DLC #101 - RAGE : The Scorchers

Definitely a 2 for 1 offer...

The Scorchers DLC adds a new sub-story to the RAGE package, complete with 10 new trophies, mostly geared towards completion of the new plot, which sees you complete a number of new missions as you bring down the Scorchers and their plan to create a weapon of mass destruction through farming feltrite.

The story is quite short, clocking in at around 3-4 hours, and can be tackled on whichever level you wish, since there are no trophy requirements tied to difficulty. (Not for the DLC, at least...)

Exactly half of the trophies in this list are progression based, spread across the 7 new quests on offer, and unlocked en route towards completion of the questline.

It's a relatively easy list, and even the other non-progression related trophies have very relaxed requirements relating to some luck-based, casino dabbling and a few combat tasks using the new featured weapon, the Nailgun. These make up the 4 non-progression trophies in the package.

But that's 9 out of the 10 trophies accounted for;

Night Terrors - Finish the Campaign on Ultra Nightmare difficulty

The "Night Terrors" trophy, awarded for finishing the campaign on Ultra Nightmare difficulty, in an unusual move, requires you to go back over the entire main game and beat it the newly added and increased difficulty level of Ultra Nightmare.

Ultra Nightmare difficulty isn't as bad as it may sound. There are a few tougher areas later on in the game that may require a few attempts to get through and it can take a seemingly infinite amount of time for the health regeneration process to complete, which are the two noticable differences with this new difficulty mode. Enemies don't seem tougher to kill, money doesn't seem to be harder to come across and you can still expect to beat the game in roughly the same amount of time as you did before when chasing down the Platinum trophy. There is also that small issue that previously existed of having to be constantly aware of manually saving your game, and not potentially losing alot of hard work that may set you back some time, but that's more of a something to note, rather than a direct reflection on the difficulty of the trophy itself. It is important to be regulary saving the game though, because the game won't do it for you.

Given the fact this is an entire playthrough of the main story, this will add another 8-10 hours on top of what was just merely 3-4 hours for the rest of the DLC package, and if your circumstances were like mine, this will be the third time you've played through the game in an attempt to fully complete the list.

I do personally question the neccesity of adding such a trophy for a game that already desirably requires a couple of playthroughs in order to achieve the Platinum trophy, especially amongst a majority of trophies attached directly to the DLC and it's questline. However, it is mostly just an extra time-sink, rather than any sort of genuine challenge, turning this package from a couple of passing hours, into a 12-14 hour offering.

NOTE : If you start a new game to access the DLC having already beaten the game previously, you'll have to play up to, and complete, the "Mutant Bash TV" quest in order to advance the plot for the Scorchers DLC too. This is because the latter stages of the Scorchers story require you to earn a ticket to Oasis, which can only be obtained by completing a second episode of Mutant Bash TV.

DLC #100 - LittleBigPlanet 2 - DC Comics Premium Level Pack

The DC Comics Premium Level Pack adds 7 new levels to the LittleBigPlanet 2 Story mode, featuring a variety of characters from the DC Universe, and challenges you to defeat Lux Luthor and restore order within the DC world.

Along with this selection of levels, comes 7 new trophies, with a typical pattern of progressing through each level and completing them in full.

This includes trophies awarded for defeating Lex Luthor and completing the Story path, whilst you'll also earn another trophy for acing each of the 7 levels too. As standard, there are also trophies on offer for collecting 100% of the prize bubbles hidden amongst all the new levels and smaller tasks tied to usage of the new tools in the DLC package, such as the hero cape and the sliding walls.

There isn't anything tasking within this package, and you should be able to complete it within 3-4 hours. The majority of this time will be spent on the Story path, and some of the latter story levels might take a handul of attempts to achieve an ace on, but the prize bubbles are made much easier to obtain thanks to the fact each Multiplayer prize bubble area only requires 2 players, rather than 3 or 4 like the main game's list, and all of these areas can be easily completed solo with 2 controllers if you have a second controller at your disposal.

The non-story related trophies are awarded for perfoming very minor tasks, which can be achieved quickly and easily. Now, I need to move on and purchase some peripherals...

