Gotham Knights Diaries Part Sixteen

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…

With a warrant out for Jacob Kane’s arrest, we had begun formulating a plan to serve it to him…

Before we headed out to Kane Industries, however, I decided to finish up the other two ongoing cases to get them out of the way, once I updated my equipment with something a bit more powerful.

First up was a visit to Mister Freeze at Blackgate Penitentiary, needing to get some information about the Regulators. However, I was pre-empted by the police scanner reporting that Blackgate was under attack by that very gang, trying to free that exact criminal! They had been after money in the wake of Freeze’s capture, perhaps this was related?

Arriving at the prison, the six Regulators that I found in the courtyard were dealt with swiftly, before I entered the prison. Belfry reported that Freeze was still in his cell, but as I entered the cell block I was confronted by a turret and one lone crook. They were easily dealt with, but in the area below there was a sniper on overwatch with a whole bunch more Regulators, as well as three more turrets. Not that the turrets were a worry, as Batgirl, I had long ago upgraded with the ability to not be detectable by turrets and cameras.

Managing to take down everyone and all four turrets without too much hassle, I spoke to a lawyer in a security office with a guard who was frozen to the wall. They were unable to help me get into the maximum security area, but since the guard had touched at least three things, I was able to scan those and recreate his handprint to get me through. Some more Regulators ambushed me, but they weren’t a threat — they did delay me long enough for them to get Freeze out, judging by the way the floor shook beneath me.

With the frozen Freeze cell empty, I squeezed through a door to find a big, flaming hole in the wall with three Regulators in the area behind, as well as the weapon which they had used to make the hole. It was inactive, though, so I took the three down very easily. They did say that Freeze was in the courtyard, giving me a clue as to where I should go, as he was in his mech. Yes, mech.

Exiting into the courtyard, I found Freeze finishing powering up his mech, which had two thick legs at the rear, and four thinner, pointy legs at the front. It was clearly armed with missiles and an ice beam cannon, as well as being decorated with some spikes. Of course, the way to defeat it was to whack it a bunch of times. Even after trying to escape by freezing the harbour and jumping out of the prison — with Batgirl attached — all that I had to do was hit it and try to avoid being frozen solid.

The mech disabled, I made my escape and let the authorities take him back to his cell. Returning to Belfry, my patrol summary said that I had defeated 34 enemies, but it didn’t say how many were silent takedowns.

Noor Rashid, of GCN, reported on the radio that Mister Freeze was in a new cell, thanks to at least one vigilante who was not in any way Batman, who was still absent. We get it, Batman was great, yeesh…

Next up was to find out what Clayface was up to, and as the group were gathered waiting for Barbara Gordon to finish working out where the pieces of Clayface were going. Jason Todd went to drink water straight out of the tap, but nothing came out. Tim Drake attempted to repair it, bringing the piece of Clayface that they had in a containment vessel with him and placing it on the counter. Both Dick Grayson and Jason watched the Clayface chunk move the vessel across the counter, barely saying a word until it tipped into the sink, opening the vessel and escaping down the drain. Tim asked why nobody warned him while he was under the sink, and apparently, they both thought that a brief “the clay is moving” was sufficient.

Luckily for the team, it was that moment when Barbara discovered that Clayface was returning to the reservoir! If Clayface blocked enough pipework, it could cause the dam to burst and flood North Gotham with no time to evacuate. Since they were going to wait for dark to go and beat up Clayface, and it was daylight, perhaps they could have started an evacuation plan? But no, Dick said that he would call Detective Montoya, and I headed out for the reservoir.

Montoya was already on the scene and said that the place would be evacuated of workers soon. Grappling to the door up top, I entered the building and followed a trail of clay. There was a report on the floor about how too much “mud” was getting through the pipe filters, presumably because Dick didn’t call to warn the reservoir after getting off the phone to the detective…

Going through a gate, I saw a big pile of clay forming together, coming from multiple sources, before it punched through a grate and started forming into Clayface. He attacked me with four arms, though the ones coming from the backs of his shoulders didn’t do anything — until I’d beaten him up a little, and he ripped a large pipe free and slammed it into the floor, sending us both into the sewer below! Clayface began to melt into the water and Batgirl, one of the protégés of the world’s greatest detective, said “That was anticlimactic” and called Belfry to report that she was done.

Alfred Pennyworth directed the Batcycle to my position while telling me to get the hell out of there, and a massive wave that was now Clayface began to chase me while he taunted, unable to believe that I could think that he had been defeated! Hopping onto the Batcycle I drove down the really large tunnels while Red Hood directed me towards a smelting factory. The wave was on my heels, and tentacles and spikes made out of clay erupted from various places! I hit three of them before arriving at the factory, which was open directly to the sewer for some reason.

The heat from the furnaces began to dry Clayface out, but he was still more than happy to attack me again with four arms! After a bit of a beating, he caught himself on fire, the last vestiges of liquid steaming out of him as he lost two arms, and turned his left one into a spiked ball! He didn’t last much longer against my assault, saying that he just wanted to be seen, before his body crumbled and his head rolled across the floor.

A cutscene showed the police collecting Clayface bits in containment vessels and packing them into a van, while Montoya thanked (but also complained at) Batgirl. I then returned to Belfry, where my patrol summary just listed what damage I did, since I only fought one person.

Realising that I might have missed some story beats by sticking exclusively with Batgirl for most of the game so far, I swapped to Dick and noticed that he had something to do upstairs, so up I went. There, he spoke with Alfred about how Bruce Wayne would probably love Belfry, because it had become Dick’s home as much as Gotham itself was. Also, since Bruce knew that Nightwing would face the challenge of Gotham face-on, “he made sure that you would have everything you’d need to succeed.” Alfred handed Dick a tablet that he was holding, and Dick smiled, though I had no idea what was on the tablet.

Since Dick also had a story thing out in the city, I kitted him out in better gear and ran through his upgrades, choosing Evade Chain, Evade Chain Momentum, Assassin's Mark, Critical Distance, Momentum Gain +, Haly’s Favorite, Critical Expertise, and Precise Strikes.

Swapping to Tim Drake, I did the same, except he didn’t yet have a story thing in the city. His upgrades included Knighthood ones, but honestly he hadn’t been upgraded at all yet. I went with Aerial Attack Smoke, Microbots Cooldown Reduction, Microbot Target +, Perfect Evade, Light Footed, Turnabout Takedown, Vantage Hanging Takedown, Vantage Hanging Takedown Mine, Reduced Visual Stim, Shadow Renewal, Element Decoy, Exploding Decoy, Elemental Charge, Sticky Pellet, Sticky Pellets x3, Elemental Resistance, Stealth Damage +, and Back Damage +! Then I nipped upstairs where he had the exact same conversation with Alfred that the former butler had just had with Dick…

Repeating the process with Jason, I discovered that I hadn’t actually started the Knighthood part, so couldn’t upgrade anything there yet. However, I went with Perfect Evade, Coup De Grace, Freak Justice, Mob Justice, Human Bomb, Human Bomb Enhanced, Extended Grab Window, Large Grab, Lucky Rounds, Focused Fire, Focused Fire +, Grip Expertise, Human Bomb Multiplied, and Combined Fire. I had more points to use, but I didn’t want to risk being unable to upgrade three Knighthood abilities, after I had taken Red Hood out into the city to defeat three mini-bosses.

Before I did that, however, I swapped to Barbara and picked another Knighthood ability, Grapple Pull, so that she could have the exact same conversation Dick and Tim had already had with Alfred upstairs. I was convinced that after Jason had the conversation, I’d find out what was on the tablet, so I swapped to him and went out on patrol…