Platinum #81 - South Park : The Stick of Truth

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 4/10

I'm about to review a trophy list, and will use terms such as "Dire AIDS", "David Hasselhoff" and "KKK" whilst doing so. If that doesn't absolutely stink of a South Park game, then nothing ever will.

This is a turn-based RPG open world game, with combat focused around strategic thinking and character development. As with all RPG's, you'll level your main character, earn/purchase stronger weapons/equipment and recruit a party made up of other classic South Park characters to help you through your adventure, each with their own set of attacks and special abilities.

The game's story covers the Stick of Truth, an object in a fantasy role playing world, which allows the holder of the stick to control the universe, and your role as "Douchebag" AKA the new kid, is to help Cartman's and Kyle's warring factions to obtain possession of the stick from other each other, evil factions and other parties along the way, including nazi zombies and government officials. The story is funny, very outrageous and offensive, a bit mental and contains numerous popular culture references to classic South Park episodes of years gone by.

In terms of difficulty, there really isn't any. You don't choose a difficulty level at any point, the turn based nature of the game means there isn't really any combat-based skill required (aside from a hint of good timing necessary when blocking attacks) and the majority of the enemies you face can be killed with relative ease, including the various boss fights throughout the game.

So where does a 4/10 difficulty rating justify itself for this trophy list? The game contains 51 trophies, and 21 of them are missable. So almost half of the list contains trophies which can be missed for various different reasons, so the level of game management required from the player is as high as any game I've ever played.

Now, it's impractical to go through why every single one of these 21 trophies is missable, but they all contribute towards this difficulty rating, and it is pretty much the only thing that's challenging about this trophy list.

The main quest-line doesn't actually contain that many progression based trophies, but it does award trophies pertinent to how you defeat certain characters through the game. For example, half-way through the story, you can either side with Kyle and the elves, and fight Cartman, or you can side with Cartman and the KKK, and fight Kyle, with each choice awarding a trophy, meaning you'll have to play-through the game twice in order to fulfill the trophies for both decisions, technically making them missable by force of choice.

Similarly, the "Outpatient" trophy, awarded for defeating Princess Kenny while living with dire AIDS, comes towards the end of the story, where you'll have to defeat Princess Kenny after contracting the dire AIDS affliction, obtained by being bitten by a wild animal in Canada, and neglecting to cure yourself. This can be tricky, because dire AIDS incurs additional damage per turn to the player for as long as you leave the condition untreated, and since Princess Kenny is the final battle, you'll have to endure this for the rest of the game.

However, the main point here is that, there are also 2 other trophies for defeating Princess Kenny in certain ways, which include defeating Princess Kenny whilst wearing the girls makeover outfit and whilst looking like David Hasselhoff. As above, this will also require a minimum of 2 play-throughs. (You can combine having dire AIDS with either the girls makeover outfit or the David Hasselhoff face, but you can't have both of the latter at the same time, so you will have to replay the game to beat Princess Kenny again to fulfil all 3 requirements).

You also have to defeat the Meth Tweekers whilst dressed in the Evil Cartman goatee and bald cap and defeat the Boss Hall Monitor whilst wearing freckles. These are all really simple tasks to fulfil during the main story of the game, but you have to be on top of them and make sure you have the equipment to fulfil the conditions of the trophy, and that you remember to equip them (which can be an easy thing to forget to do with the amount of juggling this game requires from you). If you don't at least one earn them, you'll be replaying the game, because you only have the one opportunity with all of these missable trophies. The vast examples are emphasised to just reinforce that point.

The "Chinpokolypse" trophy, awarded for collecting all of the Chinpokomon, may seem like a standard collectible trophy, but 7 of the 30 Chinpokomon toys in the game are only available during specific levels which you can only visit once, therefore making this trophy missable too. In a game full of collectibles, and trophies to accompany them, this isn't actually one of the worst, but you can't afford to miss any of them, and they can actually be quite difficult to spot. Some may also require inherited powers to reach which you only unlock later on in the game, like the gnome dust and alien probe, which can disrupt your tracking of this trophy as you come back later to retrieve certain Chinpokomon which could only be collected after obtaining these special powers. It's important to also note that, there is an in-game menu which shows you the Chinpokomon you have, and the Chinpokomon you still need, which is a very useful tool to utilise.

The "More Popular Than John Lennon" trophy, awarded for being friends with Everyone in South Park, requires you to befriend every character in the game through interacting with them. There are 120 characters in total, and acceptance of a friend request can range from just simply talking to them to completing a quest for them. As before, a handful of these people can only be befriended at certain points in the game, and if you don't befriend them before it's too late to do so, you won't earn the trophy. It's especially important to track this trophy properly because of the high volume of characters, and, although the characters you have befriended are tracked within the in-game menus, it doesn't actually tell you which ones you need, so it's not as helpful as the Chinpokomon menu.

The "Clothes Whore" trophy, awarded for collecting all of the available costumes, is mentioned here for exactly the same reasons as above. There are 85 total costume items to get, which are scattered throughout the game, and found in secret chests, purchased from the various in-game shops and looted off specific enemies. A lot of these are missable, so again, diligence is required when going through levels you cannot return to in order to make sure you grab every costume, and these are also tracked under the collectibles tab on the in-game menus, which tells you which costumes you have and which ones you still need, so this helps a little bit. The majority of the clothes come as a 3 piece set though, usually either purchased together in the same shop, or collected together within a certain area/level, so not so scattered as the other collectibles.

The "Full Arsenal" trophy, awarded for owning all the weapons and costumes available in the game, follows on with the exact same principle as before. There are 68 weapons to collect in the game, and a fair amount of these can only be obtained within certain levels, and are therefore missable (surprise, surprise). 

However, with weapons, you only have to have owned the item, meaning you can you sell it, which is especially useful if you need to raise the extra cash to afford the higher level, and ultimately more expensive, weapons in the game (which you'll most likely need to take advantage of). The weapons you have owned, and need to own, are tracked in the same menus as above, grouped together with the costumes, so again, take advantage of this, and make sure you're grabbing the missable stuff in-between levels.

Aside from that, nothing else will really cause you any issues in this game, but it is a challenge to keep on top of everything from the very start. Most of the other trophies are awarded for random actions which are secondary to the game, or feats you will naturally achieve in combat as the game progresses. The sole focus should be around the collectibles, and knowing exactly where you need to pick up certain items so they don't become missable.

When you combine all of the above together, it's a bit overwhelming, and the level of game management you need to make sure you maximise your play-through to the fullest potential is about as high as it could be. It's never my intention to play any story driven game just once, for the want of enjoying the story first and foremost, but even if trophies were my sole focus, I still wouldn't attempt everything in this list in one go. I would split it in half with as much rational thought as possible and focus on every missable trophy over 2 playthroughs, to make sure I didn't miss a handful of things accidentally first time round through overload.

To complete the main story, and the necessary side content, will take somewhere in the region of 15-20 hours. You could, in theory, with more than a handful of strategic saves, beat the game in just a single play-through for around 25-30 hours, in order to get the previously mentioned story choice branching trophies, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to play the game twice and make sure the sheer amount of missable trophies are easier to manage.

