DLC #127 - Grid Autosport - Touring Legends Pack

This final DLC pack for Grid Autosport, which focuses on a series favorite for Grid (Touring Cars), adds a handful of new cars, a couple of new tracks and 3 new Touring Car Championships to take on.

The 3 new trophies included within are all each awarded for completion of the 3 new Championships added as part of this pack. 

The Championships include British, European and International flavours, with the tracks used in each being relevant to their locations, and you can use any of the 5 new Touring cars to tackle them. They all consist of 5 events, with 2 races per event,totaling 10 races per Championship, and these will take anywhere between 1-2 hours to beat each.

You will see the new tracks make an appearance throughout each of the new Championships, and the selection of cars will be readily available to choose from the outset too, but the sole focus for this package is to simply win them and nothing more.

You can choose to play through on whichever difficulty you like, but even on Hard, there isn't really a great challenge here. After going through a big journey with this entire title, I merely wanted to just go through the motions and get this finished more than anything else, but even maintaining this challenge on Hard difficulty saw me win each Championship and unlock all trophies first time round, so this shouldn't take anyone more than 5-6 hours to complete.

The DLC packs were a radical change in direction compared to the main list, which was a very welcome difference after a long time harboring this title in my backlog.

Platinum #96 - God of War (2018)

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 5/10

Not to be confused by the very first God of War game, released on the Playstation 2 in 2005, God of War indicates a fresh beginning for the series, signified by a title which suggests more of a reboot than a sequel.

It bought with it, a very radical change in direction for a series which has specialised in fast paced, simplistic combat with big boss fight set pieces, to a slightly more tactical combat system, and a story which is less about the big boss fights, and more about puzzles and platforming.

The game also features a variety of new dynamics. The environment is now an open world, rife with exploration opportunities, as opposed to a linear journey with a defined path, and Kratos' son, Atreus, now accompanies him on the journey, and ends up playing a pivotal role in the story, whilst also adding an extra dimension to the game's combat, with options to upgrade skills, fight with and change the appearance of both characters. It does feel like a completely new game, and one that works well.

The trophy list is medium in size, with a total of 37 trophies to earn from this title. Incidentally, out of all 10 God of War titles, spread across both the Playstation consoles and the Playstation Vita, every title has between 35-37 trophies in total, so there seems to be an almost deliberate approach to the volume of the trophy list for every God of War game.

A purely Single Player experience, the story tells the tale of Kratos' journey to fulfil the last wish of his late wife, who is also, incidentally, Atreus' mother, which is to scatter her ashes at the highest peak of the Nine Realms, following her death. This is the beginning of a journey which will see you transverse a variety of different worlds, encounter a wide range of enemies and some interesting characters.

The "Last Wish" trophy, awarded for Spreading the ashes, concludes the story upon completion of the final objective, and is the primary goal of this trophy list. The game has 3 difficulty levels, which include easy, normal and hard, but none of the trophies within this list are difficulty sensitive, so you can choose how you play the game based on your own discretion. I opted for hard, and the game on the whole isn't terribly difficult, though the truest challenge of playing on the hardest difficulty does show through in a few specific parts of this trophy list, which will be mentioned later, but for the most part, it's nothing to write home about.

Although the upgrade system isn't anything new to God of War games, there is a huge level of depth within dedicated towards character development, and not only can you upgrade weapons, like you've been able to in previous God of War games, you can also upgrade a ton of armour, special powers, skills and attributes, which actually makes you incredibly powerful as the game goes on, I would argue the challenge starts to move through a gradual state of decline because, despite the fact enemies also scale in level, they start to become noticeably easier to beat with a fully maxed out armory.

It's also worth mentioning that, up to the point of finishing the game, you'll have unlocked 11 story-based progression trophies, which contributes to almost a third of the entire list, so you can make some pretty good headway by just beating the main story. The remainder of the list from this point onwards is made up of indulging in a select grouping of the game's vast amount of collectibles, side-questing and upgrading Kratos' powers and equipment.

The "Chooser of the Slain" trophy, awarded for Defeating the nine Valkyries, is one of the variety of side quests within the game, and also the toughest trophy in the list.

Throughout Midgard, there are initially eight Valkyries scattered around in variation locations, which are very powerful, heavily armored winged enemies, which you must defeat in a 1 on 1 fight, and take their crown as evidence of their demise once defeated. They come in a variety of forms, each with their own unique fighting style and set of moves, which is one of the things that makes this trophy difficult.

It can be hard to prepare for each new Valkyrie, because you'll have to spend some time with each one in order to learn and understand it's move patterns. These aren't just copy and paste jobs. There's alot of work and effort that's gone into this side quest in order to purposely keep you guessing for each fight, and at least add a slight layer of necessary mastery in order to beat all eight of the initial Valkryies through study. They also have alot of insta-death moves, which, if you fail to time a dodge or block correctly, will swiftly return you to your last checkpoint and make you start all over again. They feel like genuine boss fights.

Once you've beaten the initial eight, and gathered a trophy from each one, you'll need to head to the Council of the Valkyries, and present these eight trophies to their relevant thrones. This will trigger a final fight with the ninth Valkyrie, appropriately named the Queen.

Where I mentioned above about the fact that, even though you may not feel challenged by playing on Hard difficulty, this does come to the fore eventually, and this is exactly what I'm referring to. The Queen Valkyrie is an upgrade on every other Valkyrie up to this point, with faster, stronger attacks which will test your reactions, speed and timing. She has much more health and a larger array of insta-death attacks. I spent multiple sessions attempting to beat the Queen, and even when I felt like I'd reached a point where I'd mastered her entire move set, I would only be one badly timed dodge away from a restart. It's an extremely unforgiving boss fight, and is the peak of difficulty within the entire game. It is wise to upgrade Kratos' skills and weapons to the highest degree possible before you fight her.

The "Darkness and Fog" trophy, awarded for Retrieving all treasure from the Workshop's centre chamber, contributes a slightly grindy element to the list, through another side quest which becomes available later into the game. 

Located in Nilfheim, the Workshop is home to a sort of labyrinth, clouded in poisonous gas and containing a series of chambers with increasingly difficult enemies to surpass into the subsequent chamber. The goal is to collect Mist Echoes, which can then be used to unlock the various treasures contained within the centre chamber. This includes 5 legendary chests and 3 realm tears, for a combined total of 68,500 mist echoes to unlock all of them and along with it, the above trophy.

You start within the main chamber, and can work your way around each chamber in the labyrinth, collecting Mist Echoes from chests along the way. The catch is, if you're either killed in combat by enemies, (which you must clear in each chamber to reap it's rewards from chests first), or you spend too long in the Labyrinth and succumb to the poisonous gas, which will gradually zap your health, you lose all progress and restart from the beginning.

The earlier chambers are filled with easier to deal with enemies, but the rewards are lesser. Each additional chamber you decide to take on will spawn harder to beat enemies, but more Mist Echoes, so it's a challenge of risk and reward and knowing when to cut your losses and get out of the maze to secure the Mist Echoes you've already possessed.

It will take around 5-10 hours for this trophy alone, but is also dependent on which difficulty level you're playing at. Some of the deeper chambers within the Labyrinth include Ogres, Higher Elves and even a Valkyrie (which you'll also need to beat as part of the "Chooser of the Slain" trophy mentioned at the top of this piece). All of these enemies have the capability to beat you very quickly on hard difficulty, and this is where the risk and reward element truly shines through. Do you really want to take on a Valkyrie for a few thousand extra Mist Echoes? Or do you just return to the beginning and protect what you already have? Each failed attempt will add to that original 5-10 hour estimate too, and 68,500 is still alot to collect.

A final thing that's important to note, and this relates to the games boatload of collectibles, which are scattered absolutely everywhere you look. Not all collectibles reward a trophy, but this list still has it's fair share, and whilst not difficult, per se, much like most collectible trophies aren't, there is one thing that this game doesn't do well that has a big knock on effect when it comes to securing these trophies.

