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Verifier Responses
SS run on Normal with Catwoman DLC
SS run on New Game Plus with Catwoman DLC
Sorry for the tardiness on that NG+ run. I've been extremely busy, but I'm going to watch it tonight and will provide my comments soon, and I promise they won't be as long as last time 
A/V: looks good
Cheating: none
Okay, this is going to be a LOT shorter than my newgame verification (HAHAHAHAHA yeah right), and it'll actually finish the entire run! So, just a simple highlights/lowlights list and general notes.
HIGHLIGHTS
5:30 excellent luck on the breaking-handcuffs and nice grouping of enemies on the ensuing fight. Bonus points for rare Penguin dialogue =P
9:11 That was a pretty sick i-frame dodge >_>
16:48 What a beautiful fight, that one hit aside. Excellent work getting rid of the armoured guy first with REC
18:15 I never would have thought to use a freeze grenade on the armoured thug. This room in general was very good, except for the blooper mentioned below.
20:30 No problems with the REC physics puzzle like in the runner's newgame run
23:00 Caltrops are totally OP
24:26 I cannot overstate how hard this fight is on NG+, even when you're not going for speed. I can forgive the sloppy ending to Wave 2, and Ivy hitting one of her own goons about halfway through Wave 3 was hilarious. Bravo!
28:58 Getting into GCPD was definitely way better than in his NG run.
30:00 More Ice goodness, keeping the "interrogated" mook frozen for the duration of the predator section
33:40 o_O MULTIKILL (or, uh, multi-takedown. This is Batman we're talking about here)
34:45 I actually had no idea the enemies had special dialogue for seeing Batman disable the disruptor!
38:00 Untextured GCPD building ftw! Also a great setup to get every enemy with one batarang multi-takedown.
39:29 Did the runner do a U-turn to make the end of the RC batarang section faster? Clever!
41:14 Using Titan Charge to set up a multi-takedown was also clever. And another clutch dodge against the Titan when dealing with the riot shield guy
43:51 No complaints about the dive bomb sequence break, but wouldn't it be faster to use the Line Launcher like at 46:10?
46:40 That guy next to the cops is completely blind. And deaf. He probably can't speak English either.
47:45 More mundane Line Launcher skipping the shark.
48:20 Yay for shoryuken fail! INSTANT ACCEPT!
50:00-ish Solomon Grundy was pretty standard, except for dodging those shockwaves, which was amazingly tight
51:20 Sliding under Penguin's grenades was much better than in the NG run, and it pretty much ends up as a straight line right to Penguin. Bravo.
54:40 Nice entrance into the Subway Tunnels without so much as alerting the guards!
55:05 Excellent speed on the Line Launcher glitch, although the runner still uses the slower version. Probably losing a minute or two there, but I think this run might have been completed before the better version of the glitch was discovered.
57:15 Turning a mediocre fight into an excellent one through some improv and lucky positioning. Excellent double ledge takedown!
1:04:30 Beautiful timing on the early flight in Ra's Al Ghul's trial. I think you actually beat Ra's' air trail to the glacier :O Same at 1:05:46
1:08:00 That entire Ra's Al Ghul fight was very cool to watch.
1:10:00 Um...that was an unusual straggling soldier there from the last wave.
1:14:30 Well done on skipping the Predator section, even after getting shot.
1:15:20 The fight started ugly but ended well.
1:16:35 Holy. Shit. That was amazing ='D
1:17:40 Nicely done getting into the GCPD, and I love the timing of Joker's "I double-dare you!" with your sequence break. Aesthetically awesome as well as gameplay. :'D
1:18:05 Mr Freeze was very well-done, and I liked how you skipped the Oracle conversation at the start by attacking Freeze head-on. It was a bit slow towards the middle, but still, Freeze is a LOT harder in NG+ than he is in newgame, and I want to commend the runner on a job well done!
1:24:27 More great voice-clip timing
1:26:40 A bit of a shaky start, but nice job on taking out those snipers.
1:31:45 Another clean job on those snipers! You seem to like these parts, don't you?
1:34:00 The TITAN seemed to take a while to go down, but crowd control was very good on the Joker fight regardless.
1:35:47 NICE work on those TYGER guards, especially with Catwoman.
1:36:30 Good pickpocketing, and an unusually offense-based approached to the vault guards. I like it.
1:40:40 I still don't know exactly how the luck works on those helicopter, but regardless, getting the master control program was pretty fast.
1:42:48 Nice one-two combo on the snipers to hack into Wonder Tower early
1:49:00 Wonder Tower sequence breaking ftw!
1:50:20 That was beautiful work on the last TYGER Predator section!
1:54:10 Huh, I never thought of just disarming the snipers in the theatre section.
1:55:45 CLAYFACE - I suppose taking damage on his punch attack is faster, since he immediately moves to a faster, more grenade-to-face-able attack soon afterward. The second phase went rather well, I thought, despite being hit a few times.
2:02:27 Caltrops to the rescue!
2:06:02 I thought that was a mistake, but...nice warp!