However, on the whole, this list isn't really that challenging, and even in the worst case scenario of poor game management, it's not the worst thing in the world if you ever had to replay the game because you missed a trophy or two that you shouldn't have missed. It's an average length for a single play-through, and the difficulty curve is minimal at best.

Notable Trophies -

Outpatient - You defeated Princess Kenny while living with Dire AIDS.
Chinpokolypse - You collected all of the Chinpokomon.
More Popular Than John Lennon - Everyone in South Park is your friend.
Clothes Whore - You've collected all of the available costumes.
Full Arsenal - You own all of the weapons and costumes available in the game.

Hardest Trophy - 




More Popular Than John Lennon
Everyone in South Park is your friend

Platinum #80 - Angry Birds Trilogy

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 10/10

How could a game with such a simple concept at heart, turn into something so deceptively diffcult to conquer?

The Angry Birds Trilogy combines 3 core Angry Birds games into a single offering. This includes Angry Birds Classic, Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Rio.

Each of these is further broken down into themed episodes, which contain a varying number of levels to complete, culminating in hundreds to get through.

The concept of the game is to simply beat levels using a variety of birds, all with different abilities, by destroying all of the hogs within that particular level to progress onto the next. The exact same pick up and play formula which made Angry Birds so popular on mobile devices.

Due to the nature of the game being both incredibly straight-forward, and consistent in this theme throughout, it makes you wonder how this can be so difficult to complete, so allow me to explain further.

Firstly, around half of this 51 trophies strong list is progression-based with trophies awarded for just finishing each episode contained with all 3 game versions, so you'll go a long way to finishing this list through just completing all of the levels. To complete a level, you simply have to kill the pigs within the allowed amount of birds you have to launch at them. This is the same concept applied to every single level, hence the straight-forward, consistently themed nature of this game. If you don't kill all of the pigs, and run out of birds, you'll fail the level and have to retry it.

However, there are additional ways to go back through levels and beat them, which is where the replay value of this game kicks in, along with where the difficulties start to bear their teeth.

The "You are Elvis" trophy, awarded for getting 3 stars in every single level, requires to go one further than simply completing the level. In order to achieve 3 stars in a level, you have to destroy all pigs, along with creating as much environmental damage as possible, to the point where you have to achieve a minimum points threshold to earn 3 stars.

For the most part, this isn't too difficult, and it's recommended you do this straight away when completing all levels for the first time, so this will essentially be your first play-through of the game. However, not only does beating every single level in the game become an incredibly time-consuming venture, (It's hard to say how many levels there are exactly, but there are at least a few hundred), a handful of them will cause you all sorts of problems when trying to achieve maximum destruction and get 3 star ratings out of them. This is where the game will test your patience, as some of these levels alone will have you stuck for hours.

The worst thing about this is the fact that it's difficult to influence, and you're at the mercy of lady luck for large periods of this game. Trying the same strategy over and over will eventually work for you, it's just a matter of how long you're willing to keep trying when you hit one of these more difficult levels, which are scattered throughout the game as you progress. It's very time-consuming as a consequence, and can actually be quite mentally draining.

Every time you've felt like you're gathering momentum and knocking levels out within a relatively quick timeframe, you always seem to be halted by a diffculty spike, which kills any sort of previous rhythm you may have had, proving to be very challenging to overcome sometimes.

The "Mighty Eagle" trophy, awarded for getting 100% Eagle score in every single level, is effectively a second play-through of the game. Once you achieve 3 stars on a level, you'll unlock the Mighty Eagle for that particular level only, a huge destructive eagle which, when released, can wipe out the entire environment in one fell swoop.

In order to achieve a 100% score, you need to destroy all pigs in the level, along with destroying 100% of the environment along with it. Not only are you playing through every single level all over again, but you're also going to face the same challenges as previously mentioned. Most levels are relatively easy to score 100% on with the Eagle, but there will always be that one level not too far away which is ready to leave you stuck for hours.

This won't necessarily be the same levels as before, but the same approach will apply, whereby your best option is to simply see how long it takes for luck to favour your side and allow for enough damage to be caused to achieve 100% destruction. If the huge amounts of trial and error present hadn't hit you before when going through the 3 stars journey, it definitely will have done by the time you finish this.

So that's 2 playthroughs of the entire game, and in reality, you shouldn't be too far away from the Platinum trophy at this stage. It's been a long enough journey up to this point anyway, and if you've reached this stage, the end should be in sight, unless the same thing happens to you what ended up happening to me.

The "Egg Master" trophy, awarded for completing all Golden Egg levels, is effectively the end-game, leading on from the previously runs outlined above. There are 61 Golden Egg levels to beat, all unlocked by finding the corresponding Golden Eggs hidden within the various levels contained within the games. Most of the Eggs are both easy enough to find, and also beat, but there is a critical issue lying within this trophy.

The Mooncake Festival episode in Angry Birds Rio requires you to find all 8 pieces of Mooncake to unlock a Golden Egg. If you've used the Mighty Eagle on a specific 1 of these 8 levels prior to finding the Mooncake piece, you won't be able to unlock this piece. It's glitched, and as a consequence of this, you won't be able to find all 8 Mooncake pieces, leaving you on 60/61 Golden Eggs, and therefore, you can't unlock either the "Egg Collector" or "Egg Master" trophies.

The solution? There isn't one. You have to wipe your saved game data and begin the entire game from scratch. If you run into this glitch, you will be forced to start from the very beginning. At this point, I gave up the on the game and didn't touch it for years. After so much effort, and to have such a set-back on the smallest of technicalities that wasn't even fixed with a patch, I knew it would be the sort of thing that would demote a game to the back-burner for a very long time. 

If you look back, you'll see how I've essentially told this story from beginning to end, and this explains how easy it was to run into this problem. Some will argue that I should have done the research to preempt the issue, but I didn't, and definitely wish I had done. So the game sat there incomplete, a mere 2 trophies away, but suddenly with hours upon hours of extra work required further to unlock the Platinum trophy.

Now, there are a few things that work in your favour here if you run into this problem, so it's not all bad news.

Firstly, if you're connected to the Playstation Network, your high scores are uploaded to the leaderboard when you complete the level. This means that, even when you delete your save data and start over, some of these high scores are stored via the leaderboard, and in some instances, are pulled through by the game. If this is the case, (and it doesn't happen for every level), you won't need to replay it to achieve the 3 stars again. If you quit the level, the stars will just update. There doesn't seem to be a logical explanation as to why certain levels auto-complete, but you will still have to play the majority of them again. It's only worth mentioning because every little helps in this situation.

Secondly, you won't need to complete every single level in the game either. In Angry Birds Classic and Angry Birds Seasons, you'll not only need to complete every level again, but you'll also need to get 3 stars in every level again (which is also why the above intel about stored high scores on leaderboards is critical knowledge). Golden Eggs in Angry Birds Rio only require you unlock the first Golden Egg, and then each Golden Egg thereafter is unlocked via beating the subsequent Golden Egg level, so at least you can take a nice short-cut here.