The map. The world map is terrible for navigation, and it makes hunting down some of these vast array of collectibles you'll need for certain trophies way more arduous than it should be. There isn't a mini map located on the HUD and the overview map of the world is nice to look at, and pinpoints major locations clearly, but there is no perspective of depth or clarity of route you need to take when navigating through areas and hunting down these collectibles. 

A guide will help to some degree, but it'll be mostly down to your own intuition, and some of the larger areas in the game were so confusing to trace back through, I ended up aimlessly running around trying to find out where I needed to go without adequate guidance from the game, which was extremely frustrating, and drew these out to be way longer than they should have been. Ironically enough, the game actually does a nice job of checklisting the collectibles for each area, so you can always reference what you need from said area, which is really useful when you're down to the final few collectibles, but it's just a shame when you feel like you lose that time from deficiencies elsewhere in the world map.

This list has a mixture of everything, which ultimately strikes a good balance. There is a genuine challenge from the nine Valkyries, a little bit of grind from Ivaldi's workshop, some patience-testing collectibles and, most importantly, a very good story-driven experience.

The list can be completed in full without any necessity to play on a higher difficulty level, though the challenge is there for those that want it, and you can realistically achieve the Platinum trophy within 30-35 hours. You could argue it can be finished in even less time than that, but my estimate also takes into account the fact I opted to play through from start to finish on hard difficulty, which led to some extra padding on time, especially with the amount of replay value involved on the higher difficulty level through death, when killing each of the Valkyries and collecting Mist Echoes especially.

However, on Hard difficulty, the main story, for all it's big battles and boss fights, isn't where the challenge lies. It's within the Valkyrie fights and the grind of Ivaldi's workshop. The poor game design when it comes to maps and navigation through some of the game's vast environments when hunting for collectibles also deserves a mark up, but even then, this is no more than a mid-range Platinum.

Notable Trophies - 

Last Wish - Spread the ashes
Chooser of the Slain - Defeat the nine Valkyries
Darkness and Fog - Retrieve all treasure from the Workshops' centre chamber

Hardest trophy -

Choose of the Slain
Defeat the nine Valkyries

Platinum #95 - Uncharted 3 : Drake's Deception

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 4/10

After a summer mostly dedicated to finishing off one of the most challenging sets of DLC trophies ever experienced, this would have had to have been some offering from the game's main list in order to top it.

Thankfully, that isn't the case, and what is presented is actually the easiest Uncharted game to date instead. I'm always up for a challenge, but if you knew what the DLC trophies would put you through, you would also be more than welcome of a Platinum trophy with more relaxed demands.

The blueprint for this trophy list is what you would consider fairly standard for an Uncharted game by this point, after 3 installments of the series which have all followed the same patterns when it comes to delivering the trophies.

The list is still a predominantly Single Player experience, barring 2 trophies which are awarded for dabbling within the Competitive and Co-operative game modes, which you'll more than likely have done if you're looking to finish the DLC trophies too.

It's also a fairly large list, clocking in at 55 trophies in total, and purely focuses on the game's Single Player Campaign/Adventure mode, which sees you take on a story which tells the tale of a race to locate the lost city of Ubar. Drake's role is to prevent Talbot and Marlow, the game's main protagonists, from reaching the same location and stealing a powerful vessel being used to control the city, for their own ill gotten gains.

The "Charted! - Crushing" trophy, awarded for Finishing the game in Crushing Mode, is, as always is the case with any Uncharted game up to this point in the series, the hardest trophy within the list, but ultimately, doesn't really stack up any sort of greater challenge in comparison to previous titles. To also suggest it's the "hardest" trophy does a bit of a dis-service to such a term. This is a game which is very casual throughout, and that extends to a difficulty mode which has provided a reasonable challenge in the past, but has been somewhat watered down during this installment in the series.

Both prior Uncharted games were given a 6/10 in difficulty, so the challenge provided by Crushing mode in these games was enough to just about tip it over an average difficulty rating, and there is an obvious difference here when going through the story of this game when judging the overall difficulty levels compared to the other Uncharted titles that have preceded it. This story has 22 chapters in total and I didn't notice any sort of challenge provided by Crushing difficulty until around Chapter 18/19, which is very late on into the game, and even then, it was nowhere near any sort of difficulty that made the game feel laboured or slow.

It does provide a few tricky spots between that point on and the endgame, but it is noticeably less problematic than the previous two Uncharted titles, which is ultimately the justification for the lowered rating this time round. Even being able to negotiate these particular portions of the game aren't exactly that tough, and only took a handful of attempts in the worst case scenario. It's certainly the least crushing of all Crushing difficulties.

It is also important to note another constant within Uncharted games, and the fact that, previously, you have been required to beat the story once on any difficulty in order to unlock Crushing mode, which is not the case this time round. Crushing mode is readily available to play from the outset, and beating the game on Crushing mode, unlocks a subsequent mode called "Brutal" mode. This may explain the slightly lesser challenge from Crushing mode this time round, as it is now no longer the hardest difficulty available within the game, but is also not a requirement for the Platinum trophy either. There is a part of me that feels like "Brutal" difficulty could have just been a step up from Crushing, and although I never actually played through any part of this game on "Brutal" difficulty, I don't think it was necessary to make Crushing feel like to had been taken down a few notches as a result of a more challenging difficulty being placed above it. 

If the idea was to add something even harder on top of Crushing difficulty, then it makes sense as to why they would not account for this within the trophy list, but I don't understand why they would detriment the challenge of Crushing difficulty at the same time. That is mostly just a personal gripe, but it makes the game way too easy and is the major reason why the overall difficulty rating is impacted in comparison to previous Uncharted titles.

The fact you don't need to complete the story more than once also means, in theory, you can beat the game and also unlock the slew of other trophies along the way in one fell swoop, though realistically, there will be a clean up operation necessary at the end to grab everything else you may have missed along the way.

There are also 3 other trophies awarded for completing the game on Easy, Normal and Hard, which will appropriately stack and unlock if you complete the game on Crushing difficulty. If you opt not to go straight into Crushing for whatever reason, the trophies will stack up to the highest difficulty you beat the game on.

The "Master Fortune Hunter" trophy, awarded for Finding all 100 treasures, is yet another staple for an Uncharted trophy list, and works under the same premise as previous titles.

Treasures are spread out in random locations throughout the games 22 chapters, and all 100 must be collected to fulfill the requirements of the trophy. You will more than likely need a guide, but the game is very helpful when it comes to accumulating these treasures. They carry over across multiple playthroughs, are very easy to spot against the games vast and colourful environments and are also listed for guidance on the chapter select screens, so you can easily pinpoint which chapters you may have missed any treasures on, and dip back into them accordingly to retrieve whichever ones you may still need. As far as collectible based trophies go, this is certainly not one of the more arduous ones out there, and that is mostly in thanks to the game's helpful disposition.

The trophy list also breaks these down and award trophies at incremental stages of 20, so you'll unlock 5 progressive trophies on the way to 100.

The rest of the list is a very casual checklist exercise. You'll unlock most of the trophies as you progress through the story, and there's a small collection of kill based trophies with specific weapons, combat based trophies awarded for killing enemies in certain ways and even a small grouping of secret chapter specific trophies for performing certain actions within a given chapter.

The game is very generous in it's flexibility for unlocking anything you may have naturally missed throughout the story. All trophies can be obtained through the use of chapter select, so you can either cherry pick the most combat-heavy sections of the game to assist you in obtaining the weapon/combat related trophies, and it also means the chapter specific trophies are not considered missable. Any trophy that relates to kill accumulation, whether that be through weapons or combat, is carried over across playthroughs, and even if you go back into chapter select multiple times post-game, the progress is still carried through even in those circumstances. It feels like the game wants you to succeed and make the Platinum trophy as accessible as possible.