Platinum #76 - LittleBigPlanet 2

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 6/10

LittleBigPlanet returns with the second installment in the main series of the LittleBigPlanet games, equipped with a slighly kinder trophy list than it's predessesor, though not without a couple of hurdles along the way.

The structure of the trophy list in LittleBigPlanet 2 is the same as LittleBigPlanet, with the "Play, Create, Share" emphasis strongly represented in this list all the way through.

There is a brand new story mode, with progression based trophies for completing all 30 story mode levels, spread across 6 different worlds, which is incredibly easy to sail through at leisure whilst collecting a hatful of trophies for other smaller tasks along the way.

The "Ace Story Mode" trophy, awarded for Acing every level in the story mode, returns again, and will require you to complete all 30 story stages without dying, which, for the most part isn't actually too difficult, but there are a handful of levels which will test your ability, and subsequently patience, if you're restarting them often. 

However, the user friendly nature of the LittleBigPlanet games ensures the challenge doesn't border into the realms of the outrageous, and you shouldn't have too many issues bar the odd the difficulty spike. The best strategy is to just take your time, as most deaths will occur from silly errors caused by rushing into obstacles or not taking care when approaching dangerous areas.

Sticking with the Story mode, the "Uber Prize Collector" trophy, awarded for collecting 100% of Story prize bubbles, is a LittleBigPlanet franchise favourite, and requires you to collect everything in both the main story levels and the mini-game sub-levels within each world. The story levels will require you to explore every possible part of the stage, with some well hidden bubbles along the way, and the mini-games will require you to achieve target scores which releases all prize bubbles as a reward.

The greater challenge here actually comes from the multiplayer portions of each stage, some of which will require as many as 4 players to work together to trigger the completion of a specific area, consequently unlocking the prize bubbles. In some instances, there isn't actually a need for 4 players, but if you're attempting to tackle this alone, you will need 4 controllers, otherwise you'll have to jump online and acquire the help from others. A few of the 3 and 4 player co-opeartive areas are designed in a such a way that you will need the assistance of other people, and this may have not been too bad in the initial stages of the game, but has become increasingly harder as time, and the online community, has moved on.

Away from the Story mode, and into Create mode, where the "1440 Minutes of Create" trophy, awarded for spending 24 active hours in Create mode, requires you spend an entire days worth of time creating levels. This trophy was present in LittleBigKarting, but was not present in LittleBigPlanet, and where you could idle in LittleBigKarting, you could not do this here.

If you're not actively using the controller buttons, the timer won't fill up, so you have to spend an entire 24 hours making stuff, and you will hit a point where you will feel the grind, depending on when you start to get bored of actually creating levels. There are a handful of create-based trophies which will encourage you to make some decent levels, and compliment this trophy nicely, including the "Crowd Pleaser" trophy, awarded for creating a published level which was played by 50 unique players. These can help with the motivation to spend some quality time on learning how to use all the tools, and consequently create some nice levels, but it can't be underestimated just how big of a time sink this trophy will be, and will actually end up being a dealbreaker for alot of people.

This trophy was the sole reason it took me over 6 years to go from first trophy to Platinum. After creating 2 relatively good levels, one of which earned me the "Crowd Pleaser" trophy, there were still just over 8 hours to clock. A combination of being somewhat bored of creating levels, and realising the Platinum still seemed miles away meant the game was laid to rest for a long while, and there haven't been many games that have done that to me, especially to the point where the total completion timespan range has been over 6 years. This very much has to be taken into account.

The "10 Story Versus Wins" trophy, awarded for winning 10 Story mode Versus games against at least one other player offline, is simply here by virtue of the fact you'll need a second controller to achieve it. Yet another Sony game with perhiphal-based trophies, which we see to a much greater extent within the upcoming DLC trophy lists for this game.

In some respects, this has been a difficult list to judge. LittleBigPlanet definitely had a tougher trophy list, with a wider spread of challenging tasks, whereas LittleBigPlanet 2 possesses a much tougher individual trophy than anything prestented in the original title.

