DLC #84 - Battlefield 3 - Back to Karkand

Get your hardhat, you'll need it

Back to Karkand is the final piece of Battlefield 3 DLC, and also the toughest out of the five packages by a considerable distance, and, as with the other packs before, it also adds a further 5 trophies to the overall list.

The main focus comes from the addition of 4 old school maps, remastered specifically for Battlefield 3. There are also 3 new vehicles, and 10 new guns added to the package, all of which are catered towards the new trophies attached to the DLC.

As slightly touched upon already, this is by far the toughest of all the Battlefield 3 DLC packages, with skill, longevity and frustration all catered to in equal abundance.

There are a few easier trophies contained within this list too, including getting a kill with the Skid Loader, and taking a swim in the Oman hotel swimming pool, but the other trophies pack a much greater challenge, and end up being some of the most difficult trophies in the entire game;

Complete Warrior - Got a kill with the following weapons in a single life: Assault Rifle, Jet, Tank
Third Tour - Got a kill with each of the following vehicles: the BTR-90,  DPV, F-35
Gunslinger - Got 10 kills with each of the ten Back to Karkand weapons

The "Complete Warrior" trophy is a definite contender for the toughest trophy in the whole Battlefield 3 list, despite the fact that not all the requirements are actually that tough individually. Kills with an Assault Rifle, and a Tank are easy enough to come by, but the dealbreaker in this trophy comes through trying to obtain a kill in a Fighter Jet.

Jets have always been notorious for being difficult to obtain kills with in Battlefield, and there is no exception to the rule here. The biggest problem stems from the fact that all the Jets in this DLC can only be occupied by 1 person, and thus, getting the kill you need is entirely down to your own skill. You can't just jump into a passenger seat and obtain kills in the same way you could when you were striving for Jet ribbons in the main game list, which made it incredibly easy if you were in the same Jet as someone who was exceptionally good at controlling them.

Piloting a Jet is a tough enough task alone, but having to co-ordinate a gun at the same time makes it even more difficult. The Jets are also very weak, and easy to take down, especially in dogfights against other air vehicles such as Helicopters, and 1 shell from a tank will down a Jet instantly.

Even then, there is still a small matter of obtaining both an Assault Rifle kill and a Tank kill in the same life, and death at any point before that resets the counter, and you'll need to start over again. It is an incredibly frustrating experience, not to mention a potentially time consuming one, and will require alot of trial and error for alot of people.

The "Third Tour" trophy only really gets a mention for reasons already noted, due to the fact that it requires a kill from the F-35, which is the new Fighter Jet added to the game through this package. The BTR-90 is a Tank, and the DPV is a Buggy, which are easy enough to obtain a kill with in comparison, but this trophy will come down to that dreaded Jet kill and how long it takes you to actually earn one.

The "Gunslinger" trophy also contributes it's own challenges to the game, and, as exactly in the same way the "Show of Force" trophy in the Close Quarters DLC did, it requires you to get 10 kills with each of the ten new weapons in the package, achieved through completing a host of assignments tied to each of the new guns.

There's a good mix of time consuming and genuinely difficult tasks amongst these assignments. The more time consuming side of the trophy will see you spend an aggregate total of 6 hours playing across the new maps in the package (2 hours on each map), and accumulating over 300 kills using a range of specific weapon types, vehicles and explosives. The more challenging tasks include obtaining 2 kills with Mortar fire and destroying an enemy vehicle with a repair tool, and this trophy alone will bring the package up into the region of 10-15 hours in terms of a time estimate.

Even after completing all of the assignments to unlock all 10 weapons, you'll need to notch up a further 100 kills to actually fulfil the requirements of the trophy. 

This is without question the hardest DLC pack in the entire game, and possibly one of the hardest DLC packs available for any game in the Playstation library. There is a good mix of difficult and time consuming tasks, with alot of frustration contained along the way, and although the "Complete Warrior" trophy makes it hard to nail down a concrete time estimation, you can easily expect it to be within the 20 hour region, and possibly beyond.

