P14A: Catwoman Part IV

Catwoman Part IV

When the game resumes you are Catwoman, standing on one of the towers, and you have decided that it is time to blow this Popsicle stand!  But when you head back to your flat and try to enter, it literally blows up in your face!

You come to with four of Two-Face's thugs standing over you ready to kill you again if you are not dead!  You put the beatdown on them and learn that Two-Face has your stuff...  You gotta get your stuff back Catwoman!  Well, he is in the Museum, that is as good a place to start as any!

Once you get to the Museum you basically you have to battle your way through the Museum, all the way to the Armory, where you will have a Boss Battle with Two-Face.  The problem is he has a never ending spawn of henchmen, so targeting them is pointless as they just re-spawn.

This Boss Battle is probably the most frustrating of all of them in the game, not because Two-Face is hard to kill -- he is not -- but because the way it is set up is misleading to gamers and invariably causes them to adopt a strategy that leads directly to frustration!  I am really not sure if that was the intention of the developer or not, but that is how it works out for most gamers, and I also suspect that this battle may very well be why so many gamers have such a low opinion of the character of Catwoman in the game!

The Two-Face Boss Battle

Bear in mind that she already has some strikes against her -- her movement and the targeting ability for the use of her jump skill -- the equivalent of Batman's Batclaw/Grapnel -- is nowhere near as effective, so while Batman can pretty much target ANY level surface and most objects, fire the Batclaw, and pull himself up to them, Catwoman can only use her whip on the surfaces that the game will allow her to -- and that is a much smaller list.  When you factor in her weakness and vulnerability --  where batman can upgrade each element in his armor four times, Catwoman can only do that two times, and she is already worse off than him because she can soak up a lot less damage before dying...

Ironically she is actually better at the acrobatics of combat -- assuming you are not a button masher and know the different moves as well as have a touch for knowing when to dodge...  Strictly from a fighting perspective, Catwoman is the better character hands down!  But Batman can take more hits, so in the end that makes all the difference.

Back to the Boss Battle -- as I said, whether the developer intended to or not, the impression is given in this level that it must be a ninja fight.  That Catwoman needs to remain hidden and single-out Two-Face for her attacks, and that the attacks need to all be takedown moves.  This makes for a frustrating level because the thugs he has with him are good at spotting and shooting you, and they are all armed.  In addition to that, Two-Face moves around and the places he goes are NOT ideal for executing takedown moves!

The prevailing wisdom among the gamers that I worked with doing the guide is that you basically have to do sneak attacks on him until you do away with his health!  That is as straight forward as it gets according  to them, but the problem with this approach is you are going to die.  A LOT.  And death of this sort naturally leads to frustration, and frustration causes you to act recklessly, and THAT leads to even more death, and before you know it, you have gamer walking away from the game disgust over this almost final level in the game!

That is a shame, and it should not happen, because this really is not only a good game, but the best Batman game -- hell, the best Super Hero game -- EVER.  It should be a source of massive pleasure for you, and the fact that the developer resisted the use of grief code when they could easily have used it and gotten away with that is a major kudo in their favor.  Seriously.  We owe them a debt of gratitude for treating us -- the gamer -- with a level of respect that is rarely seen in modern gaming.

So if the ninja route is not viable, you are probably wondering what the best way to do this is, right?  Well there  is another -- and a better -- way... 

After you enter the Armory find a perch above where you can see Two-Face -- he will likely be on the bridge in the center of the chamber.  Once you have ID'd him, target and pounce on him, which will cause him to fall on the floor in a daze.  You cannot do a takedown move on him when he is down like this, and because of that many gamers assume that means you need to wait while he recovers and then use another takedown move, rinse and repeat, until he is done. No, no, no!

Sure you cannot do the finishing move on him when he is dazed, but you can beat the living crap out of him while he is down on the ground!  Kicks and punches still hurt him baby!  So what you want to do is ignore the world -- and only attack the henchmen who are close and who will be shooting you in the back and sides -- and simply beat the ever-loving crap out of him!

If you do this right -- watch the video to see what I mean -- you may (will) get shot a few times by henchmen, but you do not die because you have more than enough armor protection and health to absorb a half-dozen gun attacks while you beat on him.  And it does not take that many attacks to KO him and trigger the CS!  Once you have taken his HP and triggered the CS the level is effectively over,  and you win ! 

Personally I like winning a lot more than I like dying -- I am just saying -- and to be honest, Catwoman sucks at ninja skills!  This approach is more suited to her very direct personality and it gets the job done...  And once the job is done, you have a meeting with Batman and the game is now fully back in play mode.  You can swap out characters and complete the remaining elements to wrap everything up nicely.