In terms of a timescale, obviously including the minimum 24 hours you'll need to accumulate within Create mode, you can expect to add another 30 hours on top for completion of everything else. This includes the story mode, acing every level and collecting all the prize bubbles. There is a strong showing from the "Play" aspect too, requiring the player to notch up certain totals by playing community levels with others over time, culminating towards a 50+ hour Platinum trophy.

LittleBigPlanet was always going to score higher than LittleBigPlanet 2, with everything taken into consideration. However, having to spend 24 hours actively creating levels is not to be overlooked in terms of how much tougher it made this game compared to the rest of the list. If you can stomach the grind, there really isn't much to scratch for under the surface, though that can be dependant on how easy you find obtaining all the prize bubbles with either multiple controllers or being able to find co-operative partners to assist you.

You could talk about other trophies that require you to play a total amount of co-operative levels, or accumulate a certain amount of plays on any one level, but the bottom line will always be, you have to spend 24 active hours creating levels. An entire day of your life for one trophy amongst an easy list. Just incase it hasn't been emphasised enough already.

Notabale Trophies -

Ace Story Mode - Ace every level in the story mode
Uber Prize Collector - Collect 100% of Story prize bubbles
1440 Minutes of Create - Spend 24 active hours in Create mode
10 Story Versus Wins - Win 10 Story mode Versus games against at least one other player offline

Hardest Trophy -

1440 Minutes of Create
Spend 24 active hours in Create mode

DLC #99 - GRID 2 - Bathurst Track Pack

Aussie Rules

The Bathurst Track Pack adds the famous Mount Panorama track to the Grid 2 roster, along with 3 additional cars to add to the collection.

This is a very basic piece of DLC, which is a theme very much reflected in the small selection of trophies on offer too.

There are 4 in total, and include completing very miniscule tasks solely on the Mount Panorama track, and you can easily clean everything up in less than hour with ethe right level of efficiency.

The "Aussie Rules" trophy, awarded for beating a lap time of 1:39:00 at Bathurst, may require a degree of track mastery, and will definitely require a tier 4 car, which are much harder to handle than anything else in the game, but these trophies are mostly a complete giveaway.

The "Time Extended" trophy, awarded for winning an online Checkpoint event at Bathurst, will only present a challenge at this stage because nobody is playing Grid 2 online anymore and you may be required to do what I had to do and sit in a lobby for 3 hours waiting for an opponent to show up.

Aside from this, if you're looking for a handful of easy trophies, look no further. A couple of hours maximum and possibly a little bit of patience for the required target lap time is all it takes for full completion of this package.

DLC #98 - Uncharted 3 : Drake's Deception - Co-op Shade Survival Mode

For Sparta...

Despite the main focus of this DLC package being centered around the new shade survival mode, this follows the usual trend of Uncharted 3 DLC, with an assortment of trophies catered towards the general online Multiplayer component of the game.

As per normal, there are 10 additional trophies in total, spread between both competitve and co-operative game modes, with 3 of the trophies in this package awarded for achieving a set number of medals whilst obtaining kills in the new Shade Survival co-op mode.

It's actually just normal co-op survival mode, with re-skinned enemies, so to actually to go as far as to call it a brand new mode is somewhat misleading.

This package contributes both a time consuming and skill filled element, with a handful of trophies within this list responsible for this;

Treasure Collector - Win 50 matches of Plunder
Overseer - Get the Curator Medal while on Crushing Difficulty
Unstoppable -Get the Unyielding Medal while on Crushing Difficulty
Head Crusher - Get 50 Head Hunter Medals

 

The "Treasure Collector" trophy requires you to win 50 games of Plunder, which is effectively a Capture the Flag variant, where both teams have to deposit a statue into a chest at either end of the map. Plunder is also the longest game type, at a maximum time limit of 20 minutes, which is frequently reached before the 5 captures needed for either team to win.

This makes it a very time consuming trophy, and even though there are other trophies scattered around the various DLC packs for 50 wins each game mode, these are often shorter in length, and 50 wins will take a considerable amount of time to achieve, even with a good win ratio. It is a good game mode to achieve medals in though, which will certainly help towards completion of the other DLC packs, though it is also important to note, not all medals can be achieved in Plunder, and are exclusively restricted to Deathmatch modes.