DLC #83 - Battlefield 3 - Close Quarters

Very close quarters

The Close Quarters DLC adds a further 5 trophies to the Battlefield 3 list, and focuses around small maps emphasised by close quarters combat and hectic, fast paced action.

Despite some of the trophies being extremely straight forward, including completing a game in the new Gun Master mode (A carbon copy of the Call of Duty Gun Game mode) and winning in a round of Conquest Domination, the 2 newly added game modes for this package, this is the first time a genuine challenge is presented within the Battlefield 3 DLC.

Even after you're done with launching yourself off the edge of the new Ziba Tower map, and earning that particular trophy, the 2 silver trophies in the set are where the challenges lie;

Show of Force - Got 10 kills with all ten CQ weapons
Deadly Tools - Without dying, got a kill with a Carbine, Pistol and a Rocket Launcher

The "Show of Force" trophy might not seem too difficult upon face value, but this package also adds a new feature called "Assignments", which are a series of objectives the player must complete in order to unlock each of the 10 new weapons in the Close Quarters DLC bundle. This means you'll only be able to rack up the 10 kills with each weapon once you've completed the relevant assignment attached to it, and some of the tasks are both time consuming and difficult.

For the more time consuming side of the trophy, you'll need a cumulative total of over 300 kills with a wide variety of the games weapons, including explosives, guns and weapons attachments, and for the harder side, you'll need to complete tasks such as, finishing within the top 5 in Gun Master, and obtaining a kill with the EOD bot.

Even then, you still need 100 additional kills on top in order to actually fulfil the requirements of the trophy and unlock it, and this trophy can easily take you anywhere into the region of 10-12 hours. It is alot easier to amass a high kill count on the new maps, due to their very compact nature, but it's still alot of time to spend on a solitary trophy.

The "Deadly Tools" trophy isn't a time consuming, and not exactly as difficult either, but definitely has the potential to cause a few slips ups. Chaining together 3 kills in a row with 3 different, and slightly more awkward weapons, is a tricky task, and there is a bit of trial and error with this trophy.

It is much better suited to fulfil on any of the new Close Quarters maps, because there is always a greater tendency to run into more enemies, but that can work both ways and cause you to die quicker than you can get the 3 kills you need. The Pistol and Rocket Launcher are also much easier to get kills with at a closer range, so playing games in more confined environments just naturally makes more sense.

I always find it easier to start with the tougher weapons and work in reverse (Rocket Launcher, Pistol, Carbine), but that's just personal preference. It isn't as tough as a similar trophy in another, yet to be mentioned, DLC package, but it does have the potential to test your skills and patience.

The "Show of Force" trophy is the meat of this package, and even though 3 of the trophies in this set are complete throwaways, there is enough from the other 2 trophies to give you both a time consuming and challenging venture. Some of the weapon assignments will provide stumbling blocks along the way, and the "Deadly Tools" trophy can potentially notch up some extra time on it's own due it's own difficulties. 

An estimate of anywhere between 10-12 hours is a realistic one, but definitely flexible beyond the higher limit depending on skill and luck.

Platinum #66 - Assassin's Creed 3

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 5/10

In seemingly traditional fashion, the Assassin's Creed 3 list contains a host of progression based trophies, mainly awarded for completing each sequence throughout the main story arc.

The "The Sum of Truth" trophy, the solitary Gold in this whole list, awarded for completing sequence 12, signifies the culmination of the main story, by which point you will have unlocked 16 trophies through natural progression, which is roughly a third of the entire trophy list.

The theme of progression is actually heavily emphasised throughout, and beyond just the main story arc, with a host of extra trophies tied into completing activities that contribute to 100% game completion.

The "Completionist" trophy, awarded for completing ALL progress tracker grid entries, requires you to achieve a total of 17070 points in the DNA tracker, a total which is accumulated through fulfilling a large range of criteria, spanning across a host of activities the game has to offer, and at times, it can actually feel like a bit of a grind. Collectibles, Naval missions, Club challenges, Homestead missions and Main story sequences are all accounted for, amongst a variety of other things, and with a personal 100% Single Player completion time tracked at just under 56 hours, the wealth of content that contributes to the Platinum trophy is evidently deep.