This is definitely the easiest Uncharted Platinum trophy to date, and one of the easiest Platinum trophies to make it's way into the wider collection. Whilst a lot of this is more than likely down to the fact Crushing is no longer the hardest difficulty mode, like it was in prior Uncharted games, the list hasn't changed anything else to elevate the challenge further, and instead, sees a very standardised list with simple requirements presented to the player that you will have already seen before in the past.

The story is around 10-12 hours long, even if you choose to go through on Crushing difficulty from the outset, which is another aspect of this game which makes the list easier this time round, because the game no longer requires multiple playthroughs to unlock Crushing mode via beating the game once prior. Chapter select makes the clean up operation very smooth and none of the trophies are either taxing or grindy, so you should also only require a handful of additional hours to go back though and give the remainder of the list a once over.

It's a nice ending to a game that still looks great at full completion within the collection, purely because of the grueling DLC packs that come as part of the wider package. It was, up until now, the oldest game in my collection for which I still did not have the Platinum trophy for, and caps off a 7 year journey that began with the first trophy unlocked back in 2012, and what a journey it was too.

Notable Trophies -

Charted! - Crushing - Finish the game in Crushing Mode
Master Fortune Hunter - Find all 100 treasures

Hardest Trophy -

Charted! - Crushing
Finish the game in Crushing Mode

Platinum #94 - FIFA 18

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 6/10

Just to get the disclaimer out of the way, this lastest feat also signals the end of FIFA for me. It began in 2009, with a patched version of FIFA 09 introducing trophies to the FIFA series for the first time ever.

Within the last 9/10 years, FIFA has produced some strong lists, with some mighty accomplishments to achieve. FIFA 09 and FIFA 11 both scored a difficulty rating of 9/10 and FIFA 10 boasted the full 10/10, and still ranks as one of my toughest Platinum trophies to date. Infact, according to PSN profiles, my top 4 rarest trophies in my entire collection are the FIFA 10, 09, 11 and 13 Platinum trophies, which speaks for itself.

However, there was also the decline. From FIFA 13 onwards, there wasn't a single FIFA game which scored higher than a 6/10 (which, incidentally, includes FIFA 18), and even scored as low as 3/10 in some years in between. The lists got boring, dull and most importantly, stripped of any sort of challenge that made the earlier FIFA titles well worth the purchase.

There were other things too. The game took the wrong direction with monetising Ultimate Team, and all the focus of bringing new modes to the Single Player portion of the game didn't suit me, as someone who is predominantly a Multiplayer gamer. All of which has led to an early retirement. I didn't buy FIFA 19, and will also bypass FIFA 20. I have too many other games to focus on, rather than just plow through the yearly FIFA list which is mostly copy and pasted year on year, and only ever seems to be a token gesture to my overall collection, rather than any sort of genuine challenge.

Now that's out of the way, the FIFA 18 trophy list is pretty much "see as above". Mostly copy and pasted from prior FIFA titles, this list is a mixed spread across a multitude of game modes, including the returning Journey (back for a second installment), Pro Clubs, Ultimate Team and Career Mode. There are also a large portion of trophies within this list dedicated to accomplishing feats within matches which you can easily unlock through natural gameplay.

The "What a comeback" trophy, awarded for Finishing the Journey, is exactly how you remember it from FIFA 17. The Journey is effectively a "part 2" of Alex Hunter's professional career, where progression is simply achieved through making it through each Chapter, of which there are 6 in total. This is the key difference this time round, the fact the Journey is divided into clear chapters which define the beginning, middle and end, rather than just slogging through an undefined story like previously in FIFA 17.

It's not exactly difficult, just a but laborious. I never have been, and never will be, a fan of anything on FIFA that is played through Single Player channels, and the Journey isn't exactly short. It will still take anywhere between 15-20 hours to complete, and whilst the story has at least, to it's credit, been given alot of care and attention to detail, there are still way too many "filler" segments, where you're simply just playing games in order to pad out the mode for the sake of longevity.

It is also important to point out that, the other 3 trophies tied into the Journey mode are all missable, so you want to make sure you achieve these at the relevant stages within the game mode to ensure you're not playing through it in it's entirety again. Out of these 3 other trophies, 2 of them come in Chapters 5 and 6, so you'll be playing through the lot if you miss them first time round, which will add hours onto your completion time. There isn't much point into going into the individual requirements of each one, just know that you're replaying this game mode again if you miss any of them first time around.

The "Pristine victory" trophy, awarded for winning all 4 matches in an FUT Draft session in FIFA Ultimate Team, seems to be a staple experience within any FIFA list of the last handful of years, requiring you to win the draft within FIFA Ultimate Team.

It still requires 15,000 coins per attempt, which can cause some difficulties if you don't knock this trophy off early, because you'll end up accumulating some hefty expenses entering draft mode the longer you play without success.

However, the big difference here this time around, is the fact that, unlike FIFA 16 and 17, you can unlock this trophy within the Single Player Draft, which provides a great "get out" clause to those who don't want to go through the Online Draft for this trophy. I went through the Online alternative, in order to make this list more challenging on the whole, and managed to unlock it on my third attempt, so even though this may not seem like much, this would have still cost me 45,000 coins, which takes time to accumulate, despite the fact it's easier than ever to earn coins on Ultimate Team.

There is also the option to take the shortcut and buy into the Draft at 300 coins per attempt, but the other trophies within Ultimate Team will allow you to accumulate enough points for at least a few attempts at the draft before you consider using real currency, and it is also important to note that progression through the Draft will throw up rewards after winning each game up to the final, so even if you don't win it, you can claw back some of that draft fee through some of the subsequent packs and prizes you'll earn through draft progression, which will help massively, especially if you struggle to win coins in other parts of Ultimate Team.

Expect a challenge if you play through the Online Draft though. You will run into some very good players who will have some very strong squads at their disposal, and to win 4 games in a row within that sort of environment is a genuinely challenging feat to accomplish, and can make this trophy the toughest in the entire list, should you choose to earn it through this method.

"The big league" trophy, awarded for Winning promotion to Division 1 of FIFA Ultimate Team Seasons, is also a nice little challenge. There is flexibility here too, because Ultimate Team features both Online and Single Player seasons, both of which will trigger the achievement of the trophy upon completion.

Initially, I attempted this feat through the Online season, but found it to be way too challenging around the midway point, where overpowered teams were just steamrolling my bronze/silver graded hybrid, so I have to seek out the alternative option of going through the Single Player seasons in order to reach division 1 instead.

This did lessen the challenge, and the reason I chose to go through the Online seasons in the first place, was another personal attempt at trying to inflate the challenge of this trophy list, right up to the point where I discovered my squad needed to be stronger to compete at the upper echelons of Ultimate Team, and given the fact this entire game fast became all about how quickly, and efficiently, I could lock off this Platinum trophy, I just opted for the easier choice in the end, which was to just play the computer in Single Player seasons.

It still took 54 games for me to reach Division 1, and the higher leagues will require you to win 7 games just to earn promotion, so this becomes a slog by the time you reach the end, and Single Player FIFA, at least, in my opinion, is a painfully dull experience.

The "Handyman" trophy, awarded whilst In Pro Clubs, using in matches each of your 3 Play Styles, wouldn't normally be on most people's list for discussion of notable trophies, but cleaning up this list, and having this trophy left, ended up being an apt climax for a series which didn't really need to give me any more reasons to abandon it for good.

The trophy itself requires you to complete 3 Pro Clubs matches, whilst using 3 custom Play Styles, which you can create within the Be A Pro game mode. It doesn't seem like it would create any great difficulties on paper, but in this circumstance, it certainly did, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I had to find someone still willing to play Pro Clubs, which ended up being a scattergun exercise of firing off messages within the drop-in game mode to anybody hoping the odd person would join my club. Once a willing participant had been found, you had to search for a game and attempt to match with another club, which often bought back no results due to the age of the game. This would put most people off quickly, and I ended up back at step one more times than I care to remember, and if by the odd chance I managed to get beyond step 2, and found a match, the awfully unreliable servers would, most of the time, kick everyone out the lobby before a full game could be completed, which nullified the progress towards this trophy. Managing to complete just 3 matches took me 3 evenings of pure commitment.

