DLC #61 - Bulletstorm - Gun Sonata

Indulge in some more death-fuelled
showboating.

Gun Sonata adds 5 trophies to Bulletstorm, catering to the Echo and Anarchy modes of the game.

There are 3 trophies distributed to the new Anarchy levels added by the DLC package, all of which are awarded for pulling off certain skillshots within the anarchy levels. With the correct tactics applied, you can snap all of these up well within half an hour or so, which is very generous when you consider the "Heart Attack" trophy, awarded for killing a boss with the Hot Dog cart in the Hotel Elysium map, is actually a gold trophy.

There are also 2 trophies allocated to the new echoes levels, but again, there's nothing here that will cause you a great amount of trouble.

Just for the sake of stretching things a bit, the "Last Blood" trophy, awarded for killing all enemies on the walkways before the explosions do, at the end of Guns of Stygia, requires some fast reactions and deft shooting skill. However, the only thing that's slightly frustrating about the trophy is the fact you have to get to the end of the level again every time you fail, in order to reach the point at which you can retry for the trophy, but once you realise you can run straight to it, it makes it much less of a burden if you actually do need more than a few attempts.

Regardless, you can still unlock all 5 trophies within 1-2 hours of gameplay, making it a very easy DLC package.

Platinum #48 - Shift 2 : Unleashed

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 9/10

Most of the single player portion of this list is centred around the career mode, and winning enough events to reach the final branch of races within each discipline.

The "Dominator" trophy, awarded for beating all the rivals, is definitely the core focus of the career mode, and beating all 9 rivals in the game will require heavy mastering of various disciplines and winning a whole host of events in order to earn final races against said rivals. Some events are seriously punishing in difficulty too, with the Drift, Time Attack and Endurance branches deserving of notable mentions when it comes to the latter stages and the eventual rival event.

You'll also need to beat a number of career events to unlock the rival race, so there is a distinct time-based element to this trophy too. You won't need to beat them all, but each branch will need a large amount of progression towards the end before you unlock the eventual rival race and get a shot at beating them all.

The "Bounty Hunter" trophy, awarded for earning a total of $10,000,000 during your career, can be accumulated along the way, but it's a hefty figure to knock off, and there's a highly likely chance you'll be grinding this one out beyond the end-game of the career mode. Given how long the career mode can be, it's a pretty huge total to accumulate, and the best way to go about it is through replaying the final events over and over again, which is where the most prize money is handed out. 

The latter events within the game are where the biggest amounts of money are paid out, and you're best off just grinding out these area of the game for any additional funds you need to accumulate. Needless to say, this does eventually become fairly tedious, and does add a good few hours onto the total Platinum time.

Slightly tied into this, the "Leno Would be Proud" trophy, awarded for having at least 1 car from every manufacturer in your garage, will also take a fair chunk to time to achieve, and also be very costly in the process. Some of the more prestigious car dealers only offer cars worth millions of dollars, and with almost 50 manufacturers in the game, the amount of money required to own a vehicle from each of them is towards the larger end of the scale. Some cars can be awarded for free through the career mode, but the vast majority will have to be purchased, and this most often includes the more expensive cars in the game.

The "Day Walker" and "Night Master" trophies, both awarded for mastering every track in the game under day and night conditions respectively, adds a huge element of skill to the list, with a variety of tracks that require pinpoint precision and accuracy to master. Mastering a track requires perfection of the racing line and every corner, and certain variations of tracks are seriously difficult to pull off without some extent of trial and error and/or sheer skill. 

These trophies alone definitely ramp up the overall difficulty of the list, especially with almost 100 different tracks and locations to master in total. The vast majority of the tracks just simply become matter of loading the track up in a quick event and blasting out a routine lap or two, but some of them are seriously difficult to nail, and will require genuine racing skill and prowess in order to achieve mastery. 

There are a couple of other trophies that will attempt to stumble you, including the "Race License" trophy, awarded for winning 75 career events on hard difficulty, which is a very steep difficulty level that definitely sets a high skill benchmark for the player, though you can actually play the opening events repeatedly to rack up this number, which are easier in comparison to the latter stages, so it might not seem so bad for those who may struggle later on. However, the harder difficulties in the game pay out alot more prize money, which is an extremely useful thing to take note of when you consider how much cash you need to accumulate for some of the aforementioned monetary based trophies.