The "Overseer" trophy, is arguably the most difficult trophy in this entire game, and the level of co-operation required in order to achieve it is of a necessarily high standard. The situation occurs at the end of the Monastery level in co-op mode, where you have to protect a statue in the middle of the courtyard from taking any damage whatsoever from a series of incoming RPG equipped enemies.

The fact you have to fulfil the requirements of this trophy on Crushing difficulty turns out to be the biggest problem, because this reduces the margin of error for how many hits you can afford the statue to take, which actually turns out to be just the 1. You'll also need a party of 3 as a bare minimum, in order to effectively co-ordinate the level of cover required to make sure every possible spot an RPG equipped enemy can pop up is always sufficiently covered, then it's just a matter of making sure you kill them before they can get a rocket away. You'll also have to deal with ground troops at the same time, and the fact there is no set routine as to where the enemies will appear from, so you always have to be prepared for a different pattern each time, which can make you and your team open to costly errors.

Due to the fact it also occurs at the very end of the level, if you need to restart, you'll have to go through the entire level from the beginning, which is just plain frustrating, but also something you should fully expect in the quest for this trophy, even with a good team, which is the biggest key here. You can't earn this trophy through naturally playing through the level, because the required strategy is just simply too intricate for 1 person to execute alone, so a like minded party of players all looking to achieve this trophy is a must. I would agree with anybody who believes this is the game's toughest challenge.

The "Unstoppable" trophy is here for similar reasons as above, though nowhere near as difficult as the "Overseer" trophy. During the London Underground level, you're tasked with pushing a cart from one end of a track to other without stopping. You'll need 1 person to push the cart, whilst the other 2 hold off enemies, which can be extremely tough given the fact you'll face a few of the tougher mini bosses along the way. If the person pushing the cart is downed, or stops pushing the cart at any point, you'll have to restart from the most recent checkpoint, if not the entire level, so same rules apply as the above too.

It certainly won't cause you as many problems as the "Overseer" trophy, though you'll need a decent level of co-operation to achieve it.

The "Head Crusher" trophy is the only bronze trophy that really deserves a mention. In order to achieve a head hunter medal, you need to earn 3 headshot kills during a game, and the trophy requires 50 of these medals, which equates to 150 headshots. You won't unlock too many of these per game, due to the nature of how short games can be, and executing headshots is a tough thing to do in a game like Uncharted.

This is predominantly because people move around alot, even when shooting from a stationery position. People seem to have this strange habit whereby they shift side to side extremely quickly on the spot, which makes obtaining headshot kills a tougher tasker than you may initially believe. I found using a sniper rifle loadout to be the best way to earn this trophy, despite the fast paced nature of the game, but you'll need alot of patience and this trophy will take a fair chunk of time to achieve.

This is, yet again, another tough piece of DLC from Uncharted 3. It contains the toughest trophy in the entire game, that is genuine gem to add to any trophy hunters collection, and also tacks on a mass of hours of gameplay into the overall package, with a strong offering of time consuming trophies. In terms of attaching an estimated completion time, it really depends how long it takes you to achieve the "Overseer" trophy. It isn't at all unheard of for people to leave this package incomplete on this trophy alone, but as a rough benchmark, it would fall anywhere between 50-60 hours.

It's been a long road with this game already, and there are still more 2 packs to complete...

Platinum #75 - LittleBigPlanet Karting

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 5/10

At first glance, you wouldn't expect any LittleBigPlanet game to produce a tough trophy list, though through the first few titles in the series, that hasn't exactly been true. Despite this, the racing spin-off doesn't really follow the form book, though there is enough to provide a slight challenge along the way.

The game still follows the convential story format of a typical LittleBigPlanet title, with a series of worlds with a handful of events to complete on each one.

These also provide some standard progression based trophies awarded for the completion of each planet, and the subsequent completion of the story mode at it's conclusion.