In defence of FIFA 18, it's not all the fault of the game. I cannot be expected to still see an active online community for the third installment back in an annual series, so not being able to find willing partners/other teams to match with in a lobby is a standard expectation, but the server stability issues are the signs of a lack of development care, which deserves to be marked down. All of these issues combined made this trophy way more arduous than it should have been, and is a significant pain to be able to contribute to the final rating.

This all makes for much of the same, and the consistency of FIFA over the last 4/5 years has led to a series of Platinum trophies which are roughly on the same par with each other. Some have scored slightly differently to others, mostly due to the situations where new game modes have been introduced for the first time and have some different trophies attached to them, but the same challenges have, for the most part, been presented within FIFA trophy lists for years now. A quick glance at the FIFA 19 and 20 trophy lists backs this up, and provides further evidence that things haven't really changed. It makes it easy to grade the difficulty ratings of FIFA games when the benchmark has barely moved.

Some of the trophies have a sturdy challenge sitting behind them if you wish to seek them, but the backdoor alternatives by allowing the user to unlock them through a Single Player alternative quickly re-aligns this whole list into total mediocrity, so a 6/10 difficulty rating seems fitting. I took on the Ultimate Team Draft Online, which was a nice challenge within this list, but just simply couldn't be bothered to reach division 1 in Ultimate Team Online, so I took up the option of the easier Single Player route, even though it was still a painful slog.

Notable Trophies -

What a comeback - Finish The Journey
Pristine Victory - Win all 4 matches in an FUT Draft session in FIFA Ultimate Team
The big league - Win promotion to Division 1 of FIFA Ultimate Team Seasons
Handyman - In Pro Clubs, use in matches each of your 3 Play Styles

Hardest Trophy -




The big league
Win promotion to Division 1 of FIFA Ultimate Team Seasons

DLC #126 - Grid Autosport - Sprint Pack

From Drag racing to Sprint racing. This new focus for the second DLC package within Grid Autosport adds point to point Sprint racing into the game, which requires the player to make it from point A to point B as quickly as possible and win by logging the quickest time. With a handful of new Sprint Championships to tackle, and an additional 4 new environments to race in, the mode is well complimented.

There are also 4 new trophies to unlock, and unlike the Drag Pack, this package does not actually put any focus at all onto completing/winning any of the new Championships that come contained within the newly added content.

Instead, each of the 4 new trophies are earned by beating set times of 4 specifically chosen Sprint routes contained as part of this package (1 trophy dedicated to each of the 4 new environments, which include Cote D'Azur, California, Okutama and Hong Kong). It is, in very simple terms, a package that awards 4 silver trophies for beating 4 individual time trials.

Each of these 4 new environments has 6 route variants, totaling 24 new routes within this DLC, and 1 has been chosen from each set, with a time to beat applied to it in order to unlock the trophy that applies to that particular region.

Sprint racing is designed to be fast paced and risk-inducing, so these Sprint route times within the trophy descriptions have short completions, varying from 2 minutes and 50 seconds, up to 3 minutes and 15 seconds. Ultimately though, they don't really pose much of a challenge if you're anywhere near an average or above skill level.

My method involved just simply moving from the top of the list down. I never spent more than half an hour on any of these trophies individually, and although I had to restart the event a handful of times in the very worst case scenario, this never deterred my progress to any significant level of note. You can even use the benefit of flashbacks up to 5 times during the race if you really need them, which will help achieve some continuity.

This is a straight-forward list, laid out with very obvious goals, which you can easily knock out in casual evening's worth of play. A few hours maximum.

Platinum #93 - DiRT 4

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 7/10

DiRT titles are starting to become a regular scalp within my trophy collection (DiRT 4 is the 5th DiRT title to make it in at this point), and there isn't really much that has changed between them all in terms of the challenges they have each individually offered.

DiRT 4 is another fine example of this, reflected by a score of 7, which is shared by 3 out of the other 4 DiRT titles previously reviewed.

It fits within the main chronology of the series, focusing on the roots of the game by offering a variety of racing disciplines which will all require differing strategic approaches. These include all of the familiar favourites such as Rally, Landrush, Rallycross and Historic Rally.

The trophy list is best split into 2 parts, with Single Player and Multiplayer both covered, as is always the case with any DiRT title, but the vast majority of this challenge comes purely from the Single Player portion of the game.

The Single Player game spans across a global series of the 4 aforementioned disciplines, each with a progressive set of events. Subsequent events are unlocked through completing the prior events. For each discipline, you'll start out with a few events to compete in, and you'll need to win a certain amount of medals within these events in order to unlock the next "license", which progresses you further along towards the final Championship. The goal is to repeat this until you reach the end and win the final Championship.

The "Completed it mate", trophy, awarded for Winning the Triple Crown, is the sole focus of the Single Player game, and this trophy effectively comes in 2 parts.

Firstly, you'll need to actually unlock the Triple Crown Championship, which will require you to earn a podium in the main Championship of the Rally, Landrush and Rallycross career branches. Historic Rally is excluded for this, but there are separate trophies awarded along the way for winning the main Championship for all 4 disciplines, so you can't just bypass Historic Rally entirely, and will still need to complete it in it's entirety to unlock the Platinum trophy. This also makes it somewhat pointless to mention the fact you only need to achieve a podium finish, as anything less than 1st place will leave you short of the Platinum.

After this, you'll need to actually win the Triple Crown Championship to then finally unlock the trophy. Up to this point, the Career mode is already a long venture, clocking in at around the 40-50 hour mark to win every main Championship (including Historic Rally) and unlock the Triple Crown itself. The Rally disciplines largely contribute to this, with some of the latter events requiring hours to complete individually, whereas the Landrush and Rallycross events don't tend to be anywhere near as gruelingly long. The Triple Crown alone then adds another 10-15 hours on top, and although there are only 3 events, each of them are the longest 3 events in the entire game, and it becomes a bit of a mental battle when you realise this trophy is actually hidden and the Triple Crown comes out of nowhere just when you think you've reached end-game.

It does actually become tough to stomach, and even as someone who is a massive fan of the DiRT series, the limited stage environments and variety within events doesn't really help the feeling that everything is just a bit too drawn out.

The trophies are not difficulty sensitive, so the actual challenge is determined by the player. I played on Champion difficulty, which is just one off the highest, and did find this to make the game tough in spots, but once you can afford to buy the best vehicles, and also fully upgrade them, then it does start to become less of a challenge, though you will still need a reasonable level of driving skill to win events regularly. This is actually the main driver for the score presented above, and if the difficulty wasn't taken into consideration, it would be hard to justify where the points for this game would actually come from.

You'll unlock a massive chunk of this list along the way towards winning the Triple Crown. This includes 8 trophies awarded for unlocking licenses at set points along the way at certain points within the Career mode, 4 trophies for winning the main Championship in each of the 4 racing disciplines and a handful of easier trophies you will no doubt unlock naturally on your way towards winning that Triple Crown. Once you've completed this, you will have around 70% of the entire list accounted for, leaving you with just the Multiplayer trophies, and a few stragglers left behind from the Single Player which you can easily go back and collect later.

The Multiplayer also doesn't stray too far from the norm, with both competitive online and community events both covered, as they have been in more recent DiRT titles.

In all honesty, there isn't much at all that is challenging and/or note-worthy from the Multiplayer aspect of this game, which is a bit of a difference from a series that has previously featured some lengthy online leveling journeys in the past.