Regarding the Multiplayer portion, there is no let up on the difficulty presented within this list.

The "King of the Hill" trophy, awarded for winning your first Driver Duel Championship crown, is without doubt one of the toughest bronze trophies available in any game, and requires you to win 7 events in the row without being beaten. Starting from round 1, every win takes you a step closer to the Championship round, and a loss at anytime takes you back down to stage 1. 

In all honesty, it's the blatant design flaws of the game that make this trophy difficult to achieve. You'll never get matched up with anyone else who isn't at the same stage as you, which means you could quite conceivably sit within a round for hours and not encounter a single opponent, especially at the latter stages of the tournament. There's also no ghost mode enabled for races, meaning rounds just mostly degenerate into glorified destruction derbies where it will effectively come down to whoever can ruin their opponent first and race ahead. It makes the whole thing an arduous, and also nerve racking slog, and this trophy alone is a massive achievement in it's own right.

Apart from that, the "Notorious" trophy, awarded for playing for 10 hours in total online, is self explanatory, but you will most definitely knock most of this, if not all of it, out during the King of the Hill quest. 

The same goes for the "I. Am. Iron. Man." trophy awarded for winning 5 consecutive online events, but you need to win a total of 7 rounds to become King of the Hill and unlock that trophy, so it's better to go for these two trophies in tandem. It just becomes a harder task if you try and race multiple opponents and attempt to beat them all for 5 consecutive races, so despite how hard the King of the Hill mode is, it's still probably the easiest chance you have of accumulating 5 wins in a row anyway.

This Platinum has practically everything, with a large element of skill required and plenty of time to invest too. There are alot of frustrations along the way, and certain trophies will require much persistence and determination to achieve. However, it makes for a very rewarding Platinum, and comes extremely close to the full 10. Is it tougher than Motorstorm : Pacific Rift? No, but it only just misses out.

Notable Trophies -

Dominator - Beaten all the Rivals
Bounty Hunter - Earned $10,000,000 total during your career
Leno would be proud - Have at least one car from each manufacturer in your Garage
Day Walker - Mastered every location in day or dusk
Night Rider - Mastered every location at night
Race License - Won 75 Career events on Hard difficulty
King of the Hill - Won your first Driver Duel Championship Crown
Notorious - Played Online for over 10 hours total

Hardest Trophy -

King of the Hill
Won your first Driver Duel Championship Crown

DLC #60 - Mass Effect 2 - Arrival

A rescue mission, that isn't all that it seems...

The Arrival DLC caps off Mass Effect 2, with an additional 3 trophies catered around a singular mission.

Two of the trophies on offer require you to perform specific tasks within the DLC storyline. The"Last Stand" trophy, which requires you to complete all 5 waves in the battle for object Roh, is probably the harder of the two, but that doesn't exactly say much, it's just the one most people will probably need a few attempts at trying to achieve, if not done in one shot.

Even if you do struggle on either, simply reloading the last checkpoint will take you to the beginning of each relevant point, you just need to be aware at when you're actually at the point in the story-arc where the trophies can be achieved, and not skipped over.

You also get awarded "The Ultimate Sacrifice" trophy, for beating the Arrival DLC, which takes no longer than 1-2 hours, depending on how long it takes you to get the other 2 trophies, which are missable, but easy enough to keep track of and unlock, to not require multiple play-throughs at the same time.

Platinum #47 - Mass Effect 2

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 8/10

The hardest part of this list comes from the "Insanity" trophy, for completing the game on Insanity difficulty level, with a frequent number of parts throughout the whole game that just end up becoming a tough slog of trial and error as you aim to complete each mission.

It definitely lives it up it's name appropriately, and also turns out to be one of the most frustrating highest difficulty level games you will experience, with punishing enemies and vastly depleting health. Various sections of the game turn into fairly large time-sinks as you struggle to get by them and the trophy ends up being responsible for the vast majority of the difficulty rating for the entire list.

Even though you can wade straight into the game on Insanity mode, you'll most likely need more than 1 play-through regardless (It's tough to imagine that anyone will want to try and unlock every trophy, including loyalty missions and side missions, purely on Insanity mode).