It's extremely linear stuff. You win the race, and then move onto the next until you complete the planet, and then it's just a matter of rinsing and repeating for the 7 planets in the story mode. You'll unlock a ton of trophies along the way too.

The "Story Star" trophy, awarded for Starring ever level in the Story mode, requires you to both collect all prize bubbles available and finish 1st place in every event. This is very similar to "Acing" a level in previous LittleBigPlanet games, though there are a few crucial differences that make it much easier in this game compared to the others in the series.

Firstly, every prize bubble in the game can be earned on your own, so there's none of those awkward 2, 3 and 4 player specific sections of levels that were present in previous LittleBigPlanet games that usually required some form of co-ordination and reliance on others to achieve. "Acing" a level also used to require getting to the end of a level without dying, which is replaced in the Karting version by simply winning the race, which is incredibly easy, despite some blatant rubber-banding AI, though this actually also works in favour of the player most of the time too, and allows for easy race wins. It's certainly much easier to win a race than it was to complete a level without losing a life.

The "Building The Imagesphere" trophy, awarded for Spending 24 active hours in Create mode, requires you to clock an entire day's worth of time creating levels. This is an awful long amount of time to spend making levels, and is easily the most arduous part of the entire list. It can be fun at first when you're experimenting with all the tools and different types of tracks you can make, but it fast becomes a grind and, even if you're always looking for creative new ways to make levels, the whole aspect of level-making isn't a particulary exciting process.

It is a returning trophy though, and if you do enjoy the creation side of the game, it probably won't seem too bad, though there's no escaping the fact it's still 24 active hours, which is more than a couple of sessions of playing the game. There are a small selection of other create mode trophies to unlock along the way, but this is the toughest trophy on the list by some distance.

Speaking of which, the "Crowd Pleaser" trophy, awarded for Publishing a level and having 10 different players complete the level, might not seem too problematic on face value, but with the amount of levels shovelled out throughout the game, any published levels can be quickly lost within the depths of the game's publication library, and unless you're a creative genius who manages to pull out some genuinely decent stuff, your sub-par levels will become one of many very quickly.

Levels based around quick plays or finishes for the purpose of unlocking trophies (such as the "The Adventure Continues" trophy, awarded for Completing 100 community levels), seem to be quite popular, as do levels that offer a "play for play" incentive, in the name of helping each other out, but there's still no guarantee you can get enough plays for any one level to satsify the requirements of the trophy.

Unfortunately, the game's list also possesses a couple of horribly broken trophies too, which, under normal circumstances, wouldn't be an issue at all to achieve, but as a consequence of their broken nature, they do become somewhat problematic.

The "Dive In!" trophy, awarded for Diving into 25 community levels and completing those levels, requires you to complete 25 levels using the "Dive In" feature.

Not difficult, on face value, but there are actually a couple of issues here. Firstly, the counter for how many levels you have completed is broken, and you may find yourself having to play through more than 25 levels before the trophy actually unlocks. This could be directly linked to the second problem, which is, because of the fact the "Dive In" feature will automatically throw you into random levels, you'll end up playing the same levels on a regular basis, which could possibly mean playing the same level on more than occasion won't actually count towards the trophy counter.

There is also a possibility it may just be glitched instead, but either way, you'll have to be prepared to play more than 25 levels to unlock the trophy, and the fact you can't control which levels you play makes it a somewhat frustrating experience.

The "Online Champ" trophy, awarded for placing 1st in 25 different online levels with other human players, despite also having similar issues attached as the aforementiond "Dive In!" trophy, also requires a strong element of skill, as you have to win 25 races against human opponents, which is a solid feat in it's own right.

Again, the counter is glitched, and you may have to win more than 25 races in order to unlock this trophy, but where the "Dive In!" trophy simply requires you to complete the level, this trophy requires you to win the race, and there has to be at least 1 human opponent present upon completion of the race for the victory to count. When you take into account the number of losses, along with the broken counter, you could end up playing a fair amount of races until you manage to unlock this trophy, though they will, at least, go towards the achievement of "The Adventure Continues" trophy, so it won't all feel like wasted time.