2:06:28 TWO-FACE What a way to end it! Beautiful stun-lock on Two-Face, as far as I can tell the room went almost perfectly, and the hardest and cheapest boss of the game is down. GG!
LOWLIGHTS
10:25 I can't tell if losing the takedown boost there is a mistake or not. Either way it just looks sloppy
15:55 The runner paused for a second. Was that intentional?
18:35 4-5 seconds lost failing to batclaw takedown the frozen enemy. The runner had to resort to a ledge takedown instead and almost died; granted, the runner recovered nicely with some great improv.
35:00 not the smoothest entry into the Subway but it worked
36:00 Another close call. It really helps in these kinds of situations to be able to make strategies on the fly, and the runner seems to be really good at it!
45:00 That was a pretty freaky hit by Mr. Sickle. You were nowhere near him! Unfortunately the rest of that fight wasn't great either, but that not much time was lost in the end.
1:06:00 A bit of a sloppy fight there.
1:27:40 Okay, that was pretty funny, even if it did lose 2-3 seconds.
1:30:35 A bit of a flub not getting the batclaw KO, but the runner recovered nicely. As usual.
1:45:00 The group fight against the TYGERs was on the sloppy side. Nothing too horrible though.
1:47:20 Bad luck on that last straggling guard. Nothing you could have done about it.
GENERAL NOTES
- As I mentioned earlier, I'm fairly certain cutscenes take longer to load on PS3.
- Is it really that much faster to use Takedowns in Catwoman's opening combat section? Her takedowns are rather slow iirc.
- Having instant Grapnel Boost definitely adds to the entertainment factor for the first 15 minutes
- Combat is slightly sloppier than in the newgame run, but that's acceptable due to the ramped-up difficulty. Navigation is just as good, if not better, and some tricky maneuvers are pulled off expertly.
- God DAMN, I love this run.
VERDICT: Accept. I can't wait to see a TAS of this in twenty years or so
Decision: Accept both runs.
Congratulations to Sean 'DarthKnight' Grayson!
Verifier Responses
SS run on Normal with Catwoman DLC
Quote:
ARKHAM CITY NORMAL W/ CATWOMAN NOTES
Moar like Fatman Arkham SHITTY amirite >_>
A/V: very good
Cheating: none as far as I can tell
First thing to note is the difficulty. Playing on Normal when you have Catwoman installed is perfectly justified, because she has less HP than a box of tissue paper and some of her levels can be extremely random. So yeah, this is definitely a candidate for a category separate from RoboSparkle's recent run on Hard without Catwoman.
Also, I'm 99% sure that loading times on the PlayStation 3 version of AC are slower than on the Xbox 360. This is most apparent after completing the Courthouse in the beginning; on 360, you can skip the "Catwoman wtfpwn's Two-Face" cutscene almost as soon as Two-Face says "Overruled", while on PS3 the runner doesn't skip until Two-Face points his gun at Catwoman. I don't think it adds up to so much time lost that there should be separate categories, unless the PC version loads even faster? Can someone verify?
Okay, time for the level-by-level notes. Strap in boys, this is gonna be LONG.
CATWOMAN INTRO
Excellent. 20x is the highest combo you can get on this map iirc. It's just a shame you can't get the Riddler challenge XP for it in this room.
WELCOME TO BLACK MESA, I MEAN ARKHAM CITY
The torture cutscene takes a lot longer to skip, but I'm pretty sure that has to do with unloading the previous Catwoman level. The skip is pretty much instant if you don't have the DLC installed on 360. Anyway, there's virtually no way to speed this up until you get to Ryder (it's a shame you can't get past Deadshot until he does his little speech), although the lack of looking at Azrael means this should be an instant reject ;P
Taking down the goons attacking Ryder was insanely fast. The runner knows exactly where they'll attack and puts himself in a good position to help Ryder up afterwards. Very well done.
So now the handcuff fight. I didn't know about countering trigger the handcuffs breaking free, but I tested it afterward and it works. Fights for early XP are always so critical to make sure you have enough for Multi Takedown and critical hits. Climbing up the ACE Chemicals building was a little sloppy (no slides into the small spaces, for one) but it can be forgiven because of the absolutely PERFECT dive forward during the cutscene where the Batwing arrives.
THE COURTHOUSE
Nice entrance into the courthouse and diving straight into the fight very quickly. Another great x23 combo, and good detective work on the sniper too. All very clean.
THE CHURCH
Very well done on the three goons outside the church, and getting the Alfred conversation skip is a nice bonus.
Inside the church, the runner makes a complete mockery of the Predator tutorial by sequence breaking the hell out of it. It was a bit of a close call engaging the first two enemies directly in combat (it's game over if you're spotted by someone holding a hostage iirc) but he pulled it off. I suppose the more direct approach was done for extra XP just to make sure he has enough if something goes wrong in the Steel Mill or something. Getting XP as Batman is somewhat less of a big deal in DLC runs, because Catwoman and Batman share XP, but on the other hand, you have to upgrade Catwoman a bit too.
Getting the first Riddler trophy was well-done, though I'm surprised the runner didn't do the "catch your own Batarang" challenge while he was in the cramped church quarters, as it's really easy to get out of the way.
