Arkham City Post #9: Boss Fights in the Museum

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

Part 8: Shark Repellant Bat BEAT DOWN

Having taken care of that pesky shark, my next stop was to confront Penguin in the Iceberg Lounge, where he had holed himself up with Mr. Freeze's ice gun.  I mentioned Zelda before, and the comparison seemed more relevant than ever under these circumstances: me heading to the deepest point in the Museum (read: dungeon), equipped with a new gadget that's tailor-made to see me through the final showdown with the enemy at hand (read: boss fight).  I always thought that term was somewhat of a misnomer: most of the "bosses" one encounters in videogames aren't really bosses in the sense that they direct or supervise workers.  With the exception of the final boss, they're mostly just henchmen who have significantly more power than the average, run-of-the-mill grunt you run into during the rest of the adventure.  However, in this case, the term took on new meaning, considering that Penguin is one of Gotham's most fearsome crime bosses...

The Iceberg Lounge was a circular room with a raised outer balcony surrounding a lower level.  Extending from the balcony was a walkway leading to a gazebo-like structure, under which Penguin had camped out. Luckily the balcony was punctuated with decorative arches, behind which I could hide and avoid Penguin's freezing blasts.  The Disruptor has a limited range, so it was a simple matter of getting close enough to Penguin, activating the gadget to temporarily put his gun out of commission, then punching his lights out.  If it sounds a little too easy, it absolutely was.  But taking care of Penguin was not even half the battle.

No sooner had I rescued the last hostage I could, when Penguin popped out of nowhere with a second wind and a rocket launcher.  After a nasty fall, I found myself in a large creepy basement chamber where my Disruptor would do absolutely no good.  Chained up on the far side of the room was a gigantic zombified creature, which I would have mistaken for the Grey Hulk if I didn't know the difference between the Marvel and DC Universes.  This creature was in fact the mysterious Solomon Grundy (born on a Monday).  He can apparently be revived from death with the application of large quantities of electricity.  And each time he is so revived, it makes him stronger than before.  So having been alive for more than 600 years, he was understandably pretty darn massive.

As I stared at Grundy's fist, mere inches away from my face, held back by what turned out to be a rather flimsy chain apparatus, it occurred to me that I had overheard some of Penguin's henchmen make reference to some kind of "monster" that he had chained up in the basement.  These conversations always took place while I was sneaking around, before they knew I was on the premises, and the content of them never stuck in my head because I have a tendency to jump out of the shadows and start cracking skulls before they finish talking.  I really should learn a little patience, since it's no fun to miss out on plot points.  There's just something about the tone of a henchman's voice that immediately triggers my punch-without-mercy reflex.

Anyway, Grundy was easily able to break free of his chains in such a way that he could use his former shackles as gigantic flails.  (Whosever idea it was to attach weighted metal spheres to the ends of a chain, the other end of which was fastened to the wrist of an unkillable giant zombie definitely gets an A+ in the foresight department...)  It was all I could do to dodge out of the way of his vicious attacks and leapfrog over the chains as he swung them in a circle "ring around the rosie" style.  I wasn't getting hit, but any time Grundy lost any life, these electrical columns rose out of the floor and zapped new life into the beast.  I knew I would have to destroy the housing for these columns somehow, and using my new "Quick Fire" combat strategy seemed like the best bet.

The Explosive Gel is a wonderful gadget indeed.  It can blow through weak walls, it can stun enemies, I spray it in the shape of a little Bat-logo.  But because of the time it takes to apply (roughly four seconds, or about one standard action in nerdspeak) it was never very effective in combat.  So I spent the last year honing my skills with the gel, enabling me to set it up in one fluid motion during combat: while performing a nifty-looking somersault, I whip the gel out of my utility belt, spray it on the ground, and replace it before I'm even back on my feet.  This is the tactic I used on all three of the Grundy-renewing electrical pylons, sending Penguin's caged beast crashing to the ground.

...So imagine my surprise when the pylons magically repaired themselves not once, but twice - the last time sending so much electricity into Grundy that he burst into flames, along with the entire area around him.  He was stronger and faster than ever, but I eventually was able to take him down using the same strategy, after which I smashed my fist through his glowing, zombified heart.  Even though Grundy wasn't really anyone's "boss," he sure made for a prototypical and challenging boss fight.

Part 10: Hunting the League of Assassins