Gotham Knights Diaries Part Six

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…

After failing to stop Mister Freeze, as well as being unable to obtain intel from Penguin, and Harley Quinn being at large, I was back at Belfry to check on what we knew so far…

Since I spotted an objective marker next to the Batman memorial, I went to check it and Dick Grayson’s tablet reacted to the gauntlet. Suddenly, it had schematics for a glider downloading to it, called the Flying Trapeze, which would enable Nightwing to get around Gotham more easily.

However, I didn’t want to continue as Nightwing, so I swapped back to Barbara Gordon. Equipping her in Batgirl’s Flash Forward suit, I then acquired the abilities Remote Hacking, Shocking Devices, and Heavyweight. She had emails from Dinah Lance and Kara Danvers talking about a concert, Diana Prince wishing her well, and Alysia Yeoh wanting to catch up.

After doing her training, I spoke to Alfred Pennyworth who said that, while Penguin was cold towards us, Batman himself had experienced similar challenges. So, like him, we should focus on the rest of Gotham for now, which would allow us to mess with Penguin’s criminal dealings. Alfred also indicated that I should read the emails from Lucius Fox and Detective Montoya. While I had no new message from Lucius, the one from Montoya gave some coordinates where she wanted to meet Batman.

There was also an email exchange between Barbara and Jason Todd, as apparently Nightwing and Robin were going to turn up to a Pride parade, and she had invited Jason to go. While he had no rainbow cape to wear, Baraba suggested a rainbow hood…

It turned out that the message from Lucuis was on the Batcomputer, who was calling from his company Foxteca, and asked someone to meet him on the roof of his building to give us some “flowers”. Dick Grayson, as a detective trained by Batman, wondered why Lucuis didn’t just send them via courier, so Alfred suggested that it was actually code for something.

Since there was an objective marker with Mister Freeze’s face on it, I interacted with the hologram projector. Jason and Dick were training in the middle of the room, instead of over with the gym equipment, and the team was discussing Freeze. Tim Drake had decided that everything Freeze had stolen was to upgrade his suit, and for some reason the supervillain had downloaded 10 years worth of weather balloon data. The Batcomputer was set to look for Cryogel, but until then we had other things to do.

Since I levelled up, I grabbed the ability Digital Ghost, so that cameras and sensors would ignore Batgirl, then headed out on patrol. During this section I saved a Witness Under Attack, found two Criminals In Hiding, investigated a crime scene, saved some Officers Under Attack, prevented an Armed Robbery, stopped an Illegal Hack, disarmed some bombs, and a Kidnapping In Progress. I also resolved a large number of crimes of opportunity, unlocked seven of Batman’s secret caches, and found some Batarangs.

Arriving at the top of Foxteca, Lucius revealed a jetpack glider designed by Luke Fox, to help us get around the city faster. However, to use it would require “clearing a path”. The Gotham police department had a network of drones scanning the skies, so I would get shot down in minutes. Fortunately, if I were to scan the drones then Lucius would be able to make them overlook the glider. Annoyingly, the first one that I had to scan was in the opposite direction of the crimes that I was combatting, so I put it off for a bit.

After resolving two of them, I went to check out something marked Penguin’s Organ Trafficking, where I found a handful of criminals guarding an area in Robinson Park covered in cameras and laser grids. Knocking out a couple of them, I spotted the cryogenic container I needed. Thanks to my new ability, I snuck down and grabbed it, before being told that I had to hoof it, otherwise the organ would expire! Alfred told me to meet Dr. Thompkins at a drop site, so I hopped on my bike and drove like a maniac as I had less than two minutes! Fortunately, I arrived with plenty of time to spare, meeting Jada Thompkins who was standing at an ambulance labelled Thompkins Mobile Medical Clinic.

The next closest mission was to plant some files on another server to hide Batman’s real identity, and thanks to my Digital Ghost ability it was easy to just avoid the lone guard patrolling the area. That done, I stopped a crime then headed for Penguin’s Criminal Deal where two gangs were making some sort of deal involving Modchips. I was pretty proud to have grabbed all three chips before anyone noticed me!

Since I was nearby, I headed over to the Financial District to unlock the fast travel point which I managed without issue, resolved two more crimes, then unlocked the Southside fast travel point. It had a shielded drone, showing that these would slowly get more difficult. Not too far was another server to hide Batman’s identity, so I went over and entered the Waynetech building, discovering some pressure plates! Fortunately, I was able to bypass them completely since the lasers and camera ignored me.