Nice timing diving out of the church.
Augmented reality for the Grapnel is pretty simple. Not much to say here.
THE STEEL MILL
Platforming in the Waste Exchange was great.
The Loading Bay fight was excellent. x37 is a perfectly respectable XP combo even if it did look a bit sloppy with that last enemy at the end. Unfortunate mistake not getting the roll during Alfred's call, but that's fine, it only wastes a second or two.
I honestly had no idea you can get spotted in the Assembly Line area and still get the double takedown. It must be the game bending the rules in the player's favour because of a tutorial. Either way, I like the offensive approach the runner took to the first guard, and managed to get a slide trip-up for the Riddler challenge too. "It's Batman! He's here!" *WHAM*
Smelting Chamber was really entertaining and also sets up nicely for a Riddler Challenge with smoke grenades. Riddler Challenges are such great XP sources in this game compared to Asylum, I love it.
After this fight he gets some upgrades. Multi Takedown is understandable, but Bat Swarm’s an interesting choice. I wonder what he’s using it for. Going for the Harley Heads as a Riddler Challenge is definitely an older part of the route, along with smashing the penguins in the Museum.
Unfortunately the runner lost a bit of time on some poor management of the wrecking hook in the Loading Bay, but considering how good the run was up until then, I’ll accept it, and he also got a really fast Mr. Hammer trigger.
Speaking of Mr. Hammer, this was another great fight. The runner was able to get all x50 on Hammer without the enemies interfering, then went to town with the Multi Takedown. It’s easily the most useful advanced combo for a speedrun.
The Joker “death” cutscene can’t be skipped when you have Catwoman installed.
CATWOMAN 2
Waiting until Catwoman 2 to get critical strikes is an interesting upgrade choice. I suppose it’s for the best since you’re spreading out the XP between two characters.
Navigating as Catwoman can be really luck-based due to the way her climbing minigame works and the finicky targeting system. I’m giving major props to the runner for being able to keep his movement to the apartment and Ivy’s lair clean in spite of the control issues.
The apartment fight went perfectly, and moving to Ivy’s lair without being caught (well, by the Ivy guards anyway) and without taking out any guards is much, MUCH harder than it looks. Trust me, I’ve tried it. I like how Catwoman’s dialog censors “Kill the bitch” by accident.
The fight with Ivy’s goons is definitely an unfair part of the difficulty curve when you’re playing normally, and the runner does an exceptional job of managing the enemies and getting an almost perfect combo on the final wave, which can be really annoying with Ivy attacking in the background. As an addendum, some of the starting wave attacks might look sloppy, but Ivy’s men are actually invincible until they’ve completely emerged from their pods, so the runner is just making sure he can attack at the earliest possible moment. Getting x32 at the end really helps in Batman’s XP department.
The “Joker poisons Batman” cutscene is completely unskippable no matter what version you have.
FINDING MR. FREEZE
Here’s where the Grapnel Boost really comes in handy. Unfortunately, getting the GCPD back door open didn’t quite go as planned, though I’m guessing the runner only lost about 5 seconds there. He just got unlucky because Batman decided to roll forward. There’s a rare glitch here that removes the prompt to hack into the Penguin’s communications, but I’m not sure what causes it, and obviously it didn’t happen here.
The GCPD predator section was, in a word, ballsy. I absolutely loved the setup here and it looks really cool, especially when Penguin only starts berating his goons after the last one surrenders. Script breaking is funny, dammit!
More grapnel sweetness on the way to the museum. I’ve gotta hand it to Rocksteady for making the outside of Arkham City so well-programmed that you can navigate at speeds faster than the game intended and STILL not hit a single loading screen.
The fight outside the Museum wasn’t quite what it could have been, but at least the runner was able to get another Riddler challenge by finishing with a batarang.
COMMUNICATION DISRUPTORS
The above-ground disruptors went over very well. The trick on the second is something that only works on Normal; usually you’d have to a double takedown on the guards after destroying the first monitor.
When going down to the subway, doing the silent double takedown while enemies are shooting at you looks like cheating, but it’s not. The way that the enemy AI works, the guys in front of the subway entrance and the guys belowground are considered to be on two separate maps, so one couldn’t alert the other.
The runner had some awkward movement getting to the subway terminal, but the terminal itself was good. The terminal jammer is another Normal-only trick due to enemy inaccuracy on lower difficulties. Nice work on the silent takedowns, by the way.
More nice work getting the x5 variation challenge on the way back to the museum.
THE MUSEUM
That was a nice straightforward approach for rescuing Officer Jones. Getting a first-time RC batarang is again harder than it looks, and I STILL don’t understand why the runner didn’t get the catch-the-batarang Riddler challenge. Did I miss something? For the group fight, I’m not sure why the Multi Takedown wasn’t as effective as it ought to have been, but the Explosive Gel placement on the Titan went really well. It was especially nice to see the runner do a Titan Stun into another Multi Takedown, even though he got hit soon after. And what the hell was with that slowdown on the electric fence? The Torture Chamber cop rescue went well enough, and the sequence break was (as far as I could tell) flawless.