Despite this, the glitch adds a ton of additional completion time onto the overall game, and it really is a game-changer in the context of hunting down the Platinum trophy simply for the sheer amount of re-work involved.

Aside from this, the rest of the list is very straight-forward. Apart from the previously mentioned heavy emphasis on progression related trophies, the remainder of the list can be knocked off through natural advancement through the levels, and won't cause you any issues, which is actually just as well given the experience I had with this game.

Even under normal circumstances, I would still angle at around 9/10 for the overall difficulty of this list, purely down to the sheer levels of patience, luck and time needed to complete the game. I would estimate somewhere around the 100-120 hour mark for full completion of the game, which includes the handful of levels which will frustrate you for hours as you strive to finish them and dig deep enough to persist, not to mention the fact you'll have to do this in full at least twice with the Mighty Eagle run.

However, the aforementioned Mooncake glitch is a complete sucker-punch, and worthy enough to notch this score up to the maximum. Having to go through this entire game twice is a solid enough challenge in it's own right, let alone having to face the reality of a glitch that leaves you so close, yet so far away, and will make you play through the majority of the game for a third time. That's more than enough reason to make this game the 7th 10/10 Platinum in my entire collection.

Notable Trophies -

You are Elvis - Get 3 stars in every single level
Mighty Eagle - Get 100% Eagle score in every single level
Egg Master - Complete all Golden Egg levels

Hardest Trophy -

You are Elvis
Get 3 stars in every single level

DLC #108 - Resident Evil 6 - Onslaught

The Onslaught pack adds 5 new trophies to Resident Evil 6, focused around the Onslaught game mode.

Very similar in comparison to the Versus Mode of Resident Evil 5, Onslaught is a very simple concept, and with that, the pack doesn't actually add a terrible amount of content.

The Onslaught game mode is 1 vs 1, and therefore, only requires 2 players at all times. Both players are placed on the same map, but don't actually encounter each other, and the idea is to kill enough zombies to spawn on your opponents map, with the last man standing winning the game. The more zombies you kill, the more zombies appear on your opponents map, and therefore, the more likely it is that your opponent will die before you.

As far as the content goes, that's pretty much it. There are a variety of maps to play on, and different characters to play as, but the game is exactly the same every time you play it, and the depth literally goes as far as which map and character you choose.

Out of the 5 trophies on offer, 2 of these are focused on just winning matches, including a trophy for winning on 3 different maps and another for winning 10 times through killing blows dealt by enemies sent to your opponents map. There is also a Gold trophy on offer too, for simply sending a cumulative total of 2,000 zombies to your opponents map, which shouldn't take too long at all, given how quickly you can kill vast amounts of zombies at once.

The "Kill or Be Killed" trophy, awarded for winning whilst in the dying state, could potentially cause issues. I managed to fluke this by winning a match whilst I was also dying quite early on, but this is hugely dependent on luck, given the 10-15 seconds lifespan you have whilst in the dying state, during which time your opponent must die before you, and since you can only really tell how much life they have left by the colour indicator on their name (red indicates dying), it's tough to gauge how close they are to dying.

How this measures up in terms of a challenge compared to the other 3 DLC packs is hard to say, given the fact I'm just going through each one in chronological order, but this first pack only took 3 hours to complete (according to the stats screen), so it's safe to assume this is more than likely one of the easier packages out of the 4 for this game.

Platinum #79 - Doom 3 - BFG Edition

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 8/10

The DOOM 3 BFG Edition throws together a comprehensive package of everything Doom-related into one retail list.

This also includes alot of trophies to go along with it. 66 in all, to be exact, which is one of the largest amount of trophies for a retail game, minus DLC, anybody who has finished this list will have had to unlock in order to achieve a Platinum trophy.

So where do they call come from? You can break this list down into as many as 6 different areas. These include the main DOOM 3 campaign, along with it's 2 expansion packs, Resurrection of Evil and The Lost Mission. The package also includes the original DOOM and DOOM 2 games aswell as an online Multiplayer offering.

The challenge of this list is very evenly spread across all elements of this package, and with 3 full games to beat, this is a challenging road that lies ahead, and one that also comes with it's difficulties along the way.

The "DOOMed Nightmare" trophy, awarded for completing the Doom 3 single player campaign on Nightmare, is the main attraction, taking you through a fully 3D experience. The concept is simple enough, battling through very linear levels and fighting hordes of enemies as you go along completing various objectives in order to reach the next level in what is a very basic "save the world" plot. It has classic FPS game mechanics along the way, such as boss fights and a steady stream of new weapons to discover and play with as you progress. Though not actually the toughest out of the Doom games to finish on the hardest difficulty the game has to offer, that doesn't mean it isn't challenging.

Nightmare difficulty is very aptly named, for a few reasons. Firstly, your health will degenerate gradually down to the point of 25 hit points, then stop, leaving you vulnerable to fairly consistent one-hit deaths. You can still regenerate health at aid stations, but this is somewhat pointless given the fact you'll end up at 25 again within less than a minute. Enemies don't seem to be any more durable, but they'll kill you quickly and force you to restart from your last save point, which happens a lot. 

Secondly, on such a subject, you'll have to manually save your game very frequently in order to keep up steady progression through the game on Nightmare difficulty. This is simply down to the first point, and the fact you'll die easily and often ensures you're always conscious to the fact that saving your game will stop you constantly losing progress to cheap deaths, and because the game neglects a checkpoint system, this forces you into making your own decisions on where you choose to start from when you die again.

This is actually a very frustrating experience, compounded by the painfully slow reload times and the tendency for the game to spawn enemies in behind the player at an alarmingly frequent rate, which is a leading causing of player death. It makes the game difficult for all the wrong reasons, and this is a repetitive pattern throughout the other Doom games too. The game itself isn't terribly challenging from a game play perspective. You're generously supplied with ammunition and most enemies can be killed fairly easily, but the amount of times you spend dying and reloading saves is an extremely tedious exercise, and will test your will to stick with the game.

It's also important to note that you will need to beat DOOM 3 on any difficulty first as a prerequisite to being able to play Nightmare difficulty, so 2 play-throughs of around 8-10 hours each is compulsory towards the Platinum trophy.

On the subject of expected completion times, the "Speed Run" trophy, awarded for Completing the DOOM 3 single player campaign in 10 hours or less, should probably be the primary focus on your first play-through of the game, given the fact you'll also need to swipe a bunch of collectibles and also beat the game on Nightmare difficulty, both of which could very easily make you exceed the 10 hour mark.

If you're playing on a low difficulty, this shouldn't be too problematic, but there is alot to cram into 10 hours, so you'll need to move at a good pace, and can ill afford to get stuck at too many points in the game trying to figure out where you need to go next, so a hasty approach is key. You certainly can't afford to try and tandem this with any collectible related trophies, or anything else that may require excess time, so it's definitely something to consider along the way.