Most of these activities are actually awarded with individual trophies along the way, so for the majority of the game, you don't even need to worry about the rest of the list for as long as you're striving towards achieving 100% in the DNA tracker, which should be your only real focus. 

There aren't any great difficulty spikes contained within any of the missions or activities, though some of the additional objectives for certain Privateer and Naval contracts are the more difficult highlights, and certain aspects of Club challenges, Assassin training and Hunting do get a bit repetitive and feel way too drawn out, and it does turn out to be one of the longer Single Player offerings available in the Assassin's Creed series by some distance.

The "Perfectionist" trophy, awarded for completing 100% of all main missions constraints, requires you to fulfil every secondary objective attached to a main story mission, and even though most of them are just a standard box ticking exercise, there are some slightly more challenging objectives on offer that may require numerous retries of certain missions to complete in full. 

It is easier just to make sure you go through each mission fulfilling the criteria as you go along, rather than waiting to clean up everything at the end, to prevent needless replay value, and even though you might need to come back to certain tougher missions at the end of the game, those are few and far between, and you should look to complete the secondary objectives as soon as possible because of how long the Single Player game is without any added extras such as mission replays.

Those two trophies are pretty much the solitary focus of the Single Player portion of the list. As previously mentioned, the amount of progression based trophies towards the "Completionist" trophy, account for a huge portion of the game, with only a small handful of trophies that you will need to go out of your way for.

The "An Extraordinary Man" trophy, awarded for Completing the Encyclopaedia of the Common Man, is the only other real trophy of note, and requires you to record a host of activities from various occupations around the Homestead. There are 9 workers in total, and once their first mission is completed, they can be scanned working various chores on the plains of the Homestead, and the Encyclopaedia needs to be filled with 3 activities from each worker, totalling 27 in all.

The activity patterns seem to be completely random, and when you get down to the last few log entries needed, it turns into a bit of a waiting game, especially given how unpredictable each worker can be. The best thing to do is to start scanning workers as soon as you find them on the Homestead and hope you catch them performing activities you need sooner rather than later. If you leave it too late, the whole thing can turn into a drag and it will add unnecessary time onto the completion estimate.

The Multiplayer portion of the game also gets a bit of attention, as always, but the demand of these trophies isn't even a fraction of those of the Single Player ones.

The "Abstergo Entertainment" trophy, awarded for Reaching level 20 in the multiplayer mode, is a standard levelling fare, and should take no longer than 5-6 hours. Partial levelling, as opposed to reaching the highest rank possible, has been a common theme in recent Assassin's Creed games, and this is no exception, with the maximum level being 50, and thus, making this levelling task incredibly easy.

Despite this, the 5-6 hours reaching rank 20 will take should still be enough time for you to be able to unlock the remaining 4 Multiplayer trophies along the way with minimal effort, emphasising how easy this part of the game actually is.

In terms of overall difficulty, the only real challenge to overcome in this list is the hefty time-sink that comes tied to the game's Single Player component, which can easily clock in at anywhere from 50-60 hours. Some of the main sequence missions, and particularly a small selection of the Naval/Privateer missions, pack some genuinely difficult parts when trying to achieve 100% memory synchronisation, but practically everything else in this list is all about time, and despite odd sections providing some tedious repetition, the only barrier to completion is the long time-frame attached to achieving 100% in the DNA tracker.

The non-progression based trophies are just as easy as the progression based ones, with the possible exception of the "An Extraordinary Man" trophy, and the small spread of Multiplayer trophies merely require a brief visit. It's a longer game that most previous titles in the series, but for the most part, follows the same trend, and generally, the same level of Platinum difficulty at the same time.

Notable Trophies - 

Completionist - Complete ALL progress tracker grid entries
Perfectionist - Complete 100% of all main mission constraints
An Extraordinary Man - Complete the Encyclopaedia of the Common Man

Hardest Trophy - 

Completionist

Complete ALL progress tracker grid entries