The "DiRTy Dozen" trophy, awarded for Completing all 12 Stages of a Monthly Event in Community Events, requires you to post a completion time for a monthly recurring event, without actually mentioning the fact that if you abandon the event, or retire your vehicle due to an accident or excessive damage, you will have wait until next month in order to compete again. This happened to me, whereby I damaged my vehicle to the point of retirement, and had to wait for next month's event in order to compete again, so the best thing to do is just be cautious and ensure you finish all 12 stages without any mishaps. It will take a couple of hours to beat all 12 stages, but there's no pressure to post specific times or outperform anyone, so take your time and you'll be OK.

The rest of the Multiplayer trophies are extremely casual. You'll need to complete 25 races within the Pro Tour game mode, which is just a competitive head to head scenario, and there are also a few trophies for top tier performance within daily events, but the fact these are daily means they're frequently available, and even if you do struggle to reach the top tier for each day, you can keep trying at regular enough intervals that it shouldn't be a problem.

The stuff you don't pick up along the way within the Single Player mode, and through the Multiplayer, can be easily collected later, and there is also a little bit of dabbling in the Joyride/Academy game modes for good measure (which effectively act as practice for the main game).

I will uphold the opinion that, the difficulty of this list is determined by exactly what the player makes of it. If you don't want this to be an overly challenging Platinum, then it doesn't need to be. Play through the game on the lowest difficulty and, providing you don't mind a Career mode within the region of 60-70 hours, then you'll completely coast through. Much of the overall score for this game is purely down to the fact I chose to play through on one of the higher difficulty levels, and the game does provide an adequate challenge for those who want it. Even in previous DiRT games, the Multiplayer has provided a reasonable challenge through online leveling, but this aspect has been completely stripped down on the list this time around, further emphasising the point that the challenge is pretty limited to whatever difficulty mode you choose to tackle the Career mode on.

Once you manage to win the Triple Crown, the game is effectively over, and the rest just makes up the numbers for a full list. The Multiplayer and any other trophies which were previously missed will only add another 5-10 hours on top, and are just a matter of going through the motions, rather than any sort of focus of challenge. Even the "DiRTy Dozen" trophy only gets a mention because you can fail this challenge and need to be made aware of this due to it's limited availability.

Despite playing on one of the game's harder difficulty levels, I actually found it harder to stick with it throughout what is a pretty lengthy Platinum, coming in at around 60-70 hours all in all. The game attempts to add variety via a unique random track/terrain generator, that will always make sure that no route is ever the same, but with the same 5 rally environments, it does become a little bit of a struggle seeing the same scenery, especially once you start to reach the latter stages of the career when individual events can take hours to finish alone.

The game doesn't contain any challenging Multiplayer trophies, which is rare for the series, but this is offset by a much longer Career mode than ever before, and a sometimes tough and unforgiving simulation, which is, of course, optional, but ultimately drives the justification for a steady 7/10.

Notable Trophies -

Completed it mate - Win the Triple Crown
DiRTy Dozen - Complete all 12 Stages of a Monthly Event in Community Events

Hardest Trophy -

Completed it mate
Win the Triple Crown

DLC #125 - Grid Autosport - Drag Pack

This package introduces Drag racing to the Grid Autosport experience, adding 3 new drag cars, 3 new drag strips and a series of 9 new drag events to complete, along with 3 additional trophies to unlock.

Out of the 9 new drag events included as part of this DLC, 7 of them are individual events, and 2 of them are new Championships, including the Hotrod World Championship and the Funny Car World Championship, both of which will award 2 of the 3 trophies upon completion.

Unlike within the main game, where you had to progress towards the upper tier Championships, all 9 of these new events are instantly available from the off, and the 7 individual events do not act as prerequisites to the 2 Championships, so you can completely bypass these preliminaries and jump straight into the main event.

Each of the 2 Championships consist of 3 events, composed of 4 rounds each, following the exact same format of drift events. There is a qualifying round, in order to narrow down the field from 16 to 8, followed by 3 subsequent knockout rounds, where you compete on a head to head basis against another driver through a Quarter, Semi and Final. Points are awarded for higher placement, and you'll win the Championship, unlocking the relevant trophy in the process, for earning the most amount of points across the 3 events.

Even if you're not familiar with the concept of Drag racing, it doesn't take too long to understand how it works, and more importantly, how to get the hang of it and start posting some good finishing times. You literally just have to drive in a straight line from point to point as fast as possible, and whilst there are more dynamic game mechanics to it than that, such as gear shifting and timing the jump start, it is really as simple of a principle as it sounds.

The Funny Car Championship is slightly more challenging than that Hotrod Championship, which is noted by the fact the former will award a Gold trophy compared to the latter's Silver, but I still managed to obtain full completion of this package within the space of 2 hours. I even left the difficulty setting as Hard, carrying on from where I left off from with the main game. The final trophy just merely requires you to beat an opponent who had a better "pass" time, with a better "reaction" time, which you'll get along the way towards winning both of the new Championships.

DLC #124 - Angry Birds Trilogy - Fowl Tempered

I mentioned previously, during my review of the Anger Management DLC, that I never wanted to see any Angry Birds content ever again, and with the full completion of this package, I am very much official on that stance.

I also said my feelings towards it were a bit tongue in cheek, which is also still the case, but after having to come back yet again, and experience some of my bigger nuances of this game which have made me feel a touch of resent towards it, I am secretly glad it's over.

This package adds a total of 5 new episodes to play through, which is 1 short of what was offered within Anger Management, but similarly spans across multiple different themes, including Halloween, Back to School and Christmas. The total number of levels contained within is 135, which is 5 more than Anger Management, but in reality, this is just more of what you already know about Angry Birds.

There are 10 new trophies in total, spanning across the 5 new episodes, of which half of these are awarded for completing each one, but you know the drill by now, and if you want to obtain full completion, you'll need to go the extra mile for it;

Star-Amplifier - Get 3 stars in every single level of Fowl Tempered.

The "Star-Amplifier" trophy, awarded for Getting 3 stars in every single level of Fowl Tempered, is par for the course at this point, having already achieved this feat for every single level in the main list, and every single level within the Anger Management list.

In all fairness, there isn't much that can be said for this trophy that hasn't already been mentioned within the Anger Management DLC.

The list of nuances is exactly the same as previously witnessed. You'll feel like you're hitting a consistent rhythm of managing to 3 star levels with regular consistency, and you'll suddenly hit that showstopper in the form of a particular level which you'll spend hours on trying to achieve that 3 star rating. It's this sort of painstaking brick wall feeling that has gotten to a point of inevitability that has made me glad to finally complete this entire game. It's even more frustrating that the pick up and play nature gives it all an undertone of addictive feeling at the same time. It did bring sessions to a grinding halt on a few occasions, where I just simply had to come back to the game another day before I lost my head over it, but it is still as sweet of a feeling as ever to finally overcome the levels you just simply cannot seem to beat.

Again, as with the Anger Management pack, once you've beaten all 135 levels to a 3 star rating, and achieved the above trophy, you'll have to go back through them with the Mighty Eagle, which, on the whole is an easier journey, but still sees you fall victim to the odd level that just makes you sit there replaying it over and over again in cyclical vein.

Again, a time estimation is difficult to nail down, purely because it'll depend on the levels of fluency you manage to achieve, and the extent to how often you hit those particular levels that take hours to get through on their own. As an average, a fair estimate would be 20-30 hours, but that's purely based upon guidance of the Anger Management pack, which roughly had the same amount of levels and trophy requirements, as both lists are virtually identical.

When you combine everything through from the main list and 2 DLC packs, there are over 1000 levels to get through in order to 100% this title, along with a Mighty Eagle run for every single one of them on top. Over 2000 individual levels, a large handful of which I would of played over and over attempting to clear them. It has been some journey, and there's no doubt that Angry Birds is frustrating, but is so in it's own charming way. 

However, after a main game (which I had to finish twice because of a Platinum-busting glitch), and 2 DLC packs, I'm ready to say farewell to it for good. With the greatest respect intended, to what is a uniquely annoying, yet addictive, game, I will never launch an Angry Bird from a catapult ever again. This is certainly a 100% to be proud of though.