Still somewhat with DOOM 3, there are also 2 expansion packs that go along with this which follow the exact same theme. These include The Lost Mission and Resurrection of Evil, both of  which clock in at an additional 6-8 hours collectively on top of the main Doom 3 campaign, and, as before, will also need to be completed once on any difficulty level in order to unlock Nightmare difficulty. You'll then also need to beat both expansion packs on Nightmare difficulty to unlock the relevant trophies as previously explained. The same rules apply in terms of approach, though being expansion packs, these are much shorter offerings than the main game, but not to ignore the fact that, by this point, you will have played through these stories 6 times and still barely scratched the surface of the list.

All 3 of the DOOM 3 offerings of this list are big on collectible based trophies too, emphasised by the "DOOMed Collector" trophy, awarded for Collecting every PDA in Doom 3, of which there are 64. These collectible based trophies make up a small handful of the list, and every Doom 3 campaign involves collecting either PDA's, Video Logs and Lockers (or a combination of all 3). These are also all missable, based on the fact you can't return to a previous level once you've committed to advancing onto the next one, so if you misjudge as little as 1 collectible, you'll be starting the entire game again to get the relevant trophy, unless you've managed to keep a prior save. Definitely something else to be careful to watch out for, and another reason not to tandem the collectible based trophies with the Doom 3 speed run you'll need to complete.

There are also a collection of trophies designated to both ports of the original Doom games.

The "DOOM : Rampage" trophy, awarded for completing all DOOM levels on "Ultra-Violence" or higher in single player, requires you to beat the entire game on the second-toughest difficulty level. As with DOOM 3, Nightmare is the hardest difficulty level, so it doesn't actually require that you beat the game on the highest difficulty, but despite this, is actually more challenging than DOOM 3.

The structure of the original DOOM games is somewhat different to that of DOOM 3, comprised of 4 episodes, to which an individual progression based trophy is also awarded for completing each one for the first time, split into a number of levels within each episode. This makes it a longer game than it may initially might seem, and the game mechanics are much simpler than DOOM 3 due to the fact that this is a straight port of the original 90's game.

Ultra-Violence difficulty for DOOM poses the biggest challenge within this entire list, and the latter levels are packed full of enemies which take alot of damage to kill, and ammunition isn't as generously supplied as it is within DOOM 3. Many deaths and trial and error await, and the crippling load times within DOOM 3 also exist here too, meaning you'll spend alot of time waiting to restart from your prior save point death after death. The stingy nature of ammo means you'll also have to find ways to finish levels without being able to kill any remaining enemies, which can also lead to a further frustrating experience.

The only redeeming feature about this portion of the game is the fact you won't need to beat it any more than once because all difficulty levels are accessible from the beginning, unlike the DOOM 3 offerings. Despite this, the original DOOM game is the hardest aspect of this list, and a challenge not to be taken lightly, so be prepared to earn this trophy.

The "DOOM II : Superior Firepower" trophy, awarded for completing all "DOOM II : Hell on Earth" levels on "Ultra-Violence or higher in single player, requires you beat the entire game on it's second-toughest difficulty level.

For the sake of minimal repetition, the exact same challenges from DOOM apply within DOOM II aswell. The game is also structured in the exact same way as DOOM, with a small series of episodes which are further broken down into a variety of progressive levels. You can also choose to only beat this game once, as all difficulty levels are accessible from the start, as per above.

DOOM II was slightly lesser of a challenge than DOOM, despite the games being very similar to one another, but when combined, they actually contribute to a large portion of this game's overall difficulty rating. Where most of the challenges from DOOM 3 come from the annoyance of having to save frequently, and the degenerating health mechanic on Nightmare difficulty, the earlier ports of the first 2 DOOM games provide a more technical challenge, where you have to rely on ammunition management and spacial awareness to complete levels.

There's also a slight tedium factor within both of the original DOOM games. They're incredibly ancient, and it absolutely shows too, with a combination of dated graphics and simplistic gameplay making it tough to get through from start to finish without losing the will to proceed on more than one occasion. That may have just been me, but the nostalgic novelty appeal didn't last very long, and it felt incredibly grindy.

The game also throws in a small handful of Multiplayer trophies, most of which are very menial tasks, or can just be earned through natural play. There's nothing terribly difficult among these, though it is important to note that the Multiplayer for this game has never been graced with a thriving community, so you could face challenges later on in the life cycle of the game.

Overall, this list has a mixture of everything. There's a suitable gaming challenge to be had here, particularly from the original 2 DOOM games, which live up to a tough reputation of being difficulty to beat. There are also some challenging gameplay mechanics to deal with, including no checkpoint system, which will add a large element of  save game management, along with the degeneration of health within Nightmare difficulty meaning death aplenty is to be expected. There are also a whole variety of missable trophies for the collectibles in the DOOM 3 story ready to trip you up at the most minor of oversight, and the game even has a small collection of Multiplayer trophies just to further add to the variety of balance on offer.

DOOM 3 and both expansion packs will require you to beat them twice each, and with the solitary playthrough of DOOM and DOOM II further to this, you're looking at a minimum of 8 playthroughs to unlock the Platinum trophy, clocking in at around 50-60 total hours. A strong challenge.

Notable Trophies - 

DOOMed Nightmare - Complete the DOOM 3 single player campaign on Nightmare.
Speed Run - Complete the DOOM 3 single player campaign in 10 hours or less.
DOOMed Collector - Collect every PDA in DOOM 3.
DOOM : Rampage - Complete all DOOM levels on "Ultra-Violence" or higher in single player.
DOOM II : Superior Firepower - Complete all "DOOM II : Hell on Earth"levels on "Ultra-Violence or higher in single player.

Hardest Trophy - 

DOOM : Rampage
Complete all DOOM levels on "Ultra-Violence" or higher in single player.

DLC #107 - Battlefield 4 - China Rising

The China Rising pack adds yet another batch of new game features to the Battlefield 4 experience, including maps, weapons, gadgets and vehicles, along with 5 more trophies to unlock along the way.

The expansion also adds the new Air Superiority game mode, a mode focused around jet and apache dog-fighting, which also awards a trophy for merely completing a game of it.

Out of the other 4 trophies, 3 of these are awarded for obtaining kills with the new vehicles added by the pack, which include the dirtbike, bomber and SUAV (which is technically a handheld gadget, but operates as a user-guided UAV plane).

All of these are relatively easy, and don't require a terrible amount of trial and error. In the cases of the bomber and SUAV, the single kill you have to achieve in order to trigger the trophy turns out to be a bigger part of this package, which will be explained below.

This is the first of 3 packs that includes a trophy related to fulfilling the requirements of all assignments. Even though both Naval Strike and Second Assault included challenge assignments, the trophy lists of both did not have a dedicated trophy for the completion of these. China Rising does, and it ends up turning an otherwise easy completion into what is probably the most challenging DLC package in the game;

New Superpower - Complete all China Rising Assignments.