The "Long Service Medal" trophy, awarded for completing Mass Effect 2 twice, or once with an imported character from Mass Effect 1, will probably see that most people do complete the game twice especially when you take into account the fact you should probably tackle Insanity mode with the least amount of obstructions possible. Alternatively, downloading the Cerberus Pack and watching the interactive comic will classify as importing a Mass Effect 1 character, and as such, will also fulfil the trophy requirements.

It's also worth noting the "Power Gamer" trophy, for reaching level 30 with one character, will extend into 2 play-throughs, due to the fact not enough experience can be earned in 1 run to fulfil the requirements of the trophy. The extent to which you have to reach in a second play-through will obviously depend on how far you get in the first, but completing everything in a single game will get you to around level 28, so a second dip into the game is mandatory.

The "Noone Left Behind" trophy, for keeping your team alive through the suicide mission, can only be achieved under certain criteria, based on which choices you make during the game, and which team members are loyal to your character. It's best advised to keep a save backed up prior to the mission, as certain choices during the mission itself will dictate the survival and death of your team members, which can very easily trip you up and undo alot of hard work.

The game does have it's fair share of easier trophies, with a generous amount of them catered towards main story progression, recruiting your team and also finishing their loyalty missions.There are also a small selection of cumulative kill based trophies granted for experimenting with a variety of weapons and special powers. 

In reality, the "Insanity" trophy is the only trophy that makes this game genuinely challenging, although there are a couple of other nuances contained within the list, such as a handful of missable trophies that are incredibly easy to overlook, ensuring your whole team survive the suicide mission and the fact it actually required 3 playthroughs of the game, rather than the 2 maximum, for me to unlock the "Long Service Medal" trophy.

Typically, you're still looking at around 60 hours to grab the Platinum. The game's list offers alot for the player to get through, and Insanity mode will test your patience and determination to the very maximum. If you have the will to beat the game on it's toughest challenge, you're practically there, as the rest of the list is just about time and making sure you keep an eye out for the missable trophies.

Notable Trophies - 

Insanity - Complete the game on the "Insanity" difficulty level without changing the setting
Long Service Medal - Complete Mass Effect 2 twice, or complete it once with a character imported from Mass Effect 1
Power Gamer - Reach Level 30 with one character
No One Left Behind - Keep your team alive through the suicide mission

Hardest Trophy -

Insanity
Complete the game on the "Insanity" difficulty level without changing the setting.

Platinum #46 - DiRT Showdown

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 5/10

The bulk of the Single Player trophies in this list are related to the Tour mode, and most of them can easily be achieved through natural progression.

There are only 60 events in the Showdown Tour this time round, which is a drastic cut from the previous DiRT games. The "GOLD!" trophy, for completing the Showdown Tour and winning Gold in every event still isn't that difficult to achieve, and there are a host of other progression based trophies tied to winning at bronze and silver levels too, as well as beating each of the 4 tiers in the Tour mode, so there is always something to spur you on.

Sticking with the gold theme, the "Max Power" trophy, which requires you to fully upgrade all vehicles, is the other gold trophy in the list, and requires you to kit out every vehicle to maximum specifications. You can earn the majority of the money needed to upgrade everything through just natural tour progression, though you may also need to venture online to scrape together the remaining money needed (or just replay the higher reward Tour events over and over).

Even though there are a considerable amount of throw-away trophies, the "Wrecker" trophy, which requires you to achieve a 5x wrecking streak in Rampage, and "Hitman", which requires you to achieve all hit types in Rampage, will test your skills, and possibly require a bit of luck in the process.

You also need to collect all 100 hidden packages in Joyride mode, as well as beat 100% of the Yokohama and Battersea missions too, which aren't only a touch grindy, but frustrating at times aswell.

Venturing online, and the "Showdown Superstar" trophy, which requires you to reach fanbase level 30 online, makes a return, and has the exact same fanbase target as DiRT 3 (250,000 fans). In the exact same way too, it is also incredibly lengthy and will easily take somewhere in the region 30-40 hours alone.

The "Running the Show" trophy requires you to dominate a friend in challenge mode (10 wins on the bounce), which is no minor task, though as long as you make sure you don't post any challenges to them, you should be able to accumulate this over time, as long as your friend keeps on posting challenges to you.

