DLC #82 - Call of Duty : Black Ops - First Strike Map Pack

Classic survival horror!

The First Strike Map Pack adds 4 new trophies tied to the single Zombies map (Ascension) added to the game, and definitely produces the easiest list out of all the Black Ops DLC packages.

The tasks are fairly straight forward and low in skill requirement, including escaping on all 3 lunar landers within the level during one game, killing a space monkey with a fire trap and Pack-A-Punching a weapon before Round 8.

The "They are going THROUGH!" trophy, awarded for killing at least 5 zombies with 1 Gersh Device, will require you to obtain the Gersh Device via the Mystery box, which, as always, is completely dependant upon luck, but if you follow through with basic strategies of zombies mode in solo play, you can easily get through enough rounds to be able to get the Gersh Device and fulfil the requirements of the trophy with relative ease.

In theory, you can actually unlock every single trophy in one game, and it isn't too demanding to juggle them around and create an order, though you will need to make sure you have a Pack-A-Punched weapon before Round 8 if you want to attempt all the trophies in a single run. That's just an emphasis of how easy this package is though.

Most important to note, you can unlock all 4 trophies in solo play and therefore don't have to rely on anybody else to complete the package. 

DLC #81 - Battlefield 3 - Armoured Kill

Armour, Big Armour

Another 5 trophies accompany the Armoured Kill DLC, with the focus of this package on the vehicles of Battlefield 3, with a couple of new additions including the Quad Bike and Gunship, and a new angle on tanks with an extra game mode in the form of Tank Superiority.

This package is a bit of a mixed bag, with some challenging trophies thrown into a small bunch of easier ones. The more simplified tasks in this content follow suit from other DLC packages, including obtaining a kill with two of the new vehicles added into the game (Quad Bike and Gunship), along with winning a game of the new Tank Superiority game mode.

It's fairly easy to knock off these trophies, though the Quad Bike is a tricky vehicle to get a kill with at times, and it is very small and weak, making it susceptible to being destroyed easily, so it does have potential to cause you problems. However, the real challenge of this package lies in other areas;

Destroyer - Got 10 kills each with Tank Destroyers and Mobile Artilleries
Dropship - Destroyed the Gunship

For the "Destroyer" trophy, it's obtaining the 10 Mobile Artillery kills that makes this trophy difficult. Tank Destroyers are just variations of regular tanks and they're still the easiest vehicles in the game to obtain kills in, racking up 10 of them shouldn't be an issue.

The Mobile Artillery trucks are new additions to the game also, and are essentially over-sized Mortars on wheels. Measuring the trajectory and angle of the missiles is a difficult concept to get the hang of, especially when you need to be accurate enough to take out ground troops at certain points on the map, and even though there is a fairly big blast radius, nothing short of a direct hit will earn you a kill. Mobile Artillery trucks aren't very mobile either, and they're alot weaker than any Tank Destroyer in the game too, so they're prone to being destroyed easily, and racking up 10 kills is a bit of a slow burner as a consequence.

The "Dropship" trophy is slightly less frustrating, but does come with it's constraints at the same time. The Gunship is only available in conquest mode, and is assigned to a specific flag for the whole game in which the enemy needs to be in control of in order to spawn the gunship. Even then, the gunship only spawns at sporadic intervals so there are limited windows of opportunity to achieve this trophy, and the fact it will always circle the outer perimeter means you need to be in prime position to take your chances to destroy it.

It's best to sit on the edge of the map at a certain point where the gunship will patrol towards, and because of the fact the gunship always hugs the outer parts of the map and is situated so high up, Stinger lock-on range is ineffective from anywhere else on the map. It takes about 3 hits from a Stinger to destroy it, and you will always have other Jets and Choppers trying to take it down and steal the kill, so you may need some patience fighting for this trophy too.

Armoured Kill isn't the toughest DLC package in Battlefield 3, but it contains a few challenges that will test your skills, and even though a time estimate is difficult to nail down, you can expect anywhere between 5-8 hours as an average timeframe.

DLC #80 - Battlefield 3 - Aftermath

Earthquake!

The Aftermath DLC package adds, yet again, another 5 trophies to the Battlefield 3 list, and focuses them around the new main weapon inclusion, the Crossbow, and the trophies in this package and heavily centred around it.