Assignments are just a series of in-game challenges of varying difficulty, of which there are 10 of across this package. Some assignments have 1 requirement to unlock the medal, and some have as many as 4. For the purpose of justifying the difficulty behind this, it'll be easier to explain the requirements that make this trophy challenging and the reasons why this is the case.

• Assignment 2 - Jet Fighter Ribbon x3.

This objective within assignment 2 requires you to obtain 3 jet fighter ribbons, which means you have to get 5 kills in a round with fighter jets. Most people familiar with Battlefield will already understand the reason this is being mentioned, but air vehicles are notoriously hard to control, making kills with them extremely tough to obtain. Understanding how to use them is a steep learning experience, and even then, when mastered, 5 kills per round is a tall order. When you combine other factors with this, including the skill of other pilots against you and ground infantry using anti-air, you'll most likely need to be extremely patient in your quest for this assignment. This was the most challenging assignment requirement in this package by some distance.

• Assignment 7 - Get 15 kills with the bombing raid.

This objective requires 15 kills with the bombing raid, the previously mentioned new addition above. Once you're in the bomber, kills aren't generally that hard to earn, but that isn't the challenge here. The bomber appears on 4 maps, and can only be accessed by 1 person at any time, which means you have to queue up to use it with anybody else that may also be waiting. Add onto the fact there is also a good 4-5 minute cooldown until it can next be used, you have a recipe for alot of hanging around and waiting for opportunities, which can be tiresome. The bomber is very mass destructive, so you shouldn't struggle for kills, it's just a matter of getting into a situation where you can use it ahead of everyone else.

• Assignment 9 - Get 20 UCAV kills.

This is another objective that focuses on kills with new equipment. The UCAV is a player-controlled guided projectile, which is mainly used to commit damage to vehicles, but for the purposes of this challenge, is better off used as a direct missile for roadkills on players. Due to this unconventional use, it can be a bit of a slog to achieve 20 kills with the UCAV. It doesn't suit smaller maps, due it's steep projection angle, and it can also be hard to guide and control because of how fast it travels. Playing on rooftop maps, such as Pearl Market, allow you to fire the UCAV into the air and control it at rooftop level, which is the best way to get kills. If you stick to that, you'll get 20 eventually, but it may also take a while.

• Assignment 10 - Play 10 hours of China Rising

This objective is purely self explanatory. If you focus the assignment progress on China Rising maps, you should play close to, if not more than, 10 hours anyway. I did find it easier to achieve some of the objectives for various assignments on other maps, and still needed around 3 hours of playtime before full completion, so it's still a decent amount of time to clock up either way.

There's some rather difficult tasks included there, and as mentioned, it looks like it makes this package the most difficult out of the 5 DLC expansions. There are a few objectives within Final Stand that could potentially surpass this claim, but the amount of effort required to fulfill the air-based assignments in this package eclipses anything else the game has offered thus far. I spent a huge amount of time towards adequately upskilling my piloting abilities and trying to achieve jet ribbons to the point where I questioned whether it was even worth it. It's important not to be fooled by the throw-away trophies, because the assignments will make you work hard for maximum completion.

DLC #106 - Battlefield 4 - Second Assault

As with the previous Naval Strike pack, Second Assault also adds an assortment of new maps, weapons, gadgets and vehicles, along with 5 trophies, complimenting the new additions to the game within this package.

There are a few very menial tasks that yield trophies, including igniting a brush fire using the repair tool in Operation Metro or Caspian Border and finding the hidden tunnel on Caspian Border, both of which take a matter of seconds to unlock. This is even quicker if you can achieve both on the same map.

The third out of three bronze trophies is awarded for killing an enemy with a ceiling collapse on Operation Metro, which could actually prove tricky, due to it's very situational/luck orientated nature, but I managed to grab this one without such issues.

There are also 2 silver trophies, one of which is awarded for killing an enemy flag carrier while carrying their flag, in the newly added Capture the Flag game mode. Just as above, this can potentially prove tricky, but the vacant nature of the game at this stage makes it much easier when you're playing within smaller groups of people. You can imagine the challenge of trying to achieve this trophy among the height of the game's life cycle in huge lobbies where everybody would be focusing on the objective of the game mode, and the difficulties this would create in terms of killing a flag carrier whilst holding the enemies flag simultaneously, so the fact the game is deeply into a declining phase of population actually makes this trophy more achievable.

That leaves the final trophy, which does present a reasonable challenge, irrespective of the circumstances;

Blind Bomber - In a round get 5 kills with air vehicles in Gulf of Oman

The "Blind Bomber" trophy, awarded for getting 5 kills with air vehicles in Gulf of Oman in a single round, is challenging for multiple reasons.

Firstly, you have to overcome the difficulty curve of mastering any air vehicle in Battlefield, which remains one of the most challenging aspects of the game. If you've been playing through, or have already played, the China Rising expansion pack, this includes trophies that contain a heavy emphasis on air combat, so you may already be in a better position to tackle this trophy where you've maybe had a decent level of practice. If not, be prepared to spend a reasonable amount of time learning how to master the flight mechanics and obtain kills simultaneously.

Secondly, the Gulf of Oman map has live climate changing mechanics which involve a sandstorm sweeping across the environment. This makes visibility extremely poor, and as a result, can significantly hinder your progression towards the total amount of kills necessary to fulfill the requirements of the trophy. You can attempt to get closer to the ground, but this makes you much more vulnerable to ground units equipped with rocket launchers, so you'll need to maximise the amount of kills you earn outside the storm timeframe.

The final barrier is the fact the trophy is actually glitched. I had to obtain 5 kills in a round on 2 separate occasions before the trophy was triggered. This led me to believe that kills as a passenger may not have counted, but they actually do, and if you get 5 kills in a round, regardless of whether you're the pilot or the passenger, then it's likely the trophy has just glitched on you instead, so I ended up fulfilling the requirements of the trophy twice.

A good tactic to adopt is to park the helicopter on the floor near a conquest capture point and man one of the side gunners and just lie in wait for enemy troops to approach. It's effectively like using a stationery ground turret, but will still count towards the total of 5 kills because you're still inside the helicopter, and you'll also avoid the dogfights that can often leave you respawning often and losing time.

Is this package easier than Naval Strike? I personally think so, but then again, that's purely based off the fact I got lucky with a few of these trophies which could potentially be a nightmare for certain people who aren't as lucky with them. Second Assault is the second of two packs that don't contain an assignment related trophy (the second of which is the aforementioned Naval Strike pack), and the only 3 trophies I now have left for this game are the 3 assignment based trophies, for each of the 3 outstanding DLC packs.

If you can negotiate the "Blind Bomber" trophy without too many issues, this shouldn't be too bad, but should be approached with an open mentality, due to the possibility of struggling with the other circumstantial trophies outlined above.

Platinum #78 - Dead Island

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 5/10

Just for the sake of addressing the disclaimer immediately, this is a reduced Platinum Difficulty Rating purely based on the strategic use of the Bloodbath Arena DLC package when progressing towards trophies in this main list, which makes the Platinum trophy significantly easier for reasons which will be addressed in detail below.

