Platinum #62 - Grid 2

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 4/10

The brainchild of PS3trophies.org, in the form of 51 trophies split across both the Single Player and Multiplayer components of the game, proves to be one of the easiest racing games available in the entire Playstation 3 catalogue.

The Single Player part of this list focuses mostly upon on the WSR, which is a standard progression through the ranks career mode, with a vast amount of trophies awarded solely through progressing in the 5 seasons of the WSR, and culminating in "The World's Greatest", awarded for becoming the Ultimate WSR Champion.

You can decide to play through the WSR on whatever difficulty mode you so choose, and without any influence or implications on unlocking the trophies within this list for sticking to a certain difficulty, or indeed altering it at any point, it makes the Single Player portion of this list an absolute breeze to get through.

If you are inclined to go for a steeper challenge, and play through the game on hard/very hard difficulty, then you can get a solid enough test out of this list, and in reality, it is pretty much the only genuine challenge you can extract from this list on the whole, and makes it the most difficult trophy in the game, if that's the way you choose to approach the list.

With that being said, the "You rOCDed!" trophy, awarded for finishing first in every career event, will require you to achieve a first place finish in the 50+ events within the whole 5 WSR seasons, which may require some repetition as you clean up at the end game, and definitely will take a significant amount of time too.

Aside from the regular series events, you'll also need to beat the promotional events, which increases the event total by an additional 20 or so, which is where most of the longevity of the WSR comes from, especially when you consider that the promotional events in some instances are endurance races, which are naturally the longer events in the game.

You can expect to nail everything in the career within around 20-25 hours, but this will depend on how many events you have to go back and replay, and what difficulty you opt to play through the WSR on. A bottom end estimate could see you beat every single event in first place within 15 hours, whereas slogging through everything on the higher difficulties will at least double that time frame and quite possibly take you beyond if you're willing to stick it out without adjusting the difficulty for the sake of saving time.

The only other noteworthy trophy from the Single Player side is the "Gone in 60 Seconds" trophy, awarded for completing a lap of Chicago - Wabash Run driving the Ford Mustang Mach 1 in less than 60 seconds, which is 1 of the few trophies in the whole list that actually requires a solid element of skill to achieve. You'll need a flawless run to get round the track in 60 seconds, and it will require multiple attempts before you perfect and nail the run.

The rest of the trophies are awarded for meagre tasks and reaching specific milestones and targets that you will knock out throughout the career mode, and even though some of the trophies will require you to set up specific events and go out of your way to unlock, there is nothing that won't take more than a couple of attempts at the very maximum.

The Multiplayer side of this list follows the same sort of patterns in terms of challenge and difficulty, but only contributes to a fraction of the overall list.

The "Global Domination" trophy, awarded for winning a week of global challenge, requires you to beat a friend over a collective set amount of events where points are awarded for bettering your friends score. When the week is up, if you have the highest amount of points across all events, you'll unlock the trophy, which can be tricky, especially if the people you're up against are decent at the game. It's also time limited, meaning if you miss it one week, then you'll have to wait an entire week for another to chance to unlock it, which can accumulate heavily.

You will also need to win a few races too, which can be tough given the general smash happy elements of online Multiplayer racing games, but the levelling based trophy, "Dipping your Toes", awarded for reaching level 10 online, is just a matter of a couple hours at the very most, and one of the easiest levelling trophies in any game.

In reality, practically the whole rating of this list comes simply from the personal choice to play through the WSR on the harder difficulties, and if you so choose to just cruise through this list on the lesser difficulties, it becomes one of the easiest Platinum trophies available in the entire Playstation collection. The challenge becomes so minimal, it just turns into procedure as you go through the WSR knocking out events, earning first place finishes and unlocking most of the trophies along the way.

The Multiplayer trophies don't excel the challenge any further, and the truth of the matter is, the only real challenge to be had from this list is if you make the choice of tackling the game on the harder difficulties, but that will always be a choice and nothing more.