Mr Sickle Fight – oh, so THAT’s what Bat Swarm was for. I never thought of doing that. Backtracking through the torture chamber, the runner once again didn’t use the fastest technique for moving across the ice, though maybe he was just being cautious. According to RoboSparkle there’s a pretty nasty glitch in the room where you have to Predator rescue the three cops, where you’ll be unable to talk to them once you’ve cleared the room. Thankfully that doesn’t happen here. Hilarity ensues when the runner starts using the batclaw to pull enemies over the railings. The shark punching skip went well, as did the Freeze Override.
The Solomon Grundy fight was pretty good too, although the runner lost a few seconds on the last explosive. The runner decided to get ballsy on Penguin and took a missile to the torso, but it didn’t actually lose that much time.
FINDING WONDER CITY
Even though the blood is always in the same place in the city, you can’t leave the room until you’ve scanned the blood sample from the first ninja, and he even managed to get a Grapple in during the Oracle talk although it doesn’t end up mattering much since the door is on a timer. The runner took a great path to the next sample and the chase with the ninja went equally well. While it’s unfortunate the runner wasn’t able to dive all the way into the Subway Maintenance Access, it’s hard to judge a dive with that camera angle.
The Line Launcher glitch went well, although the runner didn’t use it to its fullest potential. He could have skipped another area if he’d gone higher and to the right, as RoboSparkle does in his run. The Wonder Tower stealth section was very good until the last two enemies.
....Okay, you know what? I’ve been rambling on for a while now, I think it’s better if I just gave my...
VERDICT: Overall, I will have to reject this run because he didn’t look at Azrael at the beginning. Just kidding, accept this baby already! It is well worth a spot on the site, even with the slower Line Launcher OOB.
Moar like Fatman Arkham SHITTY amirite >_>
A/V: very good
Cheating: none as far as I can tell
First thing to note is the difficulty. Playing on Normal when you have Catwoman installed is perfectly justified, because she has less HP than a box of tissue paper and some of her levels can be extremely random. So yeah, this is definitely a candidate for a category separate from RoboSparkle's recent run on Hard without Catwoman.
Also, I'm 99% sure that loading times on the PlayStation 3 version of AC are slower than on the Xbox 360. This is most apparent after completing the Courthouse in the beginning; on 360, you can skip the "Catwoman wtfpwn's Two-Face" cutscene almost as soon as Two-Face says "Overruled", while on PS3 the runner doesn't skip until Two-Face points his gun at Catwoman. I don't think it adds up to so much time lost that there should be separate categories, unless the PC version loads even faster? Can someone verify?
Okay, time for the level-by-level notes. Strap in boys, this is gonna be LONG.
CATWOMAN INTRO
Excellent. 20x is the highest combo you can get on this map iirc. It's just a shame you can't get the Riddler challenge XP for it in this room.
WELCOME TO BLACK MESA, I MEAN ARKHAM CITY
The torture cutscene takes a lot longer to skip, but I'm pretty sure that has to do with unloading the previous Catwoman level. The skip is pretty much instant if you don't have the DLC installed on 360. Anyway, there's virtually no way to speed this up until you get to Ryder (it's a shame you can't get past Deadshot until he does his little speech), although the lack of looking at Azrael means this should be an instant reject ;P
Taking down the goons attacking Ryder was insanely fast. The runner knows exactly where they'll attack and puts himself in a good position to help Ryder up afterwards. Very well done.
So now the handcuff fight. I didn't know about countering trigger the handcuffs breaking free, but I tested it afterward and it works. Fights for early XP are always so critical to make sure you have enough for Multi Takedown and critical hits. Climbing up the ACE Chemicals building was a little sloppy (no slides into the small spaces, for one) but it can be forgiven because of the absolutely PERFECT dive forward during the cutscene where the Batwing arrives.
THE COURTHOUSE
Nice entrance into the courthouse and diving straight into the fight very quickly. Another great x23 combo, and good detective work on the sniper too. All very clean.
THE CHURCH
Very well done on the three goons outside the church, and getting the Alfred conversation skip is a nice bonus.
Inside the church, the runner makes a complete mockery of the Predator tutorial by sequence breaking the hell out of it. It was a bit of a close call engaging the first two enemies directly in combat (it's game over if you're spotted by someone holding a hostage iirc) but he pulled it off. I suppose the more direct approach was done for extra XP just to make sure he has enough if something goes wrong in the Steel Mill or something. Getting XP as Batman is somewhat less of a big deal in DLC runs, because Catwoman and Batman share XP, but on the other hand, you have to upgrade Catwoman a bit too.
Getting the first Riddler trophy was well-done, though I'm surprised the runner didn't do the "catch your own Batarang" challenge while he was in the cramped church quarters, as it's really easy to get out of the way.
Nice timing diving out of the church.
Augmented reality for the Grapnel is pretty simple. Not much to say here.
THE STEEL MILL
Platforming in the Waste Exchange was great.
The Loading Bay fight was excellent. x37 is a perfectly respectable XP combo even if it did look a bit sloppy with that last enemy at the end. Unfortunate mistake not getting the roll during Alfred's call, but that's fine, it only wastes a second or two.