This is a list that once upon a time was breaching into the realms of 7/10 in terms of difficulty, mostly for a very time consuming venture with some very scrappy trophies thrown in for good measure.

For the most part, that's actually still true to word, but this list can be made a much easier task to conquer courtesy of the Bloodbath arena DLC, which helps with the progress towards a handful of the longer and/or more challenging trophies in this list.

Despite being an open-world, sandbox game, there is still a story mode, though this doesn't have as many progression related trophies tied to it as you may expect from any game with a story driven narrative. You'll get trophies for completing each of the 4 acts, but there's nothing difficulty related here and the game doesn't require you to complete the story any more than once, though that is dependent on your how you approach your quest to level 50.

The trophy list also does it's best to promote the co-operative element of the game, throwing in an array of trophies for completing quests within a co-op party and progressing the game with different numbers of people. There's also a heavy emphasis on kill accumulation trophies with differing types of weapons and vehicles, and the array of customisation options from weapons and equipment. There's a really big assortment of naturally progressive and miscellaneous trophies in this list, which will come through simply working towards the more notable trophies in the game.

In terms of where the challenge of this list comes from, the "Rootin' Tootin' Lootin'" trophy, awarded for Looting 5 Exceptional Weapons, is the solitary Gold trophy in this list, and entirely based on luck under normal circumstances. Exceptional weapons are graded in orange, and pop up in crates throughout the game, and there's no rhyme or reason as to when or where you'll find them. After an entire first play-through, I only had 2 exceptional weapons, and it seemed like the only way to get the rest was to carry on playing the game. This didn't feel like an unnecessary slog at the time because I still had some way to progressing towards level 50 and the "School of hard knocks" trophy, which you'll have to go deep into a second play-through to achieve, but the entire luck based nature of this trophy gives no guarantee you'll loot 5 exceptional weapons before you hit level 50, which could place you into the territory of fruitless grinding. Trading exceptional weapons with other players doesn't count, and there doesn't seem to be any solid methods of increasing your chances of looting exceptional weapons, so you're at the mercy of the luck-based trophy Gods.

However, there is a savior, and it comes in the form of the Bloodbath Arena DLC. During arenas, you'll get a notification at some point that a zombie within the current wave is carrying an exceptional weapon, and once killed, you can pick it up and it'll count towards your total of 5, making this trophy much easier. The point at which the notification appears seems to be random, but this method was how I cleaned up the remaining 3 exceptional weapons I needed after the desperation of endlessly opening loot crates with no progression whatsoever. It's strange that the game counts weapon drops from zombies as "looting", but it works and that's all that matters. A huge time-saver, and a foolproof method.

On similar grounds, the "School of hard knocks" trophy, awarded for Reaching level 50, is the highest level based trophy, with just over 3,000,000 experience points required to hit this milestone, and under normal circumstances, can be typically reached within just under 2 full play-throughs of the game. You shouldn't need to clean up much after your first run-through, so the second just comes to whatever you missed and accumulating experience, but this is a long journey and should you choose to follow this method, it's a long grind right to the end.

However, as before, there is a savior, and it's the exact same savior as previously mentioned. The Bloodbath Arena DLC is a haven for farming experience points. If you choose either of the two hardest arenas, you'll be able to rack up the experience much quicker than if you were to just continue playing through the game again. Every wave in the arena yields a challenge, which in turn yields experience, and the countless zombies for you to mow down generates experience points aplenty. Even though you'll still feel the struggle towards the higher end of the 40's, it's the most effective and quickest way to reach level 50, and it beats grinding through the entire game again completing the exact same quests as before in an attempt you level up your character.

Not only will you get the experience points from killing a ton of zombies in a manic, horde-esque environment, you'll also rack up the challenge experience on top from the various challenges on offer during each wave, and perhaps a few other miscellaneous trophies along the way. It all contributes towards hitting level 50, and this method significantly reduces the difficulty further to the above.

For some trophies though, there is no such workaround, including the "Right 4 Life" trophy, awarded for completing act 1 with 4 different characters. At 2-3 hours to complete act 1 for each character, that adds around 10-12 extra hours for something that is just no more than just a rinse and repeat job. A little bit tedious, and something to definitely note as it adds a significant amount onto the overall completion time.

The "There and back again" trophy, awarded for Exploring the entire island, is missable, because some of the 72 locations within the game cannot be revisited after certain points in the game, meaning if you never explored them before you move onto the next area, you'll have to carry over your game into a new play-through and reach the point where you first encounter the location. Any location you've previously seen carries over though, so you won't need to re-do everything, but a fair few of them can be easily missed, especially if you don't stray from the main story path, so it's important to make sure you keep track of them all to ensure you don't move onto a new area too quickly without ensuring you've unlocked every location beforehand.

It can be also difficult to know which locations you haven't seen yet, given the fact the only indication the game will give you is by telling you how many of the 72 locations you've unlocked, so if you're not keeping score, it'll be up to you to work out which ones you've missed, which can be a nightmare to dissect if you have to go through the game again because you won't know how far forward you have to play before you hit the areas you've missed, and there's still always a chance you may miss them again, which is a bit messy, so this is definitely one to watch out for. 

The "Nearly there" trophy, awarded for Finding 120 collectibles, is mentioned for similar reasons to the above. This is another missable trophy, and the game will have to be played from scratch on a new play-through to collect anything you may have missed previously. Thankfully, this number is not the full compliment of collectibles in the game, and you have a small margin of error, which makes it easier than hunting down every location because you won't to scour the whole map in search for all of the postcards, recordings and manuals. It's still alot to do though.

All in all, this a list that can made significantly easier if you choose to take advantage of the Bloodbath Arena DLC, which is a genuine difference maker. Under normal circumstances, this is a long game with a hefty leveling grind, along with the uncertainty of looting exceptional weapons which can potentially have you playing way beyond necessity. Without the option of the Bloodbath Arena DLC, I would be marking this game somewhere in the region of 7/10, but after being able to use this to drastically support progression to the two most difficult trophies in the list, it brings it down a few notches to a more average rating.

Most of the list is simply a matter of accumulating kills in various ways and ensuring you're playing the game in co-operative mode as often as possible in order to unlock the handful of co-op trophies on offer. Natural progression towards completing the game once and playing on towards level 50 will see you unlock most of the miscellaneous trophies, but the missable trophies keep you suitably on your toes, and despite the DLC related shortcuts that make the tougher trophies much more achievable, you're still looking at around a 60-70 hour Platinum with everything taken into account, which is a hefty time commitment.

That's all it really boils down to though. The game doesn't present an actual challenge in terms of difficulty, and you're never really penalised upon death, so there's never any pressure when going through the game because you'll always respawn where you last died with nothing but a financial penalty which never adversely affects your characters progression or abilities. It's still a good slog which will test your staying power, but if you can overcome that, then you've won most of the battle. The rest of it can be won by downloading the Bloodbath Arena DLC.