Despite not being as difficult as other titles in the LittleBigPlanet series, there are a few curveballs contained within this list, though most of the difficulty does sadly boil down to broken game design and glitchy trophies, rather than anything presenting the player with a genuine challenge of skill.

Spending and entire day in Create mode ensures a minimum overall completion time of 24 hours, and along with the Story and Online trophies on top, you can probably expect this total to at least double the timescale for completion, clocking in at around 50-60 hours in total.

If you can get over the frustration of the broken online trophies, and have the stomach to clock 24 hours making stuff work in Create mode, then everything else comes through simple progression by just playing the game, with a bucket-load of easy Story and adhoc trophies to help you along the way. The easiest Platinum from a LittleBigPlanet title to date.

NOTE: At the time of publication of this article, the online servers were actually due for permanent closure for this title, rendering the Platinum unachievable for those who had any outstanding online trophies.

Notable Trophies -

Story Star - Star every level in the Story mode
Building the Imagsphere -Spend 24 active hours in Create mode
Crowd Pleaser - Publish a level and have 10 different players complete the level
Dive In! - Dive into 25 community levels and complete those levels
Online Champ - Place 1st in 25 different online levels with other human players

Hardest Trophy -

Building the Imagsphere
Spend 24 active hours in Create mode.

DLC #97 - The Last of Us - Abandoned Territories

Abandon ship! (Bus)

After Reclaimed Territories, comes Abandoned Territories, adding a futher 4 maps to The Last of Us Multiplayer experience, and 7 new trophies to accompany them.

The format of this list is an exact carbon copy of it's predessessor.

For a refresher, 3 of the trophies in this package are awarded for playing each of the games 3 game modes on any of the 4 new maps, exactly the same as the previous DLC pack.

Which means, the other 4 trophies are awarded for achieving 5 downs or executions on each of the 4 new maps in one game. It is important to note, which is something I wasn't actually aware of previously, that, you can get a combined total of 5 downs and executions to unlock these trophies, rather than having to get at least 5 of either one, which actually makes these trophies even easier than I previously believed.

As before, they're incredibly easy trophies to unlock, and if you're battling through the main list campaigns, these will all come naturally at some point. Very easy.

DLC #96 - The Last of Us - Reclaimed Territories

No reason to be picky..

The Reclaimed Territories pack is the first Multiplayer based trophy offering for The Last of Us, adding a further 7 trophies related to the 4 new maps bought out as part of this package.

They're such a straight-forward selection of trophies, I didn't even realise how close I actually was to completing this set until I randomly noticed my trophy collection was almost complete for this list, which I suppose tells you everything you need to know about the sort of challenge it presents.

Out of the trophies on offer, 3 of them are awarded for playing each of the games 3 different game modes (Survivors, Supply Raid and Interogation) on any of the 4 new maps, which are added into random rotation during ranked matches, so you should have no problems getting into a game on any of them.

The other 4 trophies require you to achieve 5 downs or executions in a match on any game mode for each of the 4 new maps, which really isn't difficult, even if you wouldn't consider yourself to be very good at the game. You might need to wait around for that last map to come into rotation, but if you're working on the main list of the game, where you need to play at least 168 matches to beat both online campaigns, you should hit all 4 maps multiple times during that period anyway, giving you plenty of chances along the way to full completion.

Given Naughty Dog's track record of Multiplayer trophies, this is very much at the opposite end of the spectrum to the norm. You will more than likely achieve these trophies through just progressing the Firefly and Hunter campaigns for the related gold trophies in the main list, so you won't even need any sort of focus on them, and can completely rely on natural obtainment of all 7 trophies. Very basic stuff.

DLC #95 - Call of Duty : Black Ops - Escalation Map Pack

Ensemble...

The Escalation Map Pack adds 5 trophies to the zombie mode of Blacks Ops, and is the first trophy pack in the game that includes Easter Egg related trophies.

The "Ensemble Cast" trophy, awarded for sending the crew to Paradise in co-op, requires you to fulfil the aforementioned multi-step Easter Egg contained with the newly added Call of the Dead zombies map.