On the way to a secret cache, I passed the Ocran Industries factory and made my way to Old Gotham, being distracted by another fast travel scan. Then, since it was close by, I headed to meet with Montoya. However, as I approached, I spotted a Batgirl symbol on the compass, and wound up at the Gordon Memorial, a big statue of Commissioner James Gordon, backed by some war memorials.

A cutscene began where Batgirl hid from view as Montoya “shared” a drink with the statue, before approaching the detective. Montoya commented that Gordon would have hated being literally placed on a pedestal, but Batgirl said that it worked well as a symbol, which Gordon would have approved of. Montoya left, walking to the left before the cutscene ended and she was suddenly waiting under a gazebo on the right. However, I checked out the war memorial first, there were four of them: for officers who fell during the second World War, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, and the Gotham City riots of 1983.

I went over to speak to Montoya and she explained that some cops have gone back to their pre-Gordon dirty ways. Worse, while Commissioner Kane didn’t like it, she wasn’t doing anything to prevent it. Even worse, the good officers were getting the worst assignments on top of being attacked by gangs because they wouldn’t take bribes! She asked that I keep an eye on the police, even the bad ones, and in exchange she would get me some resources. Checking my Contacts tab, I saw that I had to interrogate four criminals, and save three GCPD officers under attack, to progress Detective Montoya.

Fast travelling across town, I headed back to the Iceberg Lounge (while interrogating four scrubs) and went in through the skylight. Silently incapacitating two goons, I was spotted by some others and had to beat them up before I was allowed into Penguin’s office, though this time I opened the door instead of kicking.

Penguin held a finger to his lips and put some loud music on, then hinted that there were listening devices hidden around the office. He turned down the music and motioned that I should have a look around, and I wound up finding and destroying bugs on a bust, a plant vase, and his desk lamp. Finally, Penguin was ready to talk, once I brought over a bottle of whisky.

When asked why he hadn’t received preferential treatment to get out of prison, Penguin quoted a poem “But no one talks about them, Not a whispered word is said…” Recognising it, as apparently all Gothamites would, Batgirl said that the Court of Owls wasn’t real. Penguin handed over a coin from The Powers Club, a local club for the super rich. He then opened the door and I left the club, where Red Hood asked me to go to Tricorner Island and check on Alfred who hadn’t checked in for a while.

Along the way, I stopped by yet another server to plant some files, and Alfred came over the comm to remind me to be careful, despite him not being at Belfry… Once I deactivated some pressure plates, I planted the files and suddenly noticed that Lucius had appeared on my map again. Nipping over to see him first, he only wanted to offer me some resources, but I was close enough to scan the fast travel point in Otisburg, at least, and it convinced me to also unlock the Tricorner Island one too.

Finally reaching Alfred’s location, it turned out that he just wanted to have a private meeting with Jacob Kane, partly to check on how Dick was doing as a board member of the Wayne Foundation. They were almost mugged, but both of them being former-military they just stared the guy down and he ran off, without Bat-family interference. With Alfred’s safety confirmed, I headed for the Powers Club to find the Court of Owls…

FOOTNOTES

Dinah Lance is the superhero Black Canary, created in 1969 and daughter of the Black Canary who was created in 1947, making her the first legacy character, and the only one who is still being used instead of the original. She’s frequently on Barbara Gordon’s superteam Birds of Prey.
Kara Danvers is Supergirl, who was first created in 1959, died in 1985, and after many attempts in the comics to create a different Supergirl, finally returned in 2004. It’s not possible for me to sum up as a footnote how messy her history is.
Diana Prince is Wonder Woman, who I covered in a previous footnote.
Alysia Yeoh is Barbara Gordon’s roomate in the 2011 run of Batgirl, and is one of DC’s dozen or so transgender characters.
Pride being mentioned is a nice addition to the game, as for the last couple of years DC Comics has put out a DC Pride special featuring LGBTQ characters, one of whom is Tim Drake who came out as bisexual in 2021.
Foxteca is originally from the Batman The Animated Series, as in the comics Lucius Fox has worked and does work for Wayne Enterprises.
Luke Fox (AKA Lucas Fox) first appeared in 2016, taking over the mantle of the superhero Batwing.
Dr. Thompkins is a long-time Batman ally, usually depicted as around Alfred’s age — at least Leslie Thompkins is.
Ocran Industries is probably the second most esoteric thing in this game, as it featured in the 2006 Vertigo comic The Exterminators.
1983 having riots doesn’t really point to anything that happened in DC comics or real life, however, it could be a reference to the 2019 movie Joker which may have taken place then?