel to hit the buttons (3 at a time).  So I set up 3 of them, blew them up, then threw a batarang to the 4th one and opened the cage with the trophy.

When it comes to riddler trophies I found that I got stumped on several simply because I didn't realize I needed to use the gadgets that I was already provided.  There are a lot of things you can do with your gadgets that they don't really explain to you in the tutorials. 

 

 

Yeah, I had that same problem.

 

And FYI, you only need to find/solve 400 to unlock the Riddler himself. That's where I stopped.

I'm up to about 278 now.  Started on "Amusement Mile".  Also didn't realize that there were still so many out there that I hadn't "tagged" yet.

 

Also, I'm to 95% on the "Saving Political Prisoners" thing, but I can't find the (I'm assuming) last guy to save.  Is there something else I need to do?

 

And, screw the "Find the identity thief" side mission.  I did the first part of it and haven't seen anymore "evidence" since.

 

 

No, just keep wandering around and pay attention. I managed to find all of those in the course of playing the game. However, it should be noted that the resolution isn't very satisfying.

 

 

This side mission actually has one of the cooler endings, but is a huge pain in the ass because the last two or three bodies you have to find don't show up on your map. You literally have to just stumble across them.

 

 

Stumble across them on the ground. I don't know about anyone else's playstyle, but I wasn't wandering the streets. I was prowling the rooftops.

The Identity Thief victims are relatively close together, which is one good thing to know.  I was searching opposite ends of Arkham looking for the third one before a friend of mine gave me the helpful tip of retracing my steps and searching the nearby areas of the first two victims.  

Harley Quinn's Revenge

 

 

I literally have done that (stumbling into guys) to finish the "Stop street violence vs. political prisoners", and also ran across my 2nd identity victim the same way, this time in Park Row.  I'll keep looking around that area.

 

Also, I'm up to 404 trophies but no Riddler interaction yet.  Do I have to search the radio waves again to know where to go next?  I actually have all of the Catwoman trophies and have closed out Subway, Museum, and one other--I think the Industrial District.  That riddle on the side of Wonder Tower...pretty sneaky, sis.  I was climbing halfway up that thing, cursing because nothing was showing up, then hit the Detective mode and saw the paint and was like, "Shit."  And I saw on a video that one of the riddles is where Zsasz is, so I guess I'll have to finish that side mission soon.  Still, though--that close and still not to 60% complete yet.  I haven't done anything with the new game + either, though.

This game made me realize how important story has become for me in games. I didn't finish all the sidequests or find all the riddles. And I've been meaning to go back into it for that. But the story was so poorly conceived, it sort of ruined the experience for me. And I'm lazy to pick it up again. They improved some gameplay aspects here. But, overall, the game itself felt kind of repetitive and tiresome.

 

I hope they work that out for the next one.
 

 

...Yes, this is the actual box art.

 

...Yes, I just vomited in my mouth, too.

Batman looks like he did too. 

IGN's riff:

 

That second one should be the actual box. I would re-purchase it just for that.

 

Maybe.
 

I love this game. Mainly because it has Batman in it. And it also has the voice cast from the Animated Series. The story is so fucking good. I feel bad for the games for windows folk who have to suffer with the pc release. Just some kind of bad wheely dealios made with the devil or some such, directx 11 looks spanking fancy if you can only get it to run for more than 5 minutes. There's something to be said about not messing with Games for Windows and buying digital directly, I'm of the mind that if you want to buy the Batman you should go to a good retail store like Target or Best Buy (or for you Canada folk Future Shop), embrace the middleman for he is your friend. He's there to provide you with a unique experience until you're ready to move on to the next store. That time I loaded up the game and see batman standing looking out upon the city just made me soil my pants with whole organic yogurt stuff, so squishy. That moment I was led through the opening gates of Gotham had to be the greatest moment in all of gaming, bar none. It brought me back to the days of watching my brother play Dragons Lair and I'd kick the side of the cabinet and his laser disc would skip and the arcade machine would die, and then he'd cry and I'd go fuck yeah this is the best thing since the best thing of best things.

For those that can't be arsed to read my nonsense.

tldr: Batman - Wooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Finally, after 414 trophies in, I started going after Zsasz, and whaddya know?  The Riddler finally came a callin'.  I've gotten two of the Zsasz phone calls so far, and rescued another Riddler hostage.  Had to turn it off and go to bed, but I'll try more tonight.  And I'm a whopping 61% done now.

Woo hoo!  Riddler: beaten, Identity Thief: Finished, Zsasz: 76% done.  Also, all trophies and riddles done save for the ones that you can't get until you beat Zsasz.  Now working on that and getting the physical achievements done.  Up to 69% (heh heh heh) complete now.  

 

Also I have the + story and all of the Riddler Challenges to do, which honestly I'm not that thrilled about.  I can never get the trophies they set up.  I guess I just need to play better and use more gadgets.

 

 

I'm almost positive when I say this but you shouldn't have to collect the trophies in your New Game +.

Well, done (sort of).  Played another few steps into the + game, then switched over to the original and hung around a phone that hadn't been "checked off" the Zsasz list, and it finally rang.  It was the last one.  Took me a few minutes to figure out how to get around to him, but beating him is nothing hard.  Got the last two Riddler trophies and riddle.  Got a few physical challenges left, and the only side mission left is the Wayne AR thing, which is just a pain in the ass.  I've gotten 70% of it finished.  Probably will focus more now on the + game.  Didn't realize you start it with all your weapons and stuff that you accumulated during the regular game.  That's cool.