I honestly had no idea you can get spotted in the Assembly Line area and still get the double takedown. It must be the game bending the rules in the player's favour because of a tutorial. Either way, I like the offensive approach the runner took to the first guard, and managed to get a slide trip-up for the Riddler challenge too. "It's Batman! He's here!" *WHAM*
Smelting Chamber was really entertaining and also sets up nicely for a Riddler Challenge with smoke grenades. Riddler Challenges are such great XP sources in this game compared to Asylum, I love it.
After this fight he gets some upgrades. Multi Takedown is understandable, but Bat Swarm’s an interesting choice. I wonder what he’s using it for. Going for the Harley Heads as a Riddler Challenge is definitely an older part of the route, along with smashing the penguins in the Museum.
Unfortunately the runner lost a bit of time on some poor management of the wrecking hook in the Loading Bay, but considering how good the run was up until then, I’ll accept it, and he also got a really fast Mr. Hammer trigger.
Speaking of Mr. Hammer, this was another great fight. The runner was able to get all x50 on Hammer without the enemies interfering, then went to town with the Multi Takedown. It’s easily the most useful advanced combo for a speedrun.
The Joker “death” cutscene can’t be skipped when you have Catwoman installed.
CATWOMAN 2
Waiting until Catwoman 2 to get critical strikes is an interesting upgrade choice. I suppose it’s for the best since you’re spreading out the XP between two characters.
Navigating as Catwoman can be really luck-based due to the way her climbing minigame works and the finicky targeting system. I’m giving major props to the runner for being able to keep his movement to the apartment and Ivy’s lair clean in spite of the control issues.
The apartment fight went perfectly, and moving to Ivy’s lair without being caught (well, by the Ivy guards anyway) and without taking out any guards is much, MUCH harder than it looks. Trust me, I’ve tried it. I like how Catwoman’s dialog censors “Kill the bitch” by accident.
The fight with Ivy’s goons is definitely an unfair part of the difficulty curve when you’re playing normally, and the runner does an exceptional job of managing the enemies and getting an almost perfect combo on the final wave, which can be really annoying with Ivy attacking in the background. As an addendum, some of the starting wave attacks might look sloppy, but Ivy’s men are actually invincible until they’ve completely emerged from their pods, so the runner is just making sure he can attack at the earliest possible moment. Getting x32 at the end really helps in Batman’s XP department.
The “Joker poisons Batman” cutscene is completely unskippable no matter what version you have.
FINDING MR. FREEZE
Here’s where the Grapnel Boost really comes in handy. Unfortunately, getting the GCPD back door open didn’t quite go as planned, though I’m guessing the runner only lost about 5 seconds there. He just got unlucky because Batman decided to roll forward. There’s a rare glitch here that removes the prompt to hack into the Penguin’s communications, but I’m not sure what causes it, and obviously it didn’t happen here.
The GCPD predator section was, in a word, ballsy. I absolutely loved the setup here and it looks really cool, especially when Penguin only starts berating his goons after the last one surrenders. Script breaking is funny, dammit!
More grapnel sweetness on the way to the museum. I’ve gotta hand it to Rocksteady for making the outside of Arkham City so well-programmed that you can navigate at speeds faster than the game intended and STILL not hit a single loading screen.
The fight outside the Museum wasn’t quite what it could have been, but at least the runner was able to get another Riddler challenge by finishing with a batarang.
COMMUNICATION DISRUPTORS
The above-ground disruptors went over very well. The trick on the second is something that only works on Normal; usually you’d have to a double takedown on the guards after destroying the first monitor.
When going down to the subway, doing the silent double takedown while enemies are shooting at you looks like cheating, but it’s not. The way that the enemy AI works, the guys in front of the subway entrance and the guys belowground are considered to be on two separate maps, so one couldn’t alert the other.
The runner had some awkward movement getting to the subway terminal, but the terminal itself was good. The terminal jammer is another Normal-only trick due to enemy inaccuracy on lower difficulties. Nice work on the silent takedowns, by the way.
More nice work getting the x5 variation challenge on the way back to the museum.
THE MUSEUM
That was a nice straightforward approach for rescuing Officer Jones. Getting a first-time RC batarang is again harder than it looks, and I STILL don’t understand why the runner didn’t get the catch-the-batarang Riddler challenge. Did I miss something? For the group fight, I’m not sure why the Multi Takedown wasn’t as effective as it ought to have been, but the Explosive Gel placement on the Titan went really well. It was especially nice to see the runner do a Titan Stun into another Multi Takedown, even though he got hit soon after. And what the hell was with that slowdown on the electric fence? The Torture Chamber cop rescue went well enough, and the sequence break was (as far as I could tell) flawless.
Mr Sickle Fight – oh, so THAT’s what Bat Swarm was for. I never thought of doing that. Backtracking through the torture chamber, the runner once again didn’t use the fastest technique for moving across the ice, though maybe he was just being cautious. According to RoboSparkle there’s a pretty nasty glitch in the room where you have to Predator rescue the three cops, where you’ll be unable to talk to them once you’ve cleared the room. Thankfully that doesn’t happen here. Hilarity ensues when the runner starts using the batclaw to pull enemies over the railings. The shark punching skip went well, as did the Freeze Override.