In terms of a timescale, anywhere between 20-30 hours is a realistic estimation, even when playing on the harder difficulties and increasing the challenge. The main focus will be the WSR within the Single Player portion, which will eat up the majority of this time, especially when you take into the account that the Multiplayer part will only contribute a couple of hours towards the overall completion time.

Just a final word on the list from a personal perspective, given the fact I am closely associated to the creators of the list (PS3trophies.org). I personally wouldn't have minded a more challenging Platinum, and it's a bit of a shame that it's left down to the player to create the challenge for themselves, but can you really expect anything else from a website dedicated to obtaining trophies? Some of the trophy ideas are quite fresh and there are a couple of funny references thrown in, but that's the best thing I can say about it because I generally prefer a challenge in my trophy lists. Maybe next time...

Notable Trophies -

The World's Greatest - Congratulations, you have become the Ultimate WSR champion. What an Investment!You rOCDed! - You finished first in every career event, during season play and/or via the timeline
Gone in 60 Seconds - You completed a lap of Chicago - Wabash Run driving the Ford Mustang Mach 1 in less than 60 seconds
Global Domination - You won a week of Global Challenge

Hardest Trophy -

The World's Greatest
Congratulations, you have become the Ultimate WSR champion. What an Investment!

DLC #76 - Assassin's Creed : Revelations - The Lost Archive

Reap the rewards of some casual Platforming

The final portion of Revelations DLC switches the emphasis from Multi-Player, to Single Player content, with The Lost Archive adding 10 new trophies focused around the platforming element of the Single Player game.

The majority of the list is as simple as trophies get, with most of them on offer for merely automatic progression throughout the 7 memories contained within the very short story, which should take no more than 1 hour to beat in full.

However, the rest of the trophies in the list do encourage longevity, and will add a couple of extra hours onto the packages overall completion time;

Find All Pieces - Find All Decipher Fragments
Impress Warren Vidic - Compete the Animus testing sequence without failing

There are 20 Decipher fragments to find across the 7 memories, and most of them are very well hidden. It's nothing a visually aided guide won't solve easily, but if you want the added challenge of finding them yourself, then you'll need to search every part of each memory to find them all. It's also important to note that finding all of these fragments is the only way you can "Break the Loop" within the DLC, and reach the real conclusion of the story, and therefore, unlock the "Breaking the Loop" trophy in the process.

Completing the Animus testing sequence without failing requires you to beat the whole of memory 4 without dying, and although it seems simple enough on face value, it's the most difficult trophy in this list. The memory is full of hazards and holds multiple ways to kill you, so it's important to take your time and learn from any mistakes you might make, and given the fact it could very easily take many attempts to beat the memory without failing, it can be frustrating. The easiest way to unlock this trophy is just to be careful, and understand what you need to do differently during any of the harder parts you might fail at, and although it will still most likely take at least a handful of attempts, it's really just a matter of practice makes perfect.

You can beat the actual story branch in less than 1 hour, which will unlock 7 of the 10 trophies in this list, however the remaining 3 trophies encourage replay value that will add at least another 2 hours on top of this. Even still, this is a short package that presents a low level of challenge, and despite a couple of spikes in difficulty, you can still unlock all trophies in a casual session of play.

Platinum #61 - Hitman : Contracts

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 7/10

There isn't an awful lot that distinguishes this game's list with that of Hitman 2 : Silent Assassin.

The volume of trophies is roughly the same, as are the requirements of them, and although there are a few differences here and there, most of the key points to be made are relevant for both lists.

The "5 Professional Silent Assassin Ratings" trophy, awarded for 5 Silent Assassin Ratings on Professional difficulty, requires you to perfectly beat (with a slight margin for error) 5 levels in the whole game on the hardest difficulty level.

As before, you can be selective about which missions you choose to beat for this rating, however, it is important to note that you will have to beat every single mission on Professional difficulty with a Silent Assassin rating to achieve the Platinum trophy anyway, which is explained in further detail ahead, so picking and choosing doesn't really matter in the grander scheme of the list.

