October 18th, 2011: I want you so hard. Er, bad. I want you bad. Wait, what?

Hoboyohboy. I’m SO insanely pumped to start up Arkham City; I’ve been thinking about it all. effing. day. In fact, it’s currently nested on my couch, awaiting my fingers to tear into its shit.

So why am I writing this blog entry when I could be tearing into aforementioned shit, you ask? BECAUSE I’M ONE DEDICATED MOTHERFUCKER, THAT’S WHY. That being said, I’m going to keep this entry short as possible.

I had to venture over to Wikipedia and YouTube to refresh my Arkham Aslyum memory, as I had completely forgotten about the Venom/Titan fiasco, which you know, kindaaaa was huge deal in the game. (Ugh. I hate it how I forget game events so easily—which is why I started keeping a log of the games I play, FYIZZLE!) So, what do I know about Arkham City? Not a lot, except that hooligans are running rampant throughout Gotham. Or something. I know Robin looks like Eminem and Cole from Infamous. I know Catwoman is playable. If this game does well (DERP) the series will continue, according to Rocksteady.

And that, my friends, is pretty much all of the Arkham City information my brain currently holds. (I’ve stayed far away from Arkham City articles!).

I’ve heard the scores, so I expect nothing less than a stellar experience with Arkham City.

AND NOW…I go to bed.

Lame salsa.

October 27th, 2011: Oh, I’ve missed this.

It’s been over a year since I finished Arkham Asylum, and while I’ve forgotten a few details of the game’s story I distinctly remember it left a very hot wing-esque taste in my mouth. Which is the best taste ever. And after firing up Arkham City and spending about an hour with it, that taste of heavenly, theoretical hot wings filled my mouth last night thanks to the gadgets, the moves, the flying, Batman’s hotness, detective mode, reading the character’s bios, and just overall, being a stealthy badass. I HAVE MISSED ALL OF IT SO HARD.

Even just typing about it makes me giddy.

So Arkham City is picking up, obviously, after the events of Arkham Asylum. While he has never been a political person, Bruce Wayne doesn’t agree with Arkham City and knows it won’t be long before the thugs break out and ooze into Gotham. From the sounds of it, he’s tried to stop the construction of Arkham City as Batman, but it’s not enough, so he’s investing millions and getting all up in the political scene to try and bring it down.

Unfortunately, as he’s starting his little ol’ speech he’s arrested for “protesting” and brought into Arkham City. While that wasn’t his original plan, it turns out it’s probably for the best as Hugo Strange (he seems to be the man running everything…in a sense, anyway) mentions something called Protocol Ten, and now that they have Batman it can go into effect. DUN DUN DUUUUN…

Of course, Mr. Wayney-Poo escapes and makes his way into the booking area. After being “processed” and running into Jack Ryder he comes face-to-face with Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot (OHMYGOD I LOVE THAT NAME) or Penguin, but I personally like Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot. (OHMYGOD I WROTE IT AGAIN.) Ultimately, Bruce breaks free, punches everyone in the nuts and has Alfred drop off his ish. Once he’s all suited up and officially Batman, he intercepts a radio transmission that depicts Harvey Dent(TWO FACE!) has Catwoman at the court house. (For the record, I skipped writing about the part when I played as Catwoman in the beginning because all it would have consisted of would be talk of her amazing ass.)

So I stormed the courthouse, defeated Two Face’s thugs, strung him up and saved Catwoman. Also, I just need to say that I could be considered a Batman n00b–the only Batman experience I have is the films and with Arkham City—and I just need to say these characters fucking rock. Mmkay. So Batman wants to know what Catwoman knows of Protocol Ten. She says she knows nothing, but is concerned about Two Face. He’s been off of the radar for a while, but all of a sudden he’s back and “running the place.” Rumor has it he and Joker are working on something together, JUST for Batman.

While we were chit chatting, Mr. Joker decided to make an attempt at sniping Catwoman. Batman, being the stud he is, moved her out of the way just in time. I really would have preferred it if they just boinked right then and there, but alas. Anyway, she left and Batman used his stealthy detective moves to find out where the bullet came from, which happened to be from a Bell Tower on a church. I headed there and found Miss Quinn. God I love her. She’s so stupid and obnoxious but I still love her. Thinking of it, that would have been a fun Halloween costume.