The Solomon Grundy fight was pretty good too, although the runner lost a few seconds on the last explosive. The runner decided to get ballsy on Penguin and took a missile to the torso, but it didn’t actually lose that much time.
FINDING WONDER CITY
Even though the blood is always in the same place in the city, you can’t leave the room until you’ve scanned the blood sample from the first ninja, and he even managed to get a Grapple in during the Oracle talk although it doesn’t end up mattering much since the door is on a timer. The runner took a great path to the next sample and the chase with the ninja went equally well. While it’s unfortunate the runner wasn’t able to dive all the way into the Subway Maintenance Access, it’s hard to judge a dive with that camera angle.
The Line Launcher glitch went well, although the runner didn’t use it to its fullest potential. He could have skipped another area if he’d gone higher and to the right, as RoboSparkle does in his run. The Wonder Tower stealth section was very good until the last two enemies.
....Okay, you know what? I’ve been rambling on for a while now, I think it’s better if I just gave my...
VERDICT: Overall, I will have to reject this run because he didn’t look at Azrael at the beginning. Just kidding, accept this baby already! It is well worth a spot on the site, even with the slower Line Launcher OOB.
Quote:
Normal New Game with Catwoman DLC:
As the previous verifier went extremely in depth with the run, I will merely post some short comments.
A/V is fine, no obvious signs of cheating, unless being ridiculously good at a game is considered cheating.
The entire run was magnificent: almost every encounter was done with a minimum of fuss and the runner navigated through the city like he had done it hundreds of times.
There were just a very few, slightly noticeable errors, probably amounting to a total of 8 seconds lost:
Getting into the GCPD building the first time could have been done without getting shot at by the closest guard, missing one of the electricity things when fighting Grundy, running into a missile head-on right into the chest (what is that batsuit made of anyway?), and the last sand ninja in the Demon Trials dodged the attacks a bit more than usual.
There was a weird moment when fighting all of Penguin's thugs in the Museum where the Titan boosted enemy was knocked out into the electric fence. This caused about 3 or 4 seconds of lag as the runner controlled the remote batarang; however, I don't think this actually caused any timing issues.
VERDICT: ACCEPT - An extremely well done run, and a great first submission for the game. It will take some God-like skills and/or new routes to beat this run.
As the previous verifier went extremely in depth with the run, I will merely post some short comments.
A/V is fine, no obvious signs of cheating, unless being ridiculously good at a game is considered cheating.
The entire run was magnificent: almost every encounter was done with a minimum of fuss and the runner navigated through the city like he had done it hundreds of times.
There were just a very few, slightly noticeable errors, probably amounting to a total of 8 seconds lost:
Getting into the GCPD building the first time could have been done without getting shot at by the closest guard, missing one of the electricity things when fighting Grundy, running into a missile head-on right into the chest (what is that batsuit made of anyway?), and the last sand ninja in the Demon Trials dodged the attacks a bit more than usual.
There was a weird moment when fighting all of Penguin's thugs in the Museum where the Titan boosted enemy was knocked out into the electric fence. This caused about 3 or 4 seconds of lag as the runner controlled the remote batarang; however, I don't think this actually caused any timing issues.
VERDICT: ACCEPT - An extremely well done run, and a great first submission for the game. It will take some God-like skills and/or new routes to beat this run.
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This very minor thing keeps happening to me when watching the first few seconds. The opening logos are pulled down to look like weird colored stripes, though this goes away in a few seconds and doesn't actually affect gameplay video.
Normal: Audio and video of actual gameplay is fine, skillful techniques to get through the whole thing, and runs very smooth for a single segment. There was a minor lag following the Penguin gang/Titan fight, but with all the input it's not anything to throw red flags at. The line launch glitch just before Wonder City is also well done. Pictures will be put up soon.
Normal: Audio and video of actual gameplay is fine, skillful techniques to get through the whole thing, and runs very smooth for a single segment. There was a minor lag following the Penguin gang/Titan fight, but with all the input it's not anything to throw red flags at. The line launch glitch just before Wonder City is also well done. Pictures will be put up soon.
SS run on New Game Plus with Catwoman DLC
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NG+ with Catwoman DLC:
A/V is fine, no obvious signs of cheating.
I would say that this run is not quite as good as the runner's New Game run, but that is acceptable simply because getting to an acceptable state for an NG+ run requires you to go through the normal game every time. For some reason, the developers thought that the ability to copy files was useless.
As for the run, there were more mistakes than the normal run, mostly in combat, probably due to a combination of the runner being perhaps anxious to not screwing up and the combat being more difficult.
This is my list of mistakes I found, all pretty minor:
In the first fight with Penguin's thugs, the majority of the hits weren't critical strikes; unless there is a legitimate reason the runner did that, that should not have happened.
Accidentally landing on the fence when glide kicking the guard outside the church was kind of funny, but I don't think cost any time since batman seemed to continue the kick almost immediately.
