DLC #46 - Modern Warfare 3 Content Collection 1

Special Ops time!

Infinity Ward break their usual DLC trends, with the addtion of 6 new trophies for the 2 new Spec Ops missions contained within the first content collection pack.

You can nab 4 of the trophies for just completing both the missions (named Black Ice and Negotiator) on veteran difficulty, where the other 2 are granted for performing specific in-level actions in each of the missions.

The Black Ice trophies are incredibly easy to achieve, even on veteran, but Negotiator will certainly require a bit of persistence. The level itself is definitely tougher and the requirement of saving all 35 hostages demands a fast and methodical approach which will also take a few attempts to perfect.

All in all, it shouldn't take much longer than a few hours to achieve all 6 trophies. It's probably easier to do them in solo, but still not too difficult if you choose to partner up and achieve the trophies with a buddy.

Call of Duty Elite : DLC Impressions #3

The third dosage of Call of Elite introduces the Black Box map, a medium-sized suburban area at the epicentre of an aeroplane disaster.                                                                                                    
Although it may seem like the crash site is the focal point of the map, it's actually tucked away to one side and covers the vast majority of the right hand side of the map. This can make the left hand side of the map seem scarce, though it is dotted with a small handful of mutli-tiered houses that offer a variety of vantage points. Some houses have walls blown out, some houses have balconys, one house is even under partial construction. It gives each area it's own unique strategical angle and works well for the balance of the games.                                                                        
Naturally though, most of the action will gravitate towards the crash site and the aeroplane, which is heavily emphasised as a crux point in objective based modes.                                                          
The crash site isn't just for show though, and the internal remains act as a significant part of the level, with a surprising amount of room and density within. There are many corners and hiding places within the ruined aircraft and surrounding areas as debris is scattered around the wreck in order to add further dimensions to the gameplay.                                                                                           

The crash site is the focal point of Black Box, and offers great depth
to the map

It's the smaller details that really make this map fun to play on, even the wing of the plane acts as a point of leverage to the upper floor of a near-by house that has been demolished by the wreck and offers an alternative method of entry. The way every house offers different vantage points and levels of vulnerability keeps things unpredictable and you're always left guessing about where opponents could be camping.                                                                                                                    
My only criticism would be that it's a little bit too camper friendly. The map is quite big and it offers alot of opportunities for medium to long range weapons, and the shorter game somewhat suffers as a result, especially around the crash site where the housing estate looks down onto you.                                        
                     

Recommended Perks

The map is fairly large, so extreme conditioning will allow you get around quicker as you navigate the big opens areas which will often make you a target, so the quick getaways are essential.      
                          
Overkill is useful to be able to adapt to the long/medium range game if the lobby dictates that the run and gun style just isn't thriving, and Marksman will allow you to scope out long range targets given the very long range of sight between certain areas of the map.                                                        
The DLC seems to be getting stronger, and this is yet another solid map offering. 2 Spec Ops missions were also released at the same time, which come packed with 6 additional trophies, so that particular aspect will be reviewed in it's own post.

Platinum #39 - Assassins Creed : Revelations

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 5/10                          
The single player trophies follow the typical mould of Assassins Creed games.                                  
There's a ton of progression based trophies for completing the various sequences throughout the game, with 15 trophies awarded for beating each of the games main story sequences, both for Ezio and Desmond, which is capped off with the "Revelations" trophy, awarded for completing DNA sequence 9, and beating the game.                                                                         
Even though the story has a modest length, clocking in at around 12 hours, there is room for alot of post-game work on this list, with a handful of trophies that will keep you playing way beyond the completion of the main story arc.

The "Fond Memories" trophy, awarded for achieving 100% synchronisation in all sequences, requires you to fulfil a range of challenges in order to fully synchronise every mission throughout the main story. The requirements range in difficulty, with some being extremely easy and some being quite challenging to fulfil, however the vast majority of the missions in the game slip into the former category, rather than latter, meaning the challenge isn't as great as it could have been.

You'll still need to go back and replay the mission in full in order for any progress to be saved, which can be a touch time consuming, depending on how many missions you need to achieve full synchronisation for, but the requirements are laid out in the pause menu, so you can always reflect on them before, or during, a mission in order to make sure you know what you'll need to do and minimise the need to replay DNA sequences at the end.
                                               
There are also some ever present collectible based trophies in this list too. The "Capped" trophy, awarded for collecting all Animus data fragments, requires you to collect 100 fragments in total, and it can be tough to begin with because there's no way for them to appear on your in-game map and assist with collection progress. However, when you manage to reach 50, the rest automatically appear on the map and are ready to be collected, which suddenly makes the task significantly easier, but up until that point, the help from the game is non-existent.

The "Sage" trophy, awarded for collecting all available books, is even more difficult, and requires you to obtain 28 books from various outlets within the game. Some of them are given to you throughout the main story, and by beating certain side quests, but the majority of them have to be purchased, and are incredibly expensive.

The cumulative total of every single book is around 450,000 coins, which is an incredible amount of money to amass, and the best way to raise money is by indulging in any activity that generates hourly income, including shop renovations, property purchasing and Mediterranean defence missions. The more of these you purchase and control, the more money you'll make each hour, and it's definitely something you should get onto early, otherwise you'll find yourself grinding out a very long end-game as you wait for each hourly tick to bring in enough money you need to buy every book. Money generating side activities unlock quite early, so if you indulge in them straight away, you'll spend less time trying to accumulate the money at the end of the game when everything else is finished and you have nothing left to do.