Notable Trophies -

Rootin' Tootin' Lootin' - Loot 5 Exceptional Weapons.
School of hard knocks - Reach level 50.
Right 4 Life - Complete act 1 with 4 different characters.
There and back again - Explore the entire island.
Nearly there - Find 120 collectibles.

Hardest Trophy - 

School of hard knocks
Reach level 50

DLC #105 - Dead Island - Bloodbath Arena

The Bloodbath Arena DLC adds a survival arena mode to Dead Island, with 4 arenas of varying difficulty, requiring the player to survive wave after wave of zombies in increasing volumes. A very simple concept at it's core, and one which has been used many times in various games before.

The package adds 10 new trophies, all catered towards progression within the arenas under differing circumstances, and most of the list will require you to reach a certain amount of waves under specific conditions, most of which aren't generally that challenging.

Surviving a certain number of waves using custom weapons, only fists, analog fighting controls and on each of the 4 arenas all yield trophies upon completion, with a couple of throwaways on the side. Where left unstated, these can be achieved on any of the 4 arenas, so you can choose Arena A (Easy), if your only intention is to unlock the trophies in the most efficient way possible, though tougher arenas yield better rewards in terms of experience points and item drops, which can be useful if you're also still chasing trophies from the main game's list.

As a small side note, you actually may find this game mode challenging if your character hasn't been substantially leveled and/or holds some strong equipment. It feels like the game mode was designed to be tackled later into the game, and doesn't favour low leveled characters. It also doesn't favour solo or smaller parties, which may make it slightly tougher if you're trying to go for these trophies alone, which you can do for most of them, though you will need to play in co-op as a minimum requirement for some of the trophies of this list. As for the more direct challenges;

Gladiator School - Survive 15 consecutive waves with each of the 4 characters.
Morituri te salutant - Survive 30 consecutive waves with at least one co-op player.

The "Gladiator School" trophy, requires the player to survive at least 15 waves in any arena with each each of the 4 main characters. The difficulty around this trophy has already been touched upon above, and this is a tough one to achieve unless your character is a high enough level to get through 15 waves of enemies. In reality, you won't have leveled all 4 characters substantially enough to tackle this without taking a few shortcuts. The main game's list only requires you to achieve level 50 with 1 character, and the only other way you'll use the other 3 is for the "Right 4 Life" trophy, which only requires you to reach Act 2 with every character, so chances are, purely from a trophy hunters perspective, you'll have to complete this trophy using 3 weaker characters.

So what are the tactics out there which can help you achieve this trophy in the easiest possible way? Firstly, you can have a team of stronger players carry you through to wave 15 if you don't want to invest the time playing through the game and strengthening your characters beyond Act 2. It's obviously in the best interest of the game to attempt to contribute where you can, but your effectiveness will be limited, especially as the size and strength of the hordes grow through the rounds. Secondly, you could get your hands on a modded gun, of which there are plenty in the game at this stage of it's life cycle. It may be that some of the people you group up with already have modded guns, which makes light work of the zombies, but they may also drop them for you to use, so it wouldn't be a bad idea at all to take advantage, primarily because it allows you to take an arena on in solo mode.

You could, of course, just level each of the 4 characters up to around 30+ and make this manageable, but this takes a long time, and both of the above methods work just as well when it comes to the end goal of achieving the trophy, so just save the time and effort, unless you actually enjoy the game enough to significantly level 4 different characters.

The "Mortituri te salutant" trophy, is here for similar reasons, though is somewhat easier because you can use your primary character you reached level 50 with in the main game for this one. The above 2 methods will also work in the same way, but you most likely won't need to resort to these in order to achieve this trophy because your main character should be strong enough, with a decent selection of weapons to get you through 30 waves. It takes a while to get through 30 waves (about 45 minutes), so you'll need maximum concentration. Your partner will also need to be similarly high leveled, which you should make sure is the case straight away. You don't want to be in a position where you're carrying your partner, so make sure they're a high enough level and their equipment is strong enough for a good contribution.

Every trophy other than the 2 mentioned above can be comfortably achieved in solo, providing you just use your strongest character and go to work. The others will require assistance, but all outlined methods work well when trying to achieve these trophies, and actually require minimal work. It can be tough to find players at the stage of the game's life cycle, and you will need a willing runner to reach wave 30, so there a few obstacles to overcome along the way.

NOTE : This DLC is an excellent outlet for many of the trophies contained with the main list of the game. It is especially useful for leveling up your character, obtaining epic loot and also unlocking a series of miscellaneous trophies within the main game's list. It is certainly worth taking advantage of when you consider what you may need to still achieve from the main game. This will be mentioned in more detail during the write up of the main list.

DLC #104 - Battlefield 4 - Naval Strike

The Naval Strike expansion pack is 1 of 5 add-ons to Battlefield 4, adding 4 new maps and a host of weapons, gadgets, vehicles and equipment to the Multiplayer aspect of Battlefield.

As is a common theme with all of these DLC packs, the trophies are spread across a variety of the new features added for each expansion, encouraging the player to indulge within as many new aspects as possible.

In relation to all 5 pieces of DLC, Naval Strike is actually one of the easier packs to complete, and contains 5 new trophies awarded for executing in-game tasks.

Completing a game of the newly added Carrier Assault game mode yields a trophy, as does obtaining a kill in the new ACV, but the slightly tougher elements of this package come from a couple of other trophies included within;

Fly Swatter - Kill an enemy with the AA Mine
No Parley - Get a kill with the old cannon

The "Fly Swatter" trophy, awarded for killing an enemy with the AA Mine, is the hardest trophy in the set, and actually one of the most difficult trophies across all 5 Battlefield 4 expansions packs. For starters, the AA Mine isn't readily available, and the "Death from Below" assignment is a pre-requisite to unlocking this piece of equipment. The assignment requires you to reach level 10, and then to obtain 3 PDW ribbons and destroy 5 air attack vehicles with rocket launchers.

This isn't terribly difficult, but creates extra work, and once this is done, the real fun starts. The AA Mine has a few limitations to take note of when going for this trophy. The most notable limitation is the fact that, unlike most anti-air weapons, it won't take a vehicle down unless it's already been significantly damaged, due to the fact the AA Mine only deals around 30 hit points worth of damage. Another limitation is the fact that it only has enough power to use 1 projectile, meaning your approach to this has to be extremely tactical.

The best thing to do is equip a primary rocket launcher, such as the Stinger or the Igla, and once an aircraft has been hit, you can quickly deploy the AA Mine in hope enough damage has already been done to achieve the killing blow. This will more than likely contain much trial and error, and was the primary approach I took when attempting to achieve this trophy. The irony of the situation is, I actually ended up just getting lucky when I spotted a helicopter on it's way down, and just deployed the AA Mine, which hit the falling chopper and killed the pilot, triggering the trophy, so it might just end up being a case of situational fortune.