At the time of writing, there have been many Easter Egg themed trophies released in the vast array of games in the Call of Duty series down the years, so even relatively new at the time of it's release, these trophies are now common place in the Call of Duty world.

This is actually one of the easier ones to follow, and even though you will need to finish it in co-op, you can complete every step of the Easter Egg with as little as just 2 people, in comparison to some Easter Egg trophies that will require you to have a full party of 4.

There are no particulary difficult parts of this process, though you will need the V-R11 from the mystery box to turn a zombie into a human during one of the latter steps, but that's about as challenging as any step gets, and you can complete the steps in large chunks providing you have a crawler present at all times. The "Stand In" trophy, will also be awarded upon completion of the Easter Egg, which has exactly the same requirements, but can also be achieved in Solo play.

The more challenging parts of this DLC come from the bronze trophies;

Shooting on Location - In Call of the Dead, kill 10 zombies with one Scavenger shot from over 100 feet away.
Quiet on the Set - In Call of the Dead, cut the lights on the Director.

The "Shooting on Location" trophy proves to be the most difficult trophy on the list.

There are proven and solid methods to obtaining this, and it is best done in Solo play, but you'll need to pull the Scavenger from the mystery box first, and then be able to gauge a position from where you can shoot a group of zombies that are far enough away in order to satisfy the requirements of the trophy. Making a group of crawlers will not only lessen the threat whilst you line up a shot, but also makes them a much easier target to group together and kill all at once.

There's more luck than judgement involved, and it could take you a handful of attempts, whether that be because you didn't manage to pull the Scavenger out of the mystery box early enough, or because you didn't kill enough zombies with 1 shot and have to subsequently start the next round.

It does also help to Pack-A-Punch the Scavenger if you can survive long enough to accumulate 5000 points, which increases the damage dealt and blast radius of the explosion on a shot, and Juggernog is always a good perk to have to hand when playing solo because being downed will end the game when you don't have any team-mates to assist you.

The "Quiet on the Set" trophy requires you to kill George Romero, who wanders around the map, and will become hostile if either shot at, or you get too close to him.

He takes alot of damage before dying, and it's actually best to play for the trophy in tandem with the above, since the upgraded Scavenger can deal alot of damage, which is exactly what you'll need to kill the Director. Standard weapons can work, but the damage is so minimal, it becomes a tedious exercise, and if you already have an upgraded Scavenger from trying to obtain the above trophy, it just makes sense to try and kill him with it too.

The crawler method is sound, though it is important to make sure the crawler is always well away from the fight, else the blast radius will cause death and trigger the next round suddenly. It's also important to make sure you shoot the Director within water, which is the only remedy to his raging rampage around the map, so focus on the centralised starting area when going for this trophy. Almost a full cip of 36 rounds on the upgraded Scavanger will be enough, so make the shots count, and you should have enough.

Again, it may take a handful of attempts depending on mystery box luck, and if you can survive multiple waves, but with the right strategy, it isn't terribly difficult, though can be frustrating having to restart the game multiple times.

Despite not being as easy as the First Strike Map Pack, Escalation presents it's own challenges, but in the bigger scheme of the Call of Duty series, it contains one of the easier to complete Easter Eggs, with some potentially frustrating, but not incredibly difficult added extras.

Platinum #74 - Assassin's Creed Rogue

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 4/10

The final installation of Assassin's Creed on the Playstation 3 follows a fairly standard tradition, very much in line with the normal expectations of an Assassin's Creed trophy list, and despite being fairly lengthy, contains one of the easiest trophy lists in the series.

Shay Cormac is the main protagonist, with a heavy emphasis on sea-based travelling and combat, and a follow up from the Black Flag installment on the Playstation 4.

The "Templar then; Templar now" trophy, awarded for completing the game, relates to the main story sequence, which is actually much shorter than that of stories in other Assassin's Creed games, with just 6 sequences to get through. There are also 4 sequences relating to the present day, which don't really add much to the game other than walking around an Abstergo facility in first person of an unnamed protagonist, and merely act as fillers between main story sequences.

