Red Hood vs. Black Mask: KilgoreTrout plays more Arkham Knight DLC

KilgoreTrout

-The story begins with an arms deal going down between Penguin's guys and Black Mask's guys. Then Jason, as the Red Hood, drops through the skylight and attacks everybody. But his weapon of choice is dual handguns, so when you use your primary weapon on a mook, he shoots them. It's strange to see the person I'm playing as render somebody helpless and then shoot 'em in the head. Or conclude a beatdown not with a punch or kick, but by leveling his gun and putting a round into the recipient.

-When there's only one guy left alive, Jason demands to know where Black Mask is keeping the goods with a foot on his head. The guy initially doesn't talk, but when Jason puts a gun to his head he tells him: the docks. Jason says he appreciates that and shoots the guy dead anyway.

-Cut to the docks next, with Jason looking down at them and thinking "Look at these clowns." Whatever else might be said about him, he at least seems confident instead of rage-filled. The thing is, who says ALL of these mooks deserve death? It wasn't all that long ago that Jason himself was fighting on the wrong side; did he deserve to die for that? Should Batman have killed him instead of trying to make him see reason?

-Red Hood's version of a silent takedown? Sneaking up behind a dude and snapping his neck. "And stay down." Yeah, I, uh, I think he'll take that advice for a good long time, Todd.

-Black Mask mook: "This Red Hood means business." No shit.

-This was mentioned in the main game but I never ran into it when doing the stealth thing: if the mooks know I'm in a ventilation shaft, they'll throw a grenade in that fills the shaft with flammable gas and then ignites it. I've managed to escape the shaft before getting hit by that so far, but I can only assume it's not good if you do.

-After they're all down, Jason grabs the lone remaining mook and tells him at gunpoint that he wants a word with his boss. The guy says Red Hood won't kill him, and Jason asks "Do I look like Batman to you? Rethink your answer before I fill you up with lead." The guy tells me to find Black Mask at his office but says I won't get him because he knows I'm coming. Jason headbutts the guy, says "Good," and finishes him off with a bullet.

-I'd be rooting for Jason a lot more if he showed restraint at least some of the time, but he is killing pretty much everybody so far, whether they're a threat to him at that time or not.

-The objective of the last and final mission is to "convince Black Mask to leave Gotham". Cut to said office. Thugs outside his door are counting something--money, maybe, since we're talking really high numbers--when they're interrupted and turned into corpses by Jason's entrance. Now it's time for another fight.

-After the first group of mooks are dispatched, Black Mask himself enters the room with a second group, telling me it was a BIG mistake coming here. Black Mask has a nice, high health bar, so he won't be going down as easily as, say, Two-Face did in the main game. He also has a handgun of his own that he attacks with; you counter to dodge his bullet. Right after you successfully do that, the game prompts you to quickfire your guns, which takes a bit of health from him. He says something about putting me in a body bag, and Jason tells Sionis to watch his mouth, as he's just making things harder on himself.

-Wow, beating Black Mask down (Jason's strikes are basically pistol-whips when he isn't kicking people) does not actually kill him like it does with most people. It takes a good chunk of his health, but that's it. His mask must be made of really tough material, I guess.

-"Just a little more effort, Roman, and this might be a challenge." When Jason says stuff like this he kind of reminds me of Nightwing from the main game. There's a pretty much endless supply of mooks, so killing all of them and then leaving Black Mask for last doesn't work. The fight only ends when his health is reduced to zero.

-After that happens, Red Hood pulls him up from the floor and tells him he should've left when he had the chance. Sionis pleads that he doesn't have to do this, he'll leave Gotham, he'll give me anything, money, drugs, guns, weapons (aren't guns weapons?), whatever he wants! He'll leave and go anywhere the Hood wants, which sets up the line "How about you go to Hell?" quite nicely before Jason shoves him out of the window and he falls to his death. Jason says "Say hi to Joker for me," before turning to leave, and that's the end of the story.

-So, what did I think of this one? Well, while playing as the Red Hood is fun, I didn't like it as much as the Catwoman story. Jason seems like much more of a one-note character here than he was in the main game. At least in that we understood his motivations and got an idea of where his head was at. But here, we don't. What's his beef with Black Mask, other than "he's a criminal"? What made him decide that lethal force was always the best choice? I mean, is he taking out his lingering aggression over what what done to him, or is he doing it because he thinks he can't rely on the Gotham justice system to keep them locked up, or what? We never know. I was hoping that we'd find out more about his mental and emotional state following the events of Arkham Knight, like in a conversation with another character or something.

-With the Catwoman DLC, there were a couple of extra challenge maps that came with it in addition to the story part. With this DLC, which costs the same amount, there aren't. I won't go so far as to say "Don't buy this", but I was expecting more. They Wasted A Perfectly Good Character, to use a trope.