ANYWAY! She left to go do more of Joker’s bidding, and I was left with four or five armed inmates. What ensued was my favorite quote thus far:

After pwning everyone and saving hostages, I climbed up to the Bell Tower and LO AND BEHOLD…there was this. Lovely.

Now I need to track his radio signal! But I seriously doubt he’ll just be, you know, chilling and waiting for me. Supposedly he’s had a bad reaction to the overdose on Titan from Arkham Asylum, and rumor has it that he’s dying and hasn’t quite been himself lately. I SHALL FIND OUT!!!!

October 28th, 2011: I Are Wander-er.

Y’know, at one point I felt like I would need to rush through Arkham City so I’d be able to start Uncharted 3 the day it releases (TUESDAY), but now I’m finding myself WANTING to take my sweet time and find all of the ringing phones, the TITAN containers, all of the AR training locations…or, hell, sometimes I just want to freakin’ wander around. I seriously think Rocksteady inserted some sort of invisible crack that is transmitted through the air and comes out of the controllers. Otherwise I don’t know what it could be because I am effin’ HOOKED! I mean okay, from the few hours I’ve played I can clearly state that Arkham City is fantastic game thus far (DUH) but something about it makes me want to search every detail and seek out every side quest—and kiddos, I usually only do that for Dragon Age. So I’m gonna stick with my invisible crack theory.

During my session today I ran into good ol’ Bane. At first I tried to be all stealthy squirrel and sneak up on him, but then Batman had a conversation with him and nooow we’re sorta-kinda working together to track down TITAN containers. Cool.

Kudos to Bane for not wanting the TITAN containers floating around the city…but I wouldn’t be surprised if he were really up to something. Other than that, I wandered around some more, smashed some faces in, leveled up…you know. BEE TEE DUB, what do you guys level up? Since I tend to be balls-to-the-walls, I usually upgrade my armor because I don’t take care of Batman like I should. :/

Story-wise, I tracked down Joker’s signal and ultimately saved Dr. Stacy Baker. In a nutshell, there is an insane amount of toxins in Joker’s blood. She couldn’t find out a way to save him, so his thugs were going to kill her (and it sounds like they’ve been doing that with other doctors). I THINK she was originally from that group I saved in the church.

I then found this spiffy new gadget….

…and called it a night! I only had 45 minutes or so to play, most of which was spent wandering around. <3

So yeah, in terms of what’s going in in Arkham City, it sounds like everyone is banking on Joker becoming worm fodder. Therefore the thugs are torn on who to follow upon his demise, whether it be Two Face, Penguin, Quinn…GOD I LOVE THIS FREAKING GAME.

November 1st, 2011: Ohai Joker!

I woke up early Saturday morning because I couldn’t sleep. Why couldn’t I sleep, kiddos? TAKE A GUESS. It may or may not have had something to do with an epic desire to have a controller in my hand and Batman on my TV.

Awww yeah.

It’s been a long time since I’ve woken up early because I couldn’t stop thinking about a game, so despite my grogginess, it felt awesome. Unfortunately the grogginess made me play like an absolute artard because I couldn’t figure out WTF I was supposed to shoot with my newly found gadget. Thankfully every time I headed in the wrong direction Batman would (in)patiently remind me that HE was supposed to head to the loading bay to find Joker because he is the GODDAMN BATMAN. But like I said, the problem was that I couldn’t seem to locate the entrance to the loading bay. Once I was about 98% awake, however, I finally the large, yellow sign that was my ultimate target. Geez, Rocksteady, make it a little more obvious next time. I mean the sign was only LARGE AND FUCKING YELLOW. =_= ::headdesk::

I finally made my to the propper area, and I knew this because there were suddenly a butt-ton of thugs I needed to fight. But before I began smacking my bitches up, I heard one of them say that Joker had some guy named Abramovich who he found from a “Russian freak show.” He also said he was once a Siamese twin with another dude, but they were split up and the brother works for Cobblepot. OSWALD CHESTERFIELD COBBLEPOT. Ahhhhhh…I needed to get that out of my system.

Kay! After performing aforementioned action of smacking my bitches up, I came face-to-face with Harley Quinn, and supposedly, a dead Joker (when Batman went into his detective mode Joker’s status read as “Deceased”) and Quinn went into a horrendous acting routine on how Batman was so mean to Joker and now he’s dead, yadda yadda yadda.