Platinum #92 - Battlefield 1

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 3/10

Battlefield titles haven't exactly always been the most challenging to beat, but Battlefield 1 lowers the bar to the shortest standard yet, with the easiest Platinum trophy of the Battlefield series to date.

This list, coming in relatively small at just 32 trophies, is split between both Single Player and Multiplayer, combining to make what is one of the easiest Platinum trophies to ever make it into my collection.

The Single Player portion of this list focuses on the Campaign mode, which is a fairly original concept called "War Stories". Rather than include a normal story, with a defined beginning, middle and end, like pretty much every war game in existence does, the Battlefield 1 Campaign is broken down into 5 individual short stories, told from the perspective of 5 different characters.

Each of these stories focuses on specific aspects of the game, from "Through Mud and Blood", which focuses on Daniel Edwards, a Mark V Landship crew member, whose missions will demonstrate tank warfare, and "Friends in High Places", which focuses on Clyde Blackburn, an American pilot, whose mission will showcase air-based combat.

There are other gameplay mechanics demonstrated elsewhere, but the War Stories are an interesting and original approach for the Single Player aspect of a genre that doesn't tend to stray too far from a more standardised blueprint for Campaign offerings.

Around two third's of this whole list is dedicated towards the War Stories.

The "War to End All Wars" trophy, awarded for Completing the campaign on Hard difficulty, will require you to complete all 5 War Stories on the toughest challenge possible. Each War Story contains anywhere between 2-4 missions within, and they all individually vary on length, combining to around 6-8 hours for full completion.

You'll also be awarded an individual trophy upon completing each of the 5 War Stories, which adds a nice flow along the way. However, Hard difficulty really isn't that hard at all, and it's a very casual experience which makes this Platinum very accessible, and one of the reasons why it's such a low scorer. 

The "Master of adaptation" trophy, awarded for Completing all challenges in the campaign, is where this list starts to earn some difficulty points, albeit to a somewhat lesser extent.

Throughout the War Stories, each individual mission will contain a series of different challenges contained within, indicated via a blank codex entry on the pause menu from within the mission. They are effectively assignments which have been a staple part of Battlefield games for a long time, and often form the basis for trophies within both core game and DLC lists. There are a total of 53 codex entries to unlock, which equates to 53 challenges, which, upon full completion will award the above trophy.

It is important to note, out of these 53 challenges, there are 5 codex entries awarded for completing the final mission within any given War Story, making these automatic, and a further 13 codex entries awarded for collecting all of the field manuals in specifically chosen missions. The field manuals are just a standard collectible activity, and there are usually, but not in every instance, 5 to collect per mission, and you can take the exact approach I did and just bypass combat to the location of the field manuals and pick them up in one fell swoop, which makes them nothing more than a slight sidetrack activity. You are also awarded a trophy for both collecting all fields manuals for any of the 5 given War Stories, and for a full collection.

They vary drastically in difficulty. Some are so easy to the point where you could unlock them naturally, but there are a small handful that can be trickier, and will certainly require multiple attempts to unlock. These are usually the codex entries unlocked by completing certain sections of missions without being detected by enemies (of which there are about 3/4), and therefore focus on the stealth elements of the game, which can be naturally lengthy anyway because you need to be extra cautious, and when you're detected, you'll have to reset and go back to the start, which can be frustrating. These difficulties do also extend into other challenges, such as those that involve air-based combat and some of the tank-based missions too. The "Total War" and "Forte Et Fidele" missions from within the "Friends in High Places" story, as well as "Over the Top" from within "Through Mud and Blood" are the standout missions which contain some of the more challenging codex entry challenges.

They're not make or break by any means of the imagination, but they will stretch the overall completion time of the list, and you'll need a bit of practice to get by and unlock some of these codex entries, so it isn't always completely plain sailing.

This is pretty much where the list peaks, even before we even get onto the Multiplayer portion of the game, which contains 10 trophies, and makes up the final third of this entire list. None of these trophies will encourage you to explore anything other than the surface of the whole Multiplayer experience, despite 4 of these 10 trophies attributed to this area of the game being Gold trophies.

This may initially lead you to believe you're in for a tough journey, but they're all complete throwaways, and not just the 4 Gold trophies. Every single trophy within the Multiplayer part of this list is a giveaway. If you're the sort of player who's purely into grabbing those high value trophies, for lowest amount of effort possible, then this one's for you. The 4 Gold trophies require you to simply level up each of the 4 different solider classes (Medic, Scout, Assault, Support) once. Just once. This will take a few hours maximum per class, so combined, it's still an additional 6-8 hours on top, but in comparison to other games that may feature trophies for Multiplayer leveling ventures, it's a little bit too easy, and proves to be a bit devoid of ideas.

In previous Battlefield titles, the Multiplayer portion of the list has usually been where the games difficulty tends to shine through. That was certainly the case in Battlefield : Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3 at least, but here, with every online trophy accounted for collectively, you'll barely hit 10 hours to earn all of them, which also emphasises the ease of the rest of the list outside the 6-8 hours you'll need to dedicate to reaching level 2 with each of the Multiplayer classes. There's no point going into any detail for the rest individually, because there honestly isn't anything else to say. If you focus on reaching rank 2 for each class, the rest will follow along the way.

The whole list is a bit of a damp squib, to be perfectly honest. It'll suit some people but I personally feel the bigger titles should always carry a greater challenge with them when it comes to trophies, but it isn't always to be.

The Single Player portion does at least slightly elevate this challenge, which is just as well, because without the in-level challenges, we'd be looking at something lower than a 3/10, which would be a first for the collection. You'll need to beat each of the 5 War Stories on Hard difficulty, and this is unlocked from the outset, so there isn't a prerequisite to beat them once on a lower difficulty beforehand, so you're free to tackle these on Hard from the get go, which I would encourage. There is a decent amount of replay value, as you'll have to trawl back through individual missions gathering any missed collectibles and also tick off the vast amount of challenges, so I would recommend any strategy that minimises repetition, and Hard difficulty won't give even the most casual player many problems.

With around 6-8 hours to beat the War Stories once over, I would allow for around double this amount of time to go back over everything else which you may have missed. This will include collectibles and challenges, but a time that will also vary depending on the extent of tidy up required. It just happened to be around a 15 hour experience for me when it was all wrapped up.

The Multiplayer portion is somewhere in the region of an additional 10 hours for everything attached to this mode, which makes the collective package a 25-30 hour experience, which sounds about right to me. It's a shame the Multiplayer trophies didn't have more conviction put into them, as I personally believe Battlefield is still one of the best Multiplayer games on the market, though there has been a slew of DLC which has generously plied the game with some trophies, so the poor showing in the main list has been somewhat offset.

There's no doubt that this is the easiest Battlefield title to date, with a Single Player component that seldom offers a genuine challenge, and a Multiplayer portion that does even less than that, literally giving away trophies for minimal effort. Combined, it fully justifies the low score, and makes Battlefield 1 just the 7th title to receive a 3/10 in my collection.

Notable Trophies -

The War to End All Wars - Complete the campaign on Hard difficulty
Master of adaptation - Complete all challenges in the campaign

Hardest Trophy -

Master of adaptation
Complete all challenges in the campaign

Platinum #91 - GRID Autosport

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 9/10

On the recent subject of completions that have been a long time coming, the Uncharted 3 DLC seamlessly brings us into GRID Autosport.

When you consider the fact that I unlocked my first trophy in this list in June 2014, it'll be just over 5 years since I started this journey, and whilst the main reason for this has been due to breaks from the game, this is still a seriously challenging set of trophies.

The list of 51 trophies is mostly split into 2 areas of the game. These include the Single Player, which focuses on the Career mode, and the competitive Multiplayer, which contains one of the longest online leveling grinds I've ever encountered.

There are also a small collection of miscellaneous trophies attached to other game modes, such as custom cups and split-screen, but these are nowhere near considered to be a main focus.