All of this, including going back for any secondary objectives, (which are paramount to 100% synchronisation), should take no longer than 8 hours. The story offering is very brief, and if you keep an eye on the secondary objectives, you can easily minimise the amount of replay value you'll have to contest with later on.

The bulk of the time spent on this trophy list will be allocated to the vast array of side activities in the game, which has been fleshed out way more than the main story, with a huge amount of collectibles to grab and activities to complete.

Despite some of these being new aspects to the series, they're very repetitive and grindy, and half the struggle will be getting around the amount of times you'll have to repeat these feats. There are 200 Animus Fragments, 24 Templar maps to find, along with 24 dig site locations relating to each map and 150 quest items, amongst other things. These all have their own seperate trophies attached to them aswell, so there are no shortcuts here.

However, you'll only need to complete half of the Naval campaign, and achieve 100% synchronization on just the main story missions (though this is probably mainly down to the fact all of the secondary memories in this game are collectible and activity based, rather than a deliberate plan to make things a bit less labourious for the user).

The gameplay is exactly the same as it always has been, and therefore, contains no real difficulty spikes, but that doesn't mean there aren't at least a few challenges to be had from this list here and there;

The "Master of the North Atlantic" trophy, awarded for completing all legendary battles, requires you to defeat 4 missions containing some of the hardest ships and convoys in the game. There is a big emphasis on sea-based combat in this game, which is probably the biggest change for the series, and these battles will test your skills and ship durability.

Even with a fully upgraded Morrigan vessel, these are still extremely challenging fights, and you'll need to nail down solid tactics and acquire a bit of luck to win each of them. It's probably best to make sure the Morrigan is fully upgraded before tackling any of these in order to avoid frustration, but even then, you could find yourself replaying them a number of times in order to beat each one, and this trophy ends up being the most difficult one in the list.

On the subject of the Morrigan, the "Phantom Queen" trophy, awarded for fully upgrading the Morrigan is one of the more individually grindy trophies. The amount of resources needed to achieve a full upgrade is massive, and this is mostly down to sinking and then looting other ships in the North Atlantic. Alot of them on scarce on the supplies they give out, which is the main reason this takes a while, but it also means you'll most likely have to wait longer to tackle the legendary battles too as you build your armoury and give yourself a fighting chance.

The "Supplier" trophy, awarded for taking over 10 large supply camps while only the VETERANS cheat is active, is also worth a mention. Whilst not difficult within it's actual requirements, all 4 of the trophies relating to cheats require a certain amount of Abstergo challenges to be completed before the cheat is unlocked. In this instance, 65 challenges are required to have been fulfilled before you can begin to work towards this trophy, and given the fact there are only 75 Abstergo challenges to complete, the margin for leeway is quite small.

Most of these challenges are relatively straight forward, but you may have to be forced to tackle a few that could present a few difficulties, and this will add extra mileage onto the completion time of the list. However, as mentioned previously, the actual requirement of the trophy isn't at all difficult, but the preqrequiste has be considered.

Overall, this is business as usual for an Assassin's Creed title. Despite the story mode being short in comparison to previous Assassin's Creed titles, the wealth and depth of secondary content more than makes up for this shortcoming, and you can still expect to plug anywhere between 30-40 hours into the Platinum trophy here, which is a par timescale based on other Assassin Creed games in the series.

The game mechanics are completed unchanged, and as a result, make the game incredibly easy, especially when it comes to combat and free-running, and despite the odd spike in difficulty presented by the legendary battles, and some of the optional objectives in the main story sequence, the only real challenges presented here come from overcoming the repetitiveness and borderline grindy nature of the secondary memories, side activities and collectibles, but if you can get your head around that, you have a fairly routine Platinum trophy waiting at the other end.

Notable Trophies -

Templar then; Templar now - Complete the game
Achieve full synchronisation -Achieve 100% synchronization in all main missions
Phantom Queen - Fully Upgrade the Morrigan
Master of the North Atlantic - All legendary battles completed
Supplier - Take over 10 large supply camps while only the VETERANS cheat is active

Hardest Trophy -



Master of the North Atlantic
All legendary battles completed.