The "Professional Mode Complete" trophy, awarded for completing the game on Professional difficulty, ensures you'll have to beat the game on the top difficulty level, which isn't terribly hard, but given the fact you'll have to earn a Silent Assassin rating on every single mission, it will make sure you're beating every level in the most efficient way possible. You can also unlock the lower difficulty trophies at the same time as this one, meaning it is only necessary to play through the game once to fulfil all the requirements of the list.

Again, the game still suffers from some horrendous AI, and given the fact you still don't get granted any saves to use during missions on the top difficulty, you do have to beat them all first time in order to register a perfect Silent Assassin rating, which can be hard when you're trying to figure out the best ways to beat a certain level.

There are also significantly less missions in this game to get through, and they can be beaten very quickly when you know the right strategies to take. It doesn't necessarily make for an easier game as a result, but the amount of time taken is seriously reduced, and as before, there are also trophies awarded for 5 Silent Assassin ratings on the other difficulties which will stack if you're playing through the game on the higher levels.

The game still presents a solid challenge in some aspects, and clinical thought and execution will be required in various places if you want to perfect this game, but the 12 main story missions can still be beaten on Professional difficulty in around 10-15 hours.

The "All Firearms Collected" trophy, awarded for collecting all firearms and displaying them in the Training Room, is the most difficult trophy in this list, and, as touched upon before, is also the big way in which this list differs to Hitman 2 : Silent Assassin.

To collect all Firearms in the previous title, you simply had to acquire them through carrying them out of levels, and although some of them could be difficult to extract, there wasn't that great of a challenge in smuggling them all into your collection. However, in this list, half of the weapons available can only be obtained in a single way, which is to beat each mission on Professional with a Silent Assassin rating, meaning a total of 12 weapons can only be acquired through beating each of the games 12 missions by fulfilling the requirements of Silent Assassin.

It can sometimes be a little bit frustrating trying to perfect certain levels, since the slightest bit of aggression, or break in stealth can cause you to drop below Silent Assassin at any point, which isn't really an issue in Hitman 2 : Silent Assassin, because you only have to obtain the rating 5 times (within a much larger selection of missions too). The fact you also don't have the luxury of being able to save your progress during the vast majority of the missions also adds to challenge of having to nail them in 1 go with no room for error,which can easily lead to much repetition.

As for the weapons you have to extract through levels, they work the same way as they did before. Some are easy to extract and can be seen in multiple levels, whereas some of the larger weapons, such as sniper rifles, light machine guns and the minigun, have to be wielded to the exit, which can make them tricky extracts to perform.

The vast amount of repetition needed, both in terms of trying to nail every mission with a Silent Assassin rating, and mopping up anything else that was missed at the end, also adds to the difficulty of the trophy, and you can argue the sole focus of this entire list hinges on this one, given the fact that every other trophy will fall naturally into line with it, as long as you're striving to complete the entire collection of firearms.

Another difference from the previous game, albeit a very slight one, that is important to mention is that you cannot lose weapons from your collection anymore. Previously, if you used a collected weapon in a level, and didn't extract it, you would have to recollect it in order to store it again, whereas with this game, any weapon that is extracted and shown in the training room will stay there permanently, meaning you have much more freedom of weapon selection when going for any other trophy in this list.

Speaking of which, the rest of the list is still very easy. You can unlock a bunch of stackable trophies related to difficulty and collecting the different sections of weapon types, and there are also a small collection of trophies awarded for killing targets using a variety of methods, most of which you will just naturally stumble across during the game.

Even though this is a much shorter list than before in regards to completion time, it's offset simply by the fact you will need to achieve a Silent Assassin rating in every mission to fulfil the requirements of the Platinum trophy. You can still Platinum this game in a fairly comfortable 20-25 hours, because missions can be completed quickly as soon as you figure out how to beat them, and there is a fair amount of post-game grinding in the quest to collect all firearms, but in terms of overall difficulty, it's about on par with Hitman 2 : Silent Assassin.

There are significantly less levels to get through, but that is offset by the fact you still need to beat every single one of them with a Silent Assassin rating on Professional, which more than makes up for the lost time.

Hardest Trophy -

All Firearms Collected
All Firearms Collected and displayed in the Training Room