It took too many tries to use the batclaw on the frozen armored thug in the steel mill and did cost some time.
The Catwoman fight against Ivy's final wave seemed sloppy.
Entering the subway was not great, getting shot too many times.
The runner seemed to focus too much on the armored guard at the third comms disruptor. He probably could have disabled the third terminal after shocking the guard into the middle of the subway tracks and left him alone.
Not a mistake, but there was a funny graphical glitch when punching the Penguin in the Iceberg Lounge.
He missed two of Grundy's electrical pads and got hit by the ball and chain.
He slid into the side of the grate for a while in the steel mill and may have been able to do that indefinitely. Too bad it isn't useful.
Cracking Hugo's last password took a few too many tries.
Added an unnecessary cycle to the Clayface fight by getting too close to him before throwing an ice grenade.
Other than that, the combat was excellent and the runner seemed to navigate some areas better than he did in his New Game run.
Verdict: Accept - I would say that because of the time consumption of setting up an NG+ run is so high, and that the combat is more difficult, that the mistakes I found are forgivable. The time lost just seems too small to have the run redone. This run does have more room to be improved upon, but may actually be as hard, if not harder, to actually do so.
A/V is fine, no obvious signs of cheating.
I would say that this run is not quite as good as the runner's New Game run, but that is acceptable simply because getting to an acceptable state for an NG+ run requires you to go through the normal game every time. For some reason, the developers thought that the ability to copy files was useless.
As for the run, there were more mistakes than the normal run, mostly in combat, probably due to a combination of the runner being perhaps anxious to not screwing up and the combat being more difficult.
This is my list of mistakes I found, all pretty minor:
In the first fight with Penguin's thugs, the majority of the hits weren't critical strikes; unless there is a legitimate reason the runner did that, that should not have happened.
Accidentally landing on the fence when glide kicking the guard outside the church was kind of funny, but I don't think cost any time since batman seemed to continue the kick almost immediately.
It took too many tries to use the batclaw on the frozen armored thug in the steel mill and did cost some time.
The Catwoman fight against Ivy's final wave seemed sloppy.
Entering the subway was not great, getting shot too many times.
The runner seemed to focus too much on the armored guard at the third comms disruptor. He probably could have disabled the third terminal after shocking the guard into the middle of the subway tracks and left him alone.
Not a mistake, but there was a funny graphical glitch when punching the Penguin in the Iceberg Lounge.
He missed two of Grundy's electrical pads and got hit by the ball and chain.
He slid into the side of the grate for a while in the steel mill and may have been able to do that indefinitely. Too bad it isn't useful.
Cracking Hugo's last password took a few too many tries.
Added an unnecessary cycle to the Clayface fight by getting too close to him before throwing an ice grenade.
Other than that, the combat was excellent and the runner seemed to navigate some areas better than he did in his New Game run.
Verdict: Accept - I would say that because of the time consumption of setting up an NG+ run is so high, and that the combat is more difficult, that the mistakes I found are forgivable. The time lost just seems too small to have the run redone. This run does have more room to be improved upon, but may actually be as hard, if not harder, to actually do so.
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NG+: The run is a bit conservative to avoid potential risk, though one of the underground levels could have been better. Seems fine considering the difficulty. Audio and video is synced perfectly. Overall very good run. Again, I'll get some pictures up as soon as I can.
Verdicts: ACCEPT for both runs.
Verdicts: ACCEPT for both runs.
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A/V: looks good
Cheating: none
Okay, this is going to be a LOT shorter than my newgame verification (HAHAHAHAHA yeah right), and it'll actually finish the entire run! So, just a simple highlights/lowlights list and general notes.
HIGHLIGHTS
5:30 excellent luck on the breaking-handcuffs and nice grouping of enemies on the ensuing fight. Bonus points for rare Penguin dialogue =P
9:11 That was a pretty sick i-frame dodge >_>
16:48 What a beautiful fight, that one hit aside. Excellent work getting rid of the armoured guy first with REC
18:15 I never would have thought to use a freeze grenade on the armoured thug. This room in general was very good, except for the blooper mentioned below.
20:30 No problems with the REC physics puzzle like in the runner's newgame run
23:00 Caltrops are totally OP
24:26 I cannot overstate how hard this fight is on NG+, even when you're not going for speed. I can forgive the sloppy ending to Wave 2, and Ivy hitting one of her own goons about halfway through Wave 3 was hilarious. Bravo!
28:58 Getting into GCPD was definitely way better than in his NG run.
30:00 More Ice goodness, keeping the "interrogated" mook frozen for the duration of the predator section
33:40 o_O MULTIKILL (or, uh, multi-takedown. This is Batman we're talking about here)
34:45 I actually had no idea the enemies had special dialogue for seeing Batman disable the disruptor!
38:00 Untextured GCPD building ftw! Also a great setup to get every enemy with one batarang multi-takedown.
39:29 Did the runner do a U-turn to make the end of the RC batarang section faster? Clever!
