T w e n t y S i d e d

We’re nearly to the end of this series and I still haven’t talked about the stealth encounters. I’ve been waiting until now because the best stealth encounter in the game takes place pretty close to the worst one and I thought they’d make for a good contrast.

Stealth Encounter

A really good stealth encounter is one where you’re constantly having to observe enemy patterns and change your approach in response to enemy action. A bad one is where you crouch in the same spot for a long time and wait for the mindless AI to walk into your ambush.

Batman games are really good at providing the kind of dynamic behavior that makes for good encounters:

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Arkham City Part 19: Wonder Tower”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Catwoman lifts the magic boulder off of Batman and he gets back to work. As he exits the steel mill, we get our first look at Protocol 10 in action. It’s horrible and spectacular. A dozen or so helicopters are sweeping over the city, firing machine guns and missiles at clustered inmates. The carnage is terrible.

Batman should be compelled to put a stop to this, but he’s going crazy thinking about his superfriend with benefits in the hands of Joker. He wants to run off and save her. Alfred and Oracle have to actually cut him off from the Bat-computer until he agrees to start acting like a superhero and stop Protocol 10.

Taken in isolation, I’m okay with this character moment. I’m willing to believe that Batman has moments of weakness. The problem is that this character beat makes no sense in terms of how Batman behaves later. This moment is fundamentally incompatible with some other scenes we’re going to see in less than an hour. Those scenes are part of the Joker plot, which makes me think that two different people were writing the Joker and Strange plots. In fact, this would explain most of my problems with this story.

Once he gets his priorities straight, Batman jumps onto one of the helicopters and swipes the access codes for the security zone where Strange and his Tyger guards are based. These helicopters have been patrolling the city all nightDid you know that in the early stages of the game you could blast them with the REC to piss them off and make them chase you around? No? Well, you’re not missing anything. But it’s kinda fun to prank them and swoop away., which means – based on what the game shows us – he could have done this at literally any point tonight. All he has to do is nab the code, hack the front door, and climb the tower. It’s not even a big deal.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Arkham City Part 18: Protocol 10”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.