Unfortunately for Mr. Bat Joker was still alive. He snuck up behind Batman and gassed him, which proceeded with a swift hit to the head by a baseball bat courtesy of Harley Quinn.

The scene then switched to Catwoman, who was torn between helping Batman and looting Professor Strange’s vault. But first she needed to help on breaking into the vault, so she decided to ask Poison Ivy for help. However, Red wasn’t too keen on Catwoman showing up as she apparently once killed a bunch of flowers. So, she tried to kill her. Lovely! It was fun playing as Catwoman, though. I love her sassiness and agility. Also, she’s catwoman. I love cats.

While Poison Ivy had Catwoman tied up, we went back to Batman. Surprisngly, it turns out Joker doesn’t know what Protocol Ten is, or at least claims not to. What is not surprising, however, is that the rumors are true and that he is sick. Oh, he also injected Batman with his blood so Batman will also be sick. OH OH! He also sent his tainted blood to emergency centers across the city.

The rundown: Mr. Freeze apparently had the cure, or was close to making it, but never ended up giving it to Joker. Batman now has to locate Mr. Freeze by finding the coldest place in the city, find the cure and save everyone! Weeeee!!!

October 27th, 2011: Side Questation!

I’ve been finding myself with only a few spare minutes here and there to play Arkham City, so instead of diving into the bread ‘n butta of the story I’ve been soooorta-kinda focusing on side quests and ish. Kinda.

While I was out knocking heads, I ran into Mr. Jack Ryder cowering behind a building. He just sat there, mumbling to himself about how he’s going to expose Hugo Strange and how he was going to redeem himself as the best reporter, blahblahblah. Apparently this will all be possible by squatting and pressing himself against aforementioned building. Cool story, bro.

I met up with this guy for SOME reason (note taking fail on my end!) and during our conversation he was um shot. And by shot I mean murdered. So I became Mr. Detective, scanned the area and came to the conclusion that Deadshot is also in Arkham City. I personally have never heard of this criminal before, so I emitted a short but sweet squeal of excitement upon discoveration. Yes, discoveration. Anywho, I’m supposed to be on the lookout for for clues during my ventures in Arkham City. Which I haven’t done. :/

I’ve also been trying to trace Zasz through his little “let me call you and tell you about my emo life while you track my location during said telling of my emo life”. Man, and sometimes I think my life is rough when I run out of hot wings.

I pwn’d these bros while buzzed from a rum ‘n coke. It was probably the most satisfying thing I’ve ever done in my life.

HO-KAY! Now let’s get to some of the actual story bits. So, from my understanding Joker AND Mr. Cobblepot are after Mr. Freeze. Joker is after Freeze for the cure, and Penguin is after him because…of…yeah. I’m not entirely sure why, but I’m guessing it’s because Mr. Pengy doesn’t want the cure to fall into Joker’s hands seeing as Arkham City is a political clusterfuck and people are fighting for power, yadda yadda yadda; basically, it’d be easier for him if Joker kicked the bucket.

I broke into the old Gotham City PD lab–where I thought Freezey would be–but after interrogating some muthafucka’s I discovered Mr. Freeze has already fallen into Cobblepot’s grasp and is currently being held at the Arkham City Museum. RutRoh.

Oh, Mr. Cobblepot. For having such an awesome name you sure suck.

November 19th, 2011: COBBLEPOOOOT!

Mr. Penguin was using signal jammers, so I wasn’t able to hack my way into the museum by using my handy dandy thingamob (I seriously need to learn the names of these things. I just know what order they are in on the d-pad) therefore I wandered all around Arkham City in order to destroy dem bitches.

After all three were destroyed, I finally made it to the museum. Um, I just need to tell everyone that I really, really enjoyed exploring the museum. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been to one in a while, but I had a LOT of fun looking around and exploring the exhibits, as well as listening to Penguin’s lil’ explanations for each exhibit.

I quickly found out that some undercover Gotham City dudes from the 13^th precinct had been discovered and held as hostages. Lovely. As I made my way deeper in the museum, I finally came into conatact with Cobblepot. He was holding an initiation of sorts for thugs that wanted to join his crew, and I went up against an asston of them. <3. Obviously that wasn’t meant to be too big of a challenge, so Penguin through in that other Siamese twin, and what ensued was like a late-game boss battle in Arkham Asylum. I pwn’d, Penguin left.