There are a couple of trickier online trophies, including "Loot Carrier", which requires you to hold the loot for 2 minutes in Smash and Grab, which is a tall order when you take into account the games are only 3 minutes long, and "Showdown Haulage Co.", which requires you to drop the flag off 5 times in a round of Transporter.

Generally speaking though, this is a pretty easy Platinum to achieve. The Showdown Tour shouldn't take any longer than 15-20 hours to complete in full, and given the fact you can achieve the vast majority of the single player trophies on the way to obtaining a gold trophy in every event, the need for a mop up afterwards probably won't be hugely necessary.

Even though the Multi-player trophies do their best to step up the challenge a notch, there still isn't anything overly difficult, and if you can get over the fairly steep completion time (About 70-80 hours in total), you've netted a pretty easy going Platinum.

Notable Trophies - 

GOLD! - Complete the Showdown tour and win Gold in every event
Max Power - Fully upgrade all vehicles
Wrecker - Achieve a 5x Wrecking streak in Rampage
Hitman - Achieve all hit types in Rampage
Showdown Superstar - Reach Fanbase Level 30 Online
Running the Show - Dominate a Friend in Challenge mode

Hardest Trophy -

Showdown Superstar 
Reach Fanbase Level 30 Online

Platinum #45 - Motorstorm : Apocalypse

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 4/10

A large potion of this trophy list is dedicated to the game's story mode, with a generous offering of progression based trophies for simply finishing the 3 different campaigns in the single player festival.

Collectively, each story path takes no longer than a couple of hours, and you aren't even required to win every race to be able to unlock all of the relevant trophies (You simply have to place in the top 3).

This makes for a quick and incredibly easy batch of trophies, a stark contrast to the festival mode of Pacific Rift, which was hugely punishing, and required you to win every race too.

The single player portion of the list does throw up some frustrating collectible based trophies though, with the "Found 'Em All!" trophy awarded for collecting all 150 of the Motorstorm Cards. Whilst, for the most part, these are easy to grab, there are a handful of them that can be difficult to collect, and require an element of trial and error to get. It's also important to mention that the sheer volume of them will stick at least a few hours onto the Platinum time too.

The hugely unforgiving regressive online levelling system present in Pacific Rift has also been ditched, and substituted for a more traditional system where you can still level up irrespective of your finishing position in each race, and never have to worry about being demoted ranks.

You can earn experience points for practically everything, which maximises your potential experience for every race. Earning medals and accolades are the way to level quickly, as they grant huge experience rewards, especially the later tier accolades which can frequently award 10000 experience points and much more.

Even with this taken into account, the "Jackpot" trophy, for reaching rank 40 in Multiplayer, is still a hefty time sink, where you can easily be looking around the 20-25 hour mark to reach the highest rank (trophy-wise). There are even trophies granted at levels 5, 15 and 30 as spur on incentives on your way to hitting rank 40.

The rest of the list is just based around menial tasks within races, and exploration of other game modes and gameplay options. These require nothing more than a bit of dabbling (though a few of them can be a bit tricky), and some can even be easily obtained naturally whilst going through the story mode and online related trophies.

Overall, it is a very watered down list, especially in comparison to Pacific Rift, which was harder and more time consuming to the ten-fold, and even though you'll still be looking at a decent time investment to Platinum Apocalypse, it's still way too easy, and as long as you have the patience for the online levelling grind, the rest is a complete breeze.

Notable Trophies -

Found 'em All! - Collect 150 of the hidden Motorstorm Cards
Jackpot - Reach Rank 40 in Multiplayer

Hardest Trophy -

Jackpot
Reach Rank 40 in Multiplayer

DLC #59 - Worms 2 : Armageddon Puzzle Pack

Stress your brain with a logical twist.

The final piece of Worms 2 DLC (and definitely the most challenging), adds yet another 12 trophies, with 20 further levels based around a series puzzles where you're tasked to defeat an enemy worm with limited items at your disposal.

The trophy list format follows the same sort of structure as the rest of the DLC, with 3 trophies awarded for beating all 20 of the new levels. However, some of them are seriously tough, and if you resist the temptation to use a walk-through guide, you'll easily be racking your brain over some of these puzzles for a good few hours alone. It can get frustrating at times when nothing seems to work, but it is much more rewarding when you finally nail a solution to a puzzle you've been stuck on for ages.