41:14 Using Titan Charge to set up a multi-takedown was also clever. And another clutch dodge against the Titan when dealing with the riot shield guy
43:51 No complaints about the dive bomb sequence break, but wouldn't it be faster to use the Line Launcher like at 46:10?
46:40 That guy next to the cops is completely blind. And deaf. He probably can't speak English either.
47:45 More mundane Line Launcher skipping the shark.
48:20 Yay for shoryuken fail! INSTANT ACCEPT!
50:00-ish Solomon Grundy was pretty standard, except for dodging those shockwaves, which was amazingly tight
51:20 Sliding under Penguin's grenades was much better than in the NG run, and it pretty much ends up as a straight line right to Penguin. Bravo.
54:40 Nice entrance into the Subway Tunnels without so much as alerting the guards!
55:05 Excellent speed on the Line Launcher glitch, although the runner still uses the slower version. Probably losing a minute or two there, but I think this run might have been completed before the better version of the glitch was discovered.
57:15 Turning a mediocre fight into an excellent one through some improv and lucky positioning. Excellent double ledge takedown!
1:04:30 Beautiful timing on the early flight in Ra's Al Ghul's trial. I think you actually beat Ra's' air trail to the glacier :O Same at 1:05:46
1:08:00 That entire Ra's Al Ghul fight was very cool to watch.
1:10:00 Um...that was an unusual straggling soldier there from the last wave.
1:14:30 Well done on skipping the Predator section, even after getting shot.
1:15:20 The fight started ugly but ended well.
1:16:35 Holy. Shit. That was amazing ='D
1:17:40 Nicely done getting into the GCPD, and I love the timing of Joker's "I double-dare you!" with your sequence break. Aesthetically awesome as well as gameplay. :'D
1:18:05 Mr Freeze was very well-done, and I liked how you skipped the Oracle conversation at the start by attacking Freeze head-on. It was a bit slow towards the middle, but still, Freeze is a LOT harder in NG+ than he is in newgame, and I want to commend the runner on a job well done!
1:24:27 More great voice-clip timing
1:26:40 A bit of a shaky start, but nice job on taking out those snipers.
1:31:45 Another clean job on those snipers! You seem to like these parts, don't you?
1:34:00 The TITAN seemed to take a while to go down, but crowd control was very good on the Joker fight regardless.
1:35:47 NICE work on those TYGER guards, especially with Catwoman.
1:36:30 Good pickpocketing, and an unusually offense-based approached to the vault guards. I like it.
1:40:40 I still don't know exactly how the luck works on those helicopter, but regardless, getting the master control program was pretty fast.
1:42:48 Nice one-two combo on the snipers to hack into Wonder Tower early
1:49:00 Wonder Tower sequence breaking ftw!
1:50:20 That was beautiful work on the last TYGER Predator section!
1:54:10 Huh, I never thought of just disarming the snipers in the theatre section.
1:55:45 CLAYFACE - I suppose taking damage on his punch attack is faster, since he immediately moves to a faster, more grenade-to-face-able attack soon afterward. The second phase went rather well, I thought, despite being hit a few times.
2:02:27 Caltrops to the rescue!
2:06:02 I thought that was a mistake, but...nice warp!
2:06:28 TWO-FACE What a way to end it! Beautiful stun-lock on Two-Face, as far as I can tell the room went almost perfectly, and the hardest and cheapest boss of the game is down. GG!
LOWLIGHTS
10:25 I can't tell if losing the takedown boost there is a mistake or not. Either way it just looks sloppy
15:55 The runner paused for a second. Was that intentional?
18:35 4-5 seconds lost failing to batclaw takedown the frozen enemy. The runner had to resort to a ledge takedown instead and almost died; granted, the runner recovered nicely with some great improv.
35:00 not the smoothest entry into the Subway but it worked
36:00 Another close call. It really helps in these kinds of situations to be able to make strategies on the fly, and the runner seems to be really good at it!
45:00 That was a pretty freaky hit by Mr. Sickle. You were nowhere near him! Unfortunately the rest of that fight wasn't great either, but that not much time was lost in the end.
1:06:00 A bit of a sloppy fight there.
1:27:40 Okay, that was pretty funny, even if it did lose 2-3 seconds.
1:30:35 A bit of a flub not getting the batclaw KO, but the runner recovered nicely. As usual.
1:45:00 The group fight against the TYGERs was on the sloppy side. Nothing too horrible though.
1:47:20 Bad luck on that last straggling guard. Nothing you could have done about it.
GENERAL NOTES
- As I mentioned earlier, I'm fairly certain cutscenes take longer to load on PS3.
- Is it really that much faster to use Takedowns in Catwoman's opening combat section? Her takedowns are rather slow iirc.
- Having instant Grapnel Boost definitely adds to the entertainment factor for the first 15 minutes
- Combat is slightly sloppier than in the newgame run, but that's acceptable due to the ramped-up difficulty. Navigation is just as good, if not better, and some tricky maneuvers are pulled off expertly.
- God DAMN, I love this run.
VERDICT: Accept. I can't wait to see a TAS of this in twenty years or so
Decision: Accept both runs.
Congratulations to Sean 'DarthKnight' Grayson!
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