A few moments later I walked into this freeze room and Penguin shot my arm with Freeze’s freeze…gun? Yeah. That. He then left like a little bitch, but not before freezing a few other cops. So, I was a nice Batman and saved the cops and sought out Mr. Freeze.

I found him in a display case. And to be honest, I didn’t even know that was him. I don’t think I’ve seen him outside of his suit, so it was kinda weird seeing him all old and vulnerable. I thought he seemed like a cool dude…I mean, he was a little weird, but cool. For now. As soon as he tries to kill me I will take a blowtorch to his ass. Anyway, Freeze told me that he had a Disrupter Freeze Override-thing in his suit that is “used to remotely disable custom designed freeze gun weaponry.” CHYEAH.

I found his suit, equipped myself with the ish and, once again, sought out Mr. Cobblepot.

Penguin-Poo wasn’t a match for me once I disabled his ish, and I delivered a swift punch to this face annnnnd that was great and all, but then he blew up some shit and I suddenly found myself a floor below facing a horrendous beast called Soloman Grundy. Definitely not someone I want to wake up to in the morning. The fight that ensued with Soloman was quick and easy, and after he was put down I again punched Penguin in the face. Perfect.

I then met up with Freeze, who told me that there actually wasn’t a cure ready; apparently the cure degrades too quickly and it needs a restorative element, an enzyme and human DNA to bond with. NO PROBLEMO! Batman knows that Ras al Ghul dude, albeit dead, has been exposed to that enzyme for centuries. While Batman and Freeze were having this lovely convo, a ninja lady in a display case woke up (according to Penguin, she pwn’d several of his men earlier which is why she was locked up) went batshit, jumped out of her display case and ran off saying something or another how Batman isn’t worthy of seeing him.

I know jack shit about this lady, but I guess she’s part of the Leage of Assassin’s, which is what Ras al Ghul is (or was?) the leader of. Or maybe he’s dead but immortal, so he’s still alive. I don’t fucking know how this stuff works. Anyway, dumarase lady (whose name is Talia) cut herself on the glass while jumping out of aforementioned case, leaving Batman evidence to scan and track her with. NOW, I read her bio, and Talia Al Ghul is the daughter of Ras Al Ghul. Ras has orchestrated a relationship with her and Batman, and Talia is Bruce Wayne’s on/off again lover. Brown Chicken Brown Cow.

Ho-kay, so I was tracking this broad WHEN ZOMG ROBIN CAME TO MY RESCUUUUEEE. I don’t know why I was so excited to see him, but I definitely squealed like my eight-year-old self when I saw the Backstreet Boys in concert. He gave me the line launcher, and Batman was kind of a douche and basically told him to piss off; he told Robin to search the hospitals for patients that have tained blood like himself. THANKS JOKER. Robin flew away. …see what I did thare?! HURRRRR.

Tracking the ninja led me to the sewers (mmmm) and Jokers men were already there, hunting the rest of Penguin’s men. Random: While I was down there, Strange made an announcement that Protocol 10 would begin in five hours. When I first started the game, the countdown started at ten hours.

While searchin’ the stanky tunnels, I saved a damsel in distress, a nurse named Fiona somethin’ somethin’. She was kidnapped simply because she was a nurse, and Strange thought she could help Joker. OH. About that, Strange is supplying Joker with TYGER weaponry. Sounds to me like he’s trying to control who runs ‘dem streets, nahm’sayin? It’s a political clusterfuck!

Eventually I made it to Wonder City (before this, Batman had a few “attacks” due to the poison)…and WTF is Wonder City? It sounds like it was supposed to be the “future of Gotham City” but it looks like it failed miserably. There were a bunch of mech guardians and stuff. I scanned their data, found out where the ninjas were disappearing to annnnnnnnnd promptly turned the game off. I had a Husky football game to watch. <3.

November 29th, 2011: I Never Know What Batman is Thinking.

First of all, look how far I am! I am so CLOSE to finally finishing Arkham City.

…shut up. In my defense, that was before my session last Wednesday. I’m probably at, like, 23% right now.