The "I've got what Rick Scott's got" trophy, awarded for Winning each discipline's most prestigious driver's championship for Ravenwest, is exactly what you'll work towards throughout the main Career, which contains a series of events spread across 5 racing disciplines. These include Touring Cars, Endurance, Open Wheel, Tuner and Street racing, and this trophy is effectively split into 2 parts.

Firstly, you'll need to win the final event within each of these 5 disciplines, through completing a series of smaller events, and gradually working your way up towards the top event. It's a pretty standard progression model for racing games, and even though you won't need to beat all of the events in each discipline to unlock the highest one, some of these Championships can contain a lot of events, and the final event in each discipline branch always has 10 events, which will easily take a couple of hours each to complete alone.

Secondly, the only way to unlock a contract for the Ravenwest team, is to beat the top event for the first time with any other team. This means you'll have to win the top event for all 5 disciplines twice in order to fully beat the Career mode and unlock this trophy. It's a little bit of a cheap way to add longevity onto the game, but the trophy specifically requires you to beat the top event, so you'll have to repeat the longest Championship in every discipline twice if you want the Platinum, so be prepared for a long journey.

The "A True Legend" trophy, awarded for Winning the "GRID Legends Series", is also another aspect of the Career mode which adds longevity to the game. As you complete more Championships within each discipline, you will obtain experience points for that discipline. Once you hit level 3 in each of these disciplines, you'll unlock the first GRID series to compete in (Grand Slam). You will also subsequently unlock the Masters series at level 6 for each discipline, and eventually, the Legends Series at level 10 for each discipline. You'll also need to win the previous GRID Series Championship in order to unlock the next one, meaning you'll need to win each of these Championships along the way.

Level 10 might not seem like much, but this amasses to 1 Million experience, and you'll unlock an individual trophy for reaching this milestone for each of the 5 disciplines. You'll manage to reach this as you progress towards the end of the Career on your way to fulfilling the requirements of the "I've got what Rick Scott's got" trophy, but these Championships, just like the final Championship at the end of each discipline within the main part of the Career mode, have 10 events, which will take a couple of hours each to beat. It all adds up, and this trophy is effectively the epilogue to the main Career mode, so just bear in mind that you're not quite finished once you beat every top Championship again with Ravenwest.

All of the other Single Player trophies are tied in to natural progression, and you'll get these along the way, providing you stick to the task of the above 2 trophies being your main focus. Nothing else requires you to go off the beaten track, so at least that's one thing about this list that's straight forward enough. There is also nothing that ties you into completing anything on specific difficulty levels, so you're allowed to go through the Career Mode at whatever pace you please, though the challenge is certainly there on the harder difficulties if you want it. I ended up playing through on hard difficulty, which caused me some challenges along the way, and even though you may need to replay races often, it's a good challenge, rather than a frustrating one.

However, the Multiplayer portion of this games makes the Single Player look like a warm up, despite the Single Player trophies coming with challenges carrying solid merits.

The "I've stopped counting" trophy, awarded for Reaching a total Online level of 250, all disciplines combined, is the longest online leveling grind I've finished to date, and by some distance too. The leveling system online works as follows;

You can compete against other drivers in lobbies specifically focused on all 5 disciplines, and your performance within any given race will award experience points towards that discipline. Each time you level up within that discipline, this will contribute towards an overall combined level, which relates to the 250 levels required for the achievement of this trophy. You can also complete weekly "Racenet" challenges, which are a series of challenges that award bronze, silver, gold and platinum medals depending on how well you complete them. There is 1 challenge set each week for each discipline, and this changes every week to a new challenge on a rotational basis, so there are 2 methods upon which you can earn experience points.

Level 250 will require a whopping 5 Million experience points, and in theory, the quickest way towards that is to reach level 50 in each of the 5 disciplines. The Racenet challenges are an absolute Godsend here, because if you earn the Platinum medal for a challenge, you'll bag 10,000 experience points, which may not sound like much in the bigger picture of 5 Million experience points, and in reality, it's not, and you'll have to chip away every single week re-visiting and keeping on top of these challenges to gradually level up over time, but I also dread to think how long this would take you without them. You can also jump into competitive lobbies and attempt to place well in races, but this has the shortfall of not awarding as much experience for the time input compared to Racenet challenges. This is, of course, offset by the limited opportunity of only being able to take advantage of earning the Platinum medal once per week, as opposed to the unlimited cap of competitive races against others.

In theory, you could just come back and play through the Racenet challenges week on week, and you would get there eventually, but this would be a very long term project, and I ended up having to deploy this method after I had finished all the other online trophies and only needed to reach level 250. It's not as tedious as some previous online grinds I've done, purely because it's naturally broken up by the fact you can only come back once a week and earn a Platinum medal from challenges, but this also means it takes way longer than it should, and technically earns the title of the longest online leveling grind I've ever completed.

The "FTW" trophy, awarded for Winning 100 Online races, is just as matter of fact as it sounds, and should be the foundation of your quest to reach level 250. Some racing games will count a podium finish as a win, but here you'll need to place in first position. It's not really as daunting as it sounds, purely by virtue of the fact the "I've stopped counting" trophy exists, and completely eclipses this trophy, but you'll need to be a reasonably good driver to notch up this amount of wins throughout the game.

You can use your own cars, purchased through the car shop, and also spend winnings on upgrading them and using them in races against other drivers, which will give you an edge as you get deeper into the online journey. This will help you out towards winning races, and of course, any experience, win or lose, will all go towards hitting that 250 milestone required on your way towards the Platinum trophy, so no losing effort ever feels like it's being done in vein.

However, this trophy is definitely the biggest skill related trophy in the game, and 100 wins is still 100 wins at the end of the day, so you'll need to brush up on every ounce of driving skill you have if you still want to achieve this trophy. After all, you could still, in theory, hit level 250 before you win 100 races, and you certainly won't want to be playing this game beyond reaching that milestone, so make sure the wins are ticking over nicely. I'd consider driving games one of my stronger genres, and I still had over 500 races finished by the time I got 100 wins, so be warned about the fierce competitiveness of this game online.

The "An icon in the pit lane" trophy, awarded for Advancing a car to level 99 in Online, requires you to max out the level for any purchased vehicle. Throughout the Online journey, and during competitive races, you'll be loaned a vehicle if you do not own the specific vehicle required for that particular race, but you can also acquire these vehicles for yourself. Racing owned vehicles will level them up and unlock performance upgrades for the car.

The benefit of this is the fact you can make them more powerful than a loaned vehicle, which will always remain at the minimum spec. Reaching level 99 will also take some time, and it was actually one of the final trophies I unlocked, even coming after I had reached level 250 collectively. This may have been down to the fact I never really focused on purchasing vehicles initially, until I realised I'd need to max one of them out for the purpose of this trophy, so it's important to get a headstart on this as soon as possible.

Racenet challenges will go some way to upgrading your vehicle significantly, but the events each week are always predetermined, so there's always a chance your cars don't become available for selection. However, if you buy as many as you can, and work on them on a simultaneous basis, you'll have enough in your rotation to level them up consistently enough to reach level 99 with at least one car sooner or later. The one thing you absolutely don't want to do is only own a couple of vehicles, so as long as you avoid this, you'll be OK.

The "Sofa, so good" trophy, awarded for Completing a Splitscreen race, is in here purely to reference the fact you'll need a second controller for this Platinum. Anything that requires you to own additional peripherals deserves to be called out, and there are actually a couple of other trophies within this list that can only be unlocked in local Co-op.

This is the most difficult racing game I've finished since Motorstorm : Pacific Rift, a whole 8 years ago. That was a 10/10 for a similarly grueling Multiplayer component, which had a unique regressive leveling system, and whilst GRID Autosport does not, the grind to level 250 is for the seriously dedicated. However, the Racenet challenges deny this being a 10/10 Platinum, purely because they take the intensity away from the grind. Don't underestimate this leveling journey, but the Racenet challenges, and the fact you don't have to play hours straight on end to achieve level 250, takes the edge off considerably.