The "Mentor" trophy, awarded for having seven trainees reach the rank of Master Assassin, requires you to indulge in another somewhat grindy element of the game, and even though levelling up your Assassin crew isn't really difficult, you need to get seven of them to reach the highest rank (by sending them on defence missions, and returning them as successful), and even after the highest rank, you need to perform an assassination mission for each of them to earn the Master Assassin title. 

It's also important to note that Assassin's can die, in which case you'll have to start from scratch for each unit that does not return from a mission, and they also have a cooldown time period before they can be sent out again. It doesn't make it anymore difficult, just long winded and grindy.
              
The "Tax Evasion" trophy, awarded for getting your money back from a tax collector, has a massive element of luck which causes nothing but annoyance. The spawning of tax collectors isn't only random, but also extremely sparse, and having to wait for hours for this trophy to pop was nothing but frustrating. There are methods that allegedly make him spawn quicker, though I didn't find any correlation personally, and it was just a matter of waiting around, literally for hours, for him to spawn and take my money.

The Multiplayer portion of the game is much more relaxed this time round, and definitely a step down from the gruelling tasks included in the trophies from Brotherhood.                                                                                            
The "True Templar" trophy, awarded for reaching level 20, is less than half of what was required in the Brotherhood, and it will take the average player no longer than 6/7 hours to hit that level.

Every other trophy related to the online portion of the game can be easily accomplished on your way towards that milestone, and none of them really provide any sort of challenge, and you will even unlock most of them natrually as you work your way through to level 20, making the Multiplayer the easiest aspect of this whole list, a very stark contrast to the previous game in the series and it's gruelling trophies.
                                                                                                                                                 
The series definitely takes a step back from the difficulty spike presented within Brotherhood, and goes back to it's original and much familiarly easier roots. 

The Multiplayer trophies are so casual, you won't even need to go out of your way to unlock most of them, and as long as you're just focusing on hitting level 20, you'll probably end the Multiplayer side of the list as soon as you hit that milestone. 

Some of the Single player trophies can be extremely grindy, or at least feel a bit repetitive, but the element of genuine challenge is very little, and the games combat system is still as easy as ever. Some of the challenges to achieve full synchronisation of memories will give you a few tests, but that's about it in terms of difficulty, and if you don't mind a bit of a slog throughout, and into the end-game, this is a relaxed Platinum trophy, even though you can safely put a 35-40 hour minimum completion time onto it.

Notable Trophies -

Fond Memories - Achieve 100% Synchronisation in all Sequences
Capped - Collect all animus data fragments
Sage - Collect all available books
The Mentor - Have seven trainees reach the rank of Master Assassin
Tax Evasion - Get your money back from a Templar tax collector

Hardest Trophy -                                                                                                                                               

Tax Evasion
Get your money back from a Templar tax collector

DLC #45 - Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories : The Ballad of Gay Tony

Take on the role of Luis Lopez,
and do the dirty for Tony Prince

The Ballad of Gay Tony does everything The Lost and Damned did tenfold. More trophies, greater time commitment and much more difficult to achieve 100%.                                                                                  
Going through the smaller scale stuff provides some interesting (and some not so interesting) tasks, such as free-falling for the maximum amount of time possible and perfectly pulling off a series of quick time event dancing mini-games in both nightclubs. There's also a few standard progression related trophies for completing the main story within.                                                                                                  
The less interesting stuff in the content requires you to perform 25 gang wars, which are OK for the first few times, but very quickly recycle and cause the inevitable feeling of dragging on.                                                         
There's also 15 base jumps to complete, which are slightly less boring, but only because there are less of them to do. It's still has a very "chucked in" feel to it for the sake of longevity.                                                                                                                                             
Aside completing the 26 main story missions once, which is a good 8-10 hours in it's own respect, there is a challenge to be had here in the form of 1 trophy;
                      

TBoG : Gold Star
Score 100% in all Missions : The Ballad of Gay Tony


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
Each mission comes with a set of it's own criteria, which must all be fulfilled to attain 100% in that particular mission. This will require multiple playthroughs, given how difficult it can be to achieve all the criteria in 1 go for the majority of them.                                                      
For some missions, it simply isn't possible, and they're required to be broken down as you go through the mission 3/4 times in order to make sure you tick off each criteria systematically.
                      
Some people will definitely find it a slog, and probably more hassle than it's actually worth, especially when you consider the fact it is merely a bronze trophy. Some of the missions have some testing requirements, and you'll have to face up to the fact these certain missions will need a bit of perseverance and metal in order to finish them to 100%.                                                            
I personally found it quite enjoyable, which is somewhat surprising given the amount of repetition, but the constant drive to better my last effort meant I always saw reasons to go back and retry a mission. None of them we're insanely difficult by any means, it was mainly the completion times criteria that served up the problems for the harder missions, but when you didn't have to worry about meeting any other criteria you had already achieved, speed runs become somewhat easier.
                  
Overall, it's roughly a 25-30 hour experience, though that will vary depending on the extent to which you need to replay missions. The challenge is stern though, so it's safe to suggest most people will push to the higher end of that boundary. Great piece of DLC though, I can't recommend GTA highly enough.