So Bats wandered into the Ninjas’ hideout and promptly collapsed on the ground. As if that weren’t lovely enough, he than began to hallucinate and see his parental units calling out to him in a majestic beam of white light. Psh. What crappy parents. Why would they want their son to, uh, die? If he dies, Gotham dies. True story.

Thankfully Oracle snapped him out of it and politely told him, that according to the batsuit readings, he had only a few minutes to live. Yeah, thanks Oracle. She offered to contact Robin and have him assist, but Batman pretty much said “HELL NAW” to that idea. Oh, Batman. Why must you try to convince the world that your veins run with the fluids of stud muffinry? I mean, come on dude, we already know it exists. Also, what happened to the ambiguous duo of Batman and Robin? I thought the two were BFFs. I’m sure it’s in some Batman lore that he and the original Robin had a terrible breakup and Batman forever holds a grudge against the “new” Robin, but still. Lame.

Batman finally tracked the assassin (or ninja, or whatever the hell she is. A ninja assassin?) and that bitch lead him straight to Talia. And let me just say Talia has my full approval.  (I knew I loved her when she said “After that night in Metropolis, you could have just called [instead of tracking me down.]) Anyway, Batman told Talia that he had a change of heart; that he wanted to take his place at her side as an Assassin because, hey, he was pretty much dying and he didn’t have another choice.

Now I got a little confused here. Batman always has a second agenda, and I, as the player never know what it is. SO. Batman told Talia he wanted to take his place next to her as an Assassin (which I’m guessing was Ras’ plan all along) but in reality he just wanted to get close to Ras in order to get a sample of his blood. Got it. However, in order to take over Ras’ place one is required to pass through a really weird, trippy test and ultimately kill him. Hell, even Talia was telling Batman to kill her father. But, like, Batman doesn’t kill.

Somehow I managed to NOT kill Ras and successfully extracted a syringe of his blood. Batman then lectured Ras about the Lazarus Pit and how it has corrupted his mind. Well, no shit. That Ras dude is a freakin’ psycho. Speaking of the Lazarus Pit…what the heck is it? According to Batman, “Small doses appear to heal most ailments, but even the small amount I ingested had a few nasty side effects.” So…is that the stuff he drank before starting the trial with Ras? Man, this game gets weirder and weirder…in a fan-fucking-tastic way.

As I began to leave the hideout (sans Talia, she was effin’ PISSED that she was lied to) Robin called and gave me the low-down on the confirmed cases of illness at Gotham General; there are 30 confirmed cases, almost 50 at Mercy, and Robin believes there could be up to 200 by tomorrow morning, soon followed by fatalities.

The next main thing on the agenda was to visit Freeze and give him the blood sample. But first I had to stop by and see my “buddy” Bane, as I had destroyed my half of the TITAN containers. Now, I never trusted Bane, but when I arrived a bunch of TYGER folks arrived as well. Bane and I teamed up to knock ’em down (although Bane clobbered me on several occasions and only muttered a “Sorry Batman” after I received a punch my face). After TYGER was taken care of…that mudda’fucka turned on me, JUST LIKE I KNEW HE WOULD.

But like I said above, Batman always has a hidden agenda, and I guess the entire time Batman was using Bane; Bane rounded up the other TITAN containers for easy demolition by Batman.

And that was that.

When I thought I was finally on my way to Freeze, there was that thing with Mayor Quincy Sharp. According to him, Strange’s men approached him back at the Asylum and told him if he turned a “blind eye” to certain things, they could make ish-nit happen for Sharp– liiike guarantee him mayor-ship All Sharp had to do was set up Arkham City and place Strange in charge. But now Strange is placing everyone with evidence against him in Arkham City, which is exactly why Sharp is there. So now I need to find out who Strange is working with.

I finally made it to Freeze, where we uh fought? Um? One second we were all “OHAI here’s the blood you need.” and the next was “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU BATMAN WITH MY HEAT SEEKING MISSLES AND YOU MUST FIND A DIFFERENT WAY TO HURT ME EVERY TIME MUAHAHAHA.” But finally it changed to “I promise you, Victor, I will find Nora.”

I swear, Batman has crazier relationship with the baddies than the kids do on the Jersey Shore.

Yeah, we’ll see about that.

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