The "No Parley" trophy, awarded for getting a kill with the old cannon, can also see you succumb to a touch of trial and error. The old cannon is an emplacement weapon (meaning it's fixed to a certain location as part of the map) and only exists on the Operation Mortar map. The cannon is in 4 locations around a raised fort at the highest point of the map, but 3 of these locations face outwards towards water, making them incredibly unlikely situations to be able to kill an enemy. The other location looks downhill, giving the greater chance of killing enemies on foot.

The biggest flaw of the old cannon is the extreme drop-off when firing a shot, making long-distance engagements difficult to judge when aiming. It's also got a fixed axis of movement within a certain line of fire and also has an extremely slow rate of fire, making it a tough weapon to use. The best tactic is to wait for enemies to vault over the embankment directly in front of the cannon and just firing. It's a guaranteed kill, but you may have to be prepared to wait and be patient. You can continuously try your luck from distance in the meantime, but you run the risk of reloading your shot when there's a possibility somebody could appear in front of you and you miss your chance.

Aside from the trickier trophies in this set, it's still one of the easier pieces of DLC within the game, though that is mainly down to the fact there isn't a trophy awarded for completing all assignments like there is for 3 of the other DLC packs. The majority of your efforts will go into the aforementioned trophies, and they're still a good challenge in their own right, but everything else is fairly easy.

Platinum #77 - Battlefield 4

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 4/10

When Battlefield 3 came out, the bar was set higher than ever before, when we got our first real challenging list from a Battlefield game.

Battlefield 4 moves in completely the opposite direction, with a trophy list much more relaxed to it's predecessor.

The list is split by both the Single Player and Multiplayer components, though the large majroity of this list is catered towards the Single Player portion of the game, with the co-operative campaign from Battlefield 3 being completely absent on this occassion.

The "Tombstone" trophy, awarded for Completing the Campaign on Hard, can be challenging in some areas, with some unforgivingly accurate enemies and quick deaths equally contributing towards a steady challenge, but even with this, the campaign is incredibly short, with just 7 missions to complete, and will take you around 6-8 hours to fully finish. It doesn't measure up anywhere near Veteran difficulty on certain Call of Duty titles.

The rest of the Single Player trophies relate to a variety of other things. There are a standard selection of progression based trophies awarded for completing each level for the first time, including trophies awarded for seeing the 3 different endings of the game based on sacrifical choices made by the player. There are also trophies awarded at incremental stages for obtaining all 28 collectibles across every level, as well as a handful of tasks to be completed during certain missions. All of these trophies are made even easier to obtain by the use of chapter select to drop into each level once you've completed the game.

The "Full Arsenal" trophy, awarded for Unlocking all assignments and collectibles in the Campaign, covers off most of the aforementioned activites relating to other trophies within the list. There are a handful of assignments that require you to achieve a certain score within missions, which is driven by your performance within a level, and each level has a bronze, silver and gold threshold score to achieve. Performance is scored on kills and accuracy (headshots, multi-kills etc.), and achieving a gold score will unlock the assignment for that particular level, so you'll need a tactical approach, rather than a run and gun approach, which won't net you enough points to reach the gold threshold, which is certainly worth noting.

Even with any clean up required, the Single Player part of the list is still only around 10-15 hours in length, and apart from a few trickier segments of the campaign, is mostly just a progressional experience. The chapter select feature can be used to complete pretty much every outstanding task you may have, including the trophies awarded for seeing each of games 3 alternative endings, which cuts a potentially large amount of time off, as it negates the requirement for the player to have to replay the campaign in it's entirety multiple times. In this regard, the game does everything to cater it's experience with the average trophy hunter in mind.

It is also worth mentioning that there is a critical bug (which was never fixed) whereby your saved data could corrupt and disappear without explanation, causing you to have to restart the entire campaign. This is obviously frustrating, and did happen to myself when I came back to finish off the list, but given how quickly you can complete the game and clean up everything else, it isn't exactly a dealbreaker, albeit important to note regardless.

The Multiplayer portion of the game is also nowhere near as demanding as what it was in Battlefield 3, but across the 5 trophies distributed amongst the competitive online mode, this is where most of this list's challenge truly lies.

The "Call me "Sir"" trophy, awarded for Reaching rank 25, is a standard levelling venture, and despite not requiring anywhere near the same amount of time as what was required in the previous title, there's still a solid commitment necessary in order to achieve this trophy.

Working towards stars for weapons, ribbons and assignments is the best way to make progress, netting 10,000 experience points per star. However, you'll need exactly 796,000 experience points to hit rank 25, which will take the average player anywhere between 25-30 hours. It's recommended to play conquest, which awards alot of experience for capturing and defending flags, and if you're playing in large scale games, there will naturally be more opportunities to kill people and net additional experience.  

There is also a slew of DLC available (with additional trophies attached) which can be used to assist in the progression of levelling, as they give the player access to new ribbons and weapons/equipment which will also unlock the ability to earn more service stars and additional experience outlets.

Either way, this is a long slog, and actually requires a suprisingly steep climb in experience in correlation to the level you have to reach, so on face value, it doesn't seem like it would be as demanding as it actually turns out to be.

The ".45 old school" trophy, awarded for Performing 45 kills with the M1911 Handgun in Multiplayer, doesn't actually seem too difficult on face value, but actually requires alot of additional background work in order to achieve.

The M1911 Handgun isn't a readily available weapon, and much like alot of the weapons and equipment in Battlefield 4, requires you to unlock it by progressing the Handgun experience bar. The M1911 is one of the final handguns along this list, and you'll need 34,000 experience points with Handguns before you unlock it for use, which is alot for a weapon that is only really effective in close quarters combat.

Given the fact the only way you can obtain weapon-based experience is through kills, which usually only award you between 100-150 points per kill, it will take you roughly 300-350 kills with Handguns to reach the necessary amount of experience points you need to unlock the M1911 Handgun, and even then, you'll need a further 45 kills with it in order to fulfil the actual requirements of the trophy, which collectively, will take you a reasonable amount of hours and patience to achieve. It's better to play on small maps where you're likely to get more kills and also have a better chance of obtaining these kills due to the close combat nature of smaller maps, where handguns generally fare better than when used on larger scale maps.

All in all, most of the challenge from this list comes from the amount of time and effort you have to put into the Multiplayer portion of the game. A couple of long-haul trophies is just enough to keep you on your toes, but is also where pretty much the bulk of this rating comes from.

The Single Player experience is mostly a checklist exercise, with a short campaign mode, sprinkled with a touch of replay value for anything you may have missed along the way, whether that be collectibles or a points threshold for a score related trophy. Even if you encounter the mysterious save data wiping bug, the campaign is so short, it doesn't even make it that much of an inconvience if you have to start over. Easy, in comparison to Battlefield 3.

Notable Trophies -

Tombstone - Complete the Campaign on HardFull arsenal - Unlock all assignments and collectibles in the Campaign
Call me "Sir" - Reach rank 25
.45 old school - Perform 45 kills with the M1911 Handgun in Multiplayer

Hardest Trophy -




.45 old school
Perform 45 kills with the M1911 Handgun in Multiplayer