The remainder of the trophies all revolve around beating specific levels within certain criteria. The 3 trophies that require you to have at least 1 item left in your inventory definitely furthers the puzzle aspect, since you have to go back and determine how to beat a certain level, minus 1 piece of equipment that you'll need to have left over to unlock the trophy. Cue more brain racking.

With all of that taken into account, the length of the DLC will depend on how quickly you can solve all of the puzzles. Naturally, it will take some longer than others, but I cleared everything up within about 6-7 hours, though it is important to note, there was an extensive amount of time spent on a select few puzzles that were much harder than the rest.

DLC #58 - Worms 2 : Armageddon Time Attack Pack

Fly through some time attack, Worms style.

Still in Worms 2, with the Time Attack DLC, which takes a slightly different angle on the Worms experience, and adds a further 12 trophies to the package.

As previously, you can pick up a small clutch of the trophies (3, in this instance), for beating the fastest times for the 20 new levels included in the DLC.

First of all, there's a little bit of confusion when the trophy description mentions completing all of the levels with a "fastest time". From what I gathered, there wasn't a set time to beat the level, and just simply getting to the end of all 20 levels granted the respective trophies. Even racking up a bunch of fall and mine penalties didn't seem to effect the qualifications for "fastest time", so it remains a mystery as to what the requirements for the trophies really are. 

Regardless, you can absolutely fly through all of the levels in less than half an hour, they really are that easy. The rest of the trophies are where the DLC puts up a slight challenge, including some tricky time attack related trophies that require you to beat certain levels within a specified time limit that will take a numerous amount of restarts to beat, but apart from that, there are an easy 12 trophies on offer here, and the whole package takes no longer than a couple of hours to earn every trophy on offer.

DLC #57 - Worms 2 : Armageddon Retro Pack

Go Retro!

Revisiting the Worms 2 DLC with the Retro Pack adds a further 12 trophies, with the package comprised of 20 new single player missions, with all the trophies on offer attached to them in a variety of ways.

You can grab 4 of the trophies just through beating the 20 levels, and although the majority of them are relatively easy, and should take no more than a few attempts, there is a slight difficulty spike towards the end, where the last few levels end up presenting a stiff challenge (although that is mainly due to the frustratingly accurate computer opponent).

The rest of the trophies are mission specific, and require you to fulfil various requirements within certain levels. Again, none of these trophies are really too demanding, and using the correct tactics for each should ensure that you complete them without many further attempts at all.

Grabbing all of the trophies should take no longer than 5-6 hours. You can expect to beat every level once within 3-4 hours, and the clean up is just a matter of how long it takes, but even then it's still no longer than a few extra hours on top to conclude a fairly straight-forward trophy set.

DLC #56 - Skate 3 San Van Party Play

Re-visit the classic San Van skate park!

The final piece of Skate 3 DLC re-visits the old stomping ground of San Van, complete with 9 new trophies.

Although the requirements are incredibly linear, and simply involve beating the small clutch of newly presented missions, there is a fairly solid challenge to be had in certain instances.

Every new challenge, including a range of film, photo and own the spot challenges, grant an individual trophy upon completing them, which ensures a nicely even spread on the package, and given the fact most of them only require a couple of tries to beat, it's a generous offering of trophies.

However, if you're still looking for a challenge, you'll get one thanks to a specific trophy in this DLC;




Marraffanator
Complete the "Marraffa's Skatepark" OTL challenge 



                                                                                                            The DLC is about 4-5 hours in total length, but the majority of this time will be spent trying to beat the Own The Lot challenge for the DLC.

As with all OTL challenges, there are a couple of incredibly tricky tasks to pull off, and you never feel like you get enough time to tick off all 12 tasks in order to "Own the Lot" and unlock the trophy. Even though most of the 12 tasks are quite simple, there are a couple that will peg you back and halt your progression, which will definitely require you to retry this challenge a handful of times.

It's a little bit frustrating to get so close, but having to re-do everything because you couldn't tick off a couple of the boxes on the trick list, but as long as you persevere, you'll be OK and eventually nail it.

Apart from that though, there's alot of easy trophies on offer here, and if you're willing to be patient, grabbing all of them isn't too demanding.