Gotham Knights Diaries Part Seventeen

This is my exploration of Gotham Knights where I will chronicle my playthrough like a text-based Let’s Play. I’ll point out all of the Easter Eggs that I can spot in the footnotes at the end of each part. Now let’s continue Gotham Knights…

Having locked up some Rogues, it was time to face the Voice of the Court of Owls…

But first, I wanted to check that everyone had done everything that needed to be done, so I was out on patrol with Red Hood. As well as beating up a number of criminals, I was looking around for collectibles, and found some Batarangs. Unfortunately, I failed one because Doctor Thompkins didn’t appear to take a stolen organ from me… I also got new objectives from Charlotte of The Watch to stop four crimes and use three Momentum abilities in Historic Gotham; and Montoya to stop four crimes, and save five police officers. As a result of my adventuring, I came across some things that I hadn’t noticed before, such as Robbins Insurance Company and the Falcone Residence.

Returning to Belfry, my patrol summary said that I had stopped 10 crimes, completed four bonus objectives, and rescued two cops and four citizens. That involved defeating 143 enemies, eight of which were silent takedowns.

After crafting some new equipment, I went over to the Batman memorial, where Jason Todd had a reaction to one of the marks on the cowl, causing him to remember something from his time in the Lazarus Pit. That unlocked Mystical Leap, his traversal ability, and also allowed me to pick those Knighthood abilities! I went with Combat Mastery, Ranged Terror, Weak Spot Damage +, and also upgraded Iron Grip and Unrestricted Fire while I was in the menu. Then, I nipped upstairs to have the exact same conversation with Alfred Pennyworth that the other three had. Since it still needed doing, I quickly bashed out the Damage Over Time training, then swapped to Barbara Gordon to do the Area of Effect training.

Swapping to Dick Grayson, I headed out on patrol to do his story bit, though since I had crimes to stop I also travelled around doing those and collecting more Batarangs, and a Historia Strigidae. Since I had been using Batgirl so much, I was shocked at how useful Nightwing’s glider was compared to her cape! Using the cape always has you on a downwards trajectory, but with the glider I could climb in altitude or just remain at a constant one!

Arriving at the rooftop where Red Hood was brooding. Nightwing talked at him until getting pushed off of the roof! Somehow forgetting that they all have grapples, Red Hood freaked out, until he heard Nightwing walking on his hands behind him. Red Hood agreed to let the other hero sit — in silence — with him, and my objective changed to “go to the gym bench”. First I went to Oscar from The Watch, who asked me to defeat 10 criminals and use three Momentum abilities to do it in Lower Gotham; and Lucius Fox who wanted me to craft two Epic melee weapons and modchips.

Returning to Belfry, my patrol summary said that I had stopped nine crimes, completed two bonus objectives, and rescued two cops and three citizens. That involved defeating 104 enemies, six of which were silent takedowns.

Walking over to the gym bench, Dick was helping Barbara with weightlifting, evidently having been at it for a while without saying anything. He was clearly distracted, so Barbara tried to get him to open up by paraphrasing When Harry Met Sally; Dick loved Flakies cereal, he cried when Barbara broke up with him, he checked his own ass out constantly… But she had also noticed him never looking at the memorial. When he deflected with humour, she began to storm off, but he stopped her. He and Bruce had fought about Dick continuing as Nightwing in Blüdhaven, and he still dwelled on having left things like that. He also struggled with keeping the team together, keeping the city safe, and keeping Batman’s legacy alive. Barbara countered that he was a dumbass thinking he had to do it alone, and they embraced.

Swapping to Barbara, I finally went over to check out the Kane Industries drone, and kick off the mission! Upon arrival at the tower, a fleet of drones began swarming the top, getting fired upon by security, as well as mounted anti-aircraft guns. This obvious distraction was so that I could scale the outside of the tower up to the roof, whereupon I threw a security guard off of the roof and to their presumptive demise on the concrete below. Add one more fatality to Batgirl’s counter!

After dealing with the remaining four guards, I descended into the top floor of the tower. My query of how Kane was allowed to install anti-aircraft guns in Gotham City went unanswered as I was just told to find a laser cutter, and as luck would have it I located the single-use KD-847-Prototype talking laser cutter. Nightwing told me to find an access card so that it could be rewritten with my biometrics, so I silently took down the four guards who entered, and took a card from them.

While Batgirl asked why the card wasn’t working, only to be reminded that she needed to rewrite it, even as I was on my way to rewrite the card because I hadn’t somehow forgotten already! I grabbed a crate of resources before heading down several floors to open a second crate. Reaching the 75th floor, I found some guards and beat them up before being told to deactivate the security alarm, and then make sure that I avoided the network of cameras! Clearly, Alfred had forgotten that I was invisible to cameras, turrets, and laser grids.

