Return to Arkham City

After two and a half years (and setting an alarm this year) I finally remembered to return to this Playstation 3 superhero video game and bring Batman to meet Calendar Man on Saint Patrick's Day to finish that one holiday a month, year long, requirement in the urban setting turned prison that is Arkham City.

And I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

Luckily the saved game I had was at the low difficulty level where various cues for which buttons do what appear on screen because all of the muscle memory from the previous hours of play in my old fingers is gone.

I was concerned I had to cross Gotham to get to Calendar Man's location, but luckily I have gotten used to a much newer game with an ENORMOUS rendered New York City. In this thirteen year old game, I could see the building I needed to reach from where I started.

This is fortunate as the first thing I realized was I forgot how to jump, swing or glide and Batman fell off the building he started on into a heavily thug patrolled area. Luckily in my panic induced button mashing state, I accidentally hit the aerial attack button and landed him on the bad guy below me instead of only next to him.

Then it was time for a series of clumsy stumbling and running through alleys away from criminals until I figured out a couple of basic controls and could get the Dark Knight back to bat-roping and cape gliding across roof tops. There were occasional "AAAH A BAD GUY" moments where I would randomly flail at buttons until either they were bumped off the building, or Batman dropped a smoke bomb and ran away. 

Fortunately, I did remember the back door to the courthouse with Calendar Man locked in the basement cell. I had figured out just enough buttons to get Batman to jump off the courthouse roof onto the one guard by that door, and then punch his friend who ran around the corner.

Batman went into the building basement, spoke to the criminal to hear his creepy poisoned green beer story, and I heard the satisfying ding of the "trophy."

I saved the game, forgot which way he came in, walked Batman into the main courthouse which was now full of post prison-state breakdown criminals who spotted the Caped Crusader immediately. (Because I also forgot the crouch button.)  Batman leapt down from the balcony onto one of them while hitting the rest with as many Bat-gadgets as possible.

They quickly beat up Gotham's hero and knocked him out anyway.

This was too stressful, I'm taking the rest of today off.