If you'd prefer to hammer out races in public lobbies and accumulate the experience points at a faster rate, something you'll need to do to a lesser or greater extent anyway, due to the fact you'll need 100 wins, then you can take this approach, but completing the Racenet challenges each week will give you a much longer, but leisurely journey that just requires ample patience. It's good to have options, and you may find you want to combine both methods to maximise your progress.

When you add on top of this a Single Player Career mode, which is not only lengthy, but can also contain a strong challenge if you're that way inclined, then you have a big task on your hands. 

The collective timescale is easily 200+ hours, and that's even when taken as a very low end estimate. The fact you can play on a weekly cyclical basis through Racenet challenges will aid progression, but the 100 race wins redresses the balance to ensure this isn't just all about time, and that you'll need to display some strong driving skills to get this list over the finish line. It's the ultimate mix of long and hard, and very close to another 10/10 Platinum, stopping just short by virtue of the fact the Racenet challenges will throw most people a lifeline during the grind to the top.

It's a very high end 9/10 though, and it feels good to get a credible Platinum trophy back into the collection.

Notable Trophies -

I've got what Rick Scott's got - Win each disciplines most prestigious driver's championship for Ravenwest.
A True Legend - Win the GRID Legends Series.
I've stopped counting - Reach a total Online level of 250, all disciplines combined.
FTW - Win 100 Online races.
An icon in the pit lane - Advance a car to level 99 in Online.
Sofa so good - Complete a Splitscreen race.

Hardest Trophy - 

I've stopped counting
Reach a total Online level of 250, all disciplines combined.

DLC #123 - Uncharted 3 : Drake's Deception - Flashback Map Pack 2

Completing this final piece of DLC for Uncharted 3 prompted me to look back over this entire set, and actually made me realise how difficult this journey has been.

There are challenges around every single corner, varying from the outrageously lucky, to the highly skilled. Given the ease of difficulty expected from the main list (which is to still be completed), the DLC alone makse it a very impressive 100% completion to have in any collection.

The Flashback Map Pack 2 adds 4 new maps, which are all re-incarnated from Uncharted 2, spanning both Competitive and Co-operative game modes. As standard, there are 10 new trophies added, with a slew of new tasks, and whilst this contains the second half of our treasure related collectible journey previously discussed within the Fort Co-op Adventure pack, there is actually a little bit more to talk about here, still presenting a slightly heightened challenge, which has certainly been a recurring theme within this whole game.

All 3 silver trophies will give you some degree of challenge to tackle here, whilst the other 7 bronze trophies are all focused on in-game medal accumulation again, another recurring theme throughout. None of these medals will cause too much trouble, as they'll mostly be covered off through the large time investment you'll be expected to put into the Competitive and Co-operative modes throughout this journey.

Whilst there are no questions about the treasures being the main focus for this package again, there is a nice little collection of trophies that will give you some challenges here;

Invincible - Complete a Co-op Arena Map on Crushing Difficulty without losing a single life
Two by Two - Win 50 matches of Three Team Deathmatch
Collector - Complete the Antiquity Treasure Set

The "Invincible" trophy, is a directly influenced from the Flashback Map Pack 1 DLC, which offered the exact same requirements, only applicable to the Co-op Adventure mode.

The same challenges that were present there are also present here. Arena is a very different game mode to Adventure though, and I would personally argue it's more difficult to survive within Arena mode than it is with Adventure mode, making this trophy the tougher of the 2. Where you could deploy some solid tactics to help you through Adventure mode, such as hanging back in certain sections, and allowing your team-mates to clear the way, there is nowhere to hide in Arena mode, and you'll have to defend on the front foot and be aggressive against the hordes of enemies if you want to succeed here.

In order to complete an Arena Map, you'll need to clear all 10 rounds, and to do this without dying, especially at the latter rounds when Brutes, armored enemies and RPG units turn up, can prove to be tough, and potentially get ugly very quickly. It's also important to pick your 2 other team-mates wisely. You don't want to play with uncooperative partners who could potentially let you die when you need to be revived, which will blow your chances of the trophy, and given the fact you have to clear all 10 rounds on Crushing difficulty also means you'll need team-mates with a lot of skill to see you through to the end.

It's also important to pick good partners because you're limited to 15 lives per game, and if lives are disposed quickly by your team-mates, the game will prematurely end when nobody can respawn anymore, so there's a small handful of important considerations needed to unlock this trophy.

The "Two by Two" trophy is the standard game mode win accumulation offering for this package. I certainly believe Three Team Deathmatch is one of the more difficult game modes to accumulate wins in, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's 3 teams competing against each other, unlike most other modes in Uncharted 3, where 2 teams go head to head. That may seem like a statement of the obvious, but competing against 2 other teams, rather than just 1, naturally decreases your chances of winning.

It also seems to be a mode where you run into a lot of pairs who don't like playing bigger team based game modes where they're forced to mix with random players, meaning a greater concentration of better teams that naturally gravitate to Three Team Deathmatch. This could just have been a coincidence, but I ran into a lot of good pairs who seemed to be experienced in playing with each other, and therefore, naturally very good.

Out of all 5 trophies that required 50 wins for the various game modes amongst all of these DLC packs, this was the last one I unlocked, purely because I lost a lot of Three Team Deathmatch games, due to a mixture of the above combinations. I did eventually find a decent partner and managed to win games more frequently, but it was definitely the longest game mode that I reached 50 wins in.

The "Collector" trophy, awarded for Completing the Antiquity Treasure Set, is the second half of the previously reviewed "Hoarder" trophy, in the Fort Co-op Adventure pack, and for the sake of not wanting to tread over old ground, there isn't really much to be said that hasn't already been covered prior to this.

There are a few key differences. The Antiquity set has 16 total treasure sets, with a combined total of 42 treasures, which is 6 sets and 16 treasures shorter than the Artifact set. Whether this actually makes a difference for something that is completely random, I do not know, but in theory, the much smaller collection should be the one you complete first. I have read a lot of strong backing for a theory that suggests you are always left with 1 treasure from each set for full completion, which was also the case for myself, so this, at least from my own experience, seems to be true. I also unlocked the larger Artifact set in full first too, which further disproves the theory that the fact the set is smaller actually matters, but this could be different for the general consensus.

A more relevant difference is the fact that this set also contains a collection of adventure treasures, awarded throughout the Co-op adventure chapters, just like the Artifact set did. However, where the Artifact set only awarded these treasures under the condition that you played the levels on Hard/Crushing, the treasures within the Antiquity set will drop treasures if you play the levels on Easy/Normal, so this is naturally a smoother journey as a consequence.

Apart from those minor differences, all the trials and tribulations you can expect from this trophy are exactly as they were described in the Fort Co-op Adventure pack for the "Hoarder" trophy, they're just not merged and discussed as one because they come from different DLC packs.

And with this, completes another tough set of DLC trophies from a game which isn't usually known for it's difficulty. I am still yet to obtain the Platinum trophy from the main list, but don't anticipate this to be anywhere close to as challenging as this DLC adventure was. When I sit here and look back on all of it as a collective, I can see where both the challenge and hours would have been amassed from. There are an assortment of trophies here, ranging from high skill requirements, time-consumption and the outright absurd. It is a real grueling collection that only those who really want it enough will obtain full completion within. It's hard to look back over everything and determine an overall timescale. I started unlocking some of these DLC trophies as early as 2012, so you can hopefully appreciate how difficult it is to truly say how long this took me altogether, when my only real reference points are my previous reviews of other DLC packs, and a few loose time totals from the online leaderboards. It's easily a 200+ hour experience as a very minimum.

It's massively time-consuming and requires a certain level of mastery to finish everything within these DLC packs and if you manage to beat the clock before that early September deadline for server closure, then make sure you cherish this victory.