Entering Kane’s office at the end of the “secure” hallway, I grabbed more resources, then read an email on his laptop from Lex Luthor. Not only did it mention a shipment of something and a “mutual friend”, Lex also put a hyphen in “E-mail” in the 2020s, proving that there were no depths which the villain would sink. Weirdly, upon closer inspection of the screen, Lex’s email address was @kaneindustries.com just like Jacob Kane’s was…

There was a phone on Kane’s desk, so I listened to a recording that he had made to his daughter Kate Kane. It was a long speech that boiled down to him wanting Kate to have a better relationship with Jacob’s current wife. On the wall was a wall made up of several rotating blocks, with each side having some kind of owl symbol on, and it was quickly decided that it was fancy Sudoku. Once I put a different symbol in each column and row, the wall moved to reveal a large, hidden room behind. It was filled with old armaments, a Court of Owls mask, some things seemingly related to the League of Shadows, and an American Civil War painting hooked up to a secret switch in a globe.

Activating the switch revealed a hidden elevator, which required the laser drill to access, so I turned it on and was attacked by guards. Since I was clearly over-leveled, I just chucked Batarangs at most of them until they fell over. Even after having to reactivate the drill, I barely moved. When the doors opened, I headed down into a secret bunker.

There was a war room in the hallway ahead of me, so I knocked out four guards silently, then Batarang’d the other two before checking the one laptop in the room. It held an email from someone French saying that Lex Luthor had ordered more “hardware” and that they would relocate supplies to Metropolis personally.

In the next area were turrets and guards, and thanks to my Digital Ghost ability and some hacking, I was able to knock out everyone without getting spotted. Activating the elevator, I discovered that it was an inclined elevator that had to be overridden by Belfry. Unfortunately, Kane came over the announcement system saying that I was right there, before a few guards came onto the inclinator to fight me. Moments after they had been dispatched, he said that I’d been dealt with — but it was just a ruse so that he could send Talons after me! After taking them out, however, more greeted me as I reached my destination!

After a fight, I continued into the next room where a whole bunch of guards were stationed, so I knocked them out and used a console to open a door into what may have been a generator room? It was filled with toxic gas vents and flaming exhaust, but thankfully Robin was able to put it in diagnostic mode, which allowed me to get through. Unfortunately, this resulted in my comms with Belfry being cut off…

The corridor passed by a laboratory filled with Talons, and corpses in the midst of transformation into Talons. Some doors at the top of the stairs opened into a very large area housing several vehicles. Kane walked through a large, armoured, red door as it closed, complaining about me, and I set about silently knocking out the Court members patrolling the room. I immediately alerted them to my presence, and had to work hard for the silent takedowns that would give me some bonus experience points…

When the room was clear, Kane taunted me from behind the door, that he had allowed me to get this far for a reason. I then moved a laser cannon from one tank to another, so that I could use it to punch a hole in the red door. Despite telling Kane to stop as I entered the office, he ran away, so I checked his laptop which played a recorded message from the Voice of the Court to newly created Talons. It specifically talked to Hunters, which were created to drive vigilantes from the shadows — presumably so that the Court could fit in the shadows better without us also being in them…

Entering the hallway that Kane had just ran into, he taunted that an army couldn’t get to him, so I had no hope. Seeing the hallway filled with mines and laser grids, I just walked through everything absolutely fine. In the next room, he had already made his way towards the submarines in the bay beyond, so he sicced two of the new Hunters on me. I knocked them out with utmost ease and grabbed Kane, who told me to hit him. Batgirl refused, until Kane reminded her that she didn’t save her father’s life, then she socked him and dragged him back upstairs to the lobby, handing him over to Montoya.

Kane was taken outside to the assembled police officers and awaiting press, though he remained defiant, until Commissioner Catherine Kane arrived and clearly believed the warrant. However, Jacob didn’t get a chance to spin whatever lies he was thinking, as he was hit in the chest by a green glowing arrow!

Spotting Talia al Ghul, who clearly wanted to be seen, I gave chase across the city roads and rooftops until we reached Wayne Tower. There, she finally admitted that her ousting from the League was all a lie, and thanked me for the collaboration. Now she could focus on purging the city of corruption, then the world! She left me to deal with some of her assassins, and then I returned to Belfry where my patrol summary said that I had completed five bonus objectives, which involved defeating 92 enemies, 22 of which were silent takedowns…

FOOTNOTES

Robbins Insurance Company is probably a nod to June Robbins who is a member of the super team Challengers of the Unknown, and has been around on and off since 1957. Though Frank Robbins was a writer and artist who worked on various DC comics.
Falcone Residence is named for the Falcone crime family which has been a regular presence in Batman-related media since 1987.
Flakies are a brand of cereal that sponsored Booster Gold way back in his ongoing title in 1986!
Ass gets its own footnote as I’ve literally waited 17 diaries for the chance to mention it! Nightwing is known across the fan space as having a nice rear, so much so that it’s seeped into the comics and was an actual plot point in Grayson when someone recognised him due to his buttocks.
Lex Luthor is the well-known primary antagonist in most Superman media.
Kate Kane is the alter-ego of Batwoman, who first appeared in 2006.
Metropolis is the home of Superman!