Most of the trophies are fairly casual, including dipping into the newly added Scavenger game mode and discovering a fun little Easter egg along the way, but the emphasis on the Crossbow is large amongst the new trophies.

Even though the other tasks contained within are relatively straight forward, and shouldn't present too much of a challenge, there is 1 trophy in this list to specifically highlight;

Handyman - Unlocked all xbox parts

This is actually one of the handful of trophies throughout all of the DLC packages that involves completing assignments in order to unlock weapons and their parts.

Assignments are made up of a variation of objectives that need to be fulfilled in order to unlock the blueprint for the relevant weapon/part, and although this is actually one of the easier set of assignments to unlock, there are a few grindy objectives thrown in that will add a bit of a length to this package.

There are 5 assignments in total required to unlock this trophy (1 assignment for the crossbow itself and 4 assignments for parts for it), and some of the objectives involve getting 50 kills with sniper rifles, obtaining a designated vehicle assist and a cumulative total of 450 metres worth of headshots with a variety of weapon types. The tasks aren't as difficult as some other assignments contained within other DLC packages, but they do lump the hours onto the game.

The challenge presented is minimal, but there is a nice little time investment here, and you can expect to unlock all of the trophies within anywhere between 6-10 hours.

DLC #79 - Battlefield 3 - End Game

New toys. New game mode.

The End Game DLC adds 5 trophies to the Battlefield package, and also focuses the extra trophies around the addition of the classic Capture the Flag game mode.

There isn't much here that offers that great of a challenge, at least not in comparison to some of the other DLC packages within the game.

You can unlock 3 of the trophies through achieving a kill using the new vehicles also added into the game, (Motorbike, AA Jeep and Paradrop), and unlike certain vehicles, they're all relatively easy to use, and the fact that you only need to get a solitary kill means you shouldn't find it too tough or time consuming to earn them.

The other trophies, "Capture the Flag", awarded for capturing the flag while playing CTF and "Transport Pilot", awarded for transporting a flag carrier in an air vehicle in CTF, can both be earned naturally playing through a couple of games of Capture the Flag, and even though transporting a flag carrier will require an extent of co-operation, it's much easier to create a squad with a friend/partner and just assist each other in fulfilling the requirements for the trophy, especially if you're struggling with limited co-operation from other players.

End Game is definitely the easiest of the Battlefield DLC packs, and you can earn all 5 trophies in less than a few hours. You might need a bit of patience for the kill-related trophies, which could possibly make it a slightly longer venture, but that's about as far as the overall challenge goes.

DLC #78 - Uncharted 3 : Drake's Deception - Flashback Map Pack 1

Flashback! More Uncharted Multiplayer trophies

Following on in the same trends from the previous Uncharted game, the Uncharted 3 DLC includes a slew of new trophies, exclusively tied to the game's Multiplayer modes.

The quantity of additional trophies on offer has been upped to a grand total of 50 split across 5 packages, with the first pack containing 10 of these trophies.

As a collective bunch, there are a whole host of time consuming and difficult trophies scattered throughout the DLC, and this package is no exception to that.

Half of the 10 trophies merely revolve around accumulating a certain number (mostly 50) of in-game medals whilst playing competitive Multiplayer, and none of these are particularly challenging, even though they might take some time to get through individually. However the challenge of this package lies elsewhere;

And Stay Down! - Win 50 matches of Elimination
Omnipotent - Complete a Co-op Adventure Map on Crushing Difficulty without losing a single life
Statuesque - Get the Curator Medal on Hard Difficulty

The "And Stay Down!" trophy, awarded for winning 50 matches of Elimination, is nothing more than a time-sink, but it can be frustrating if you're not winning matches frequently enough to keep the tally ticking over. Matches generally aren't very lengthy though, which is a bonus, but there is a heavy team reliance on unlocking this trophy, so you might want to get a group of like minded players together for best results.

The "Omnipotent" trophy, awarded for completing a Co-op adventure map on Crushing difficulty without losing a single life, lends the difficulty edge to the package. Crushing difficulty has always been seriously unforgiving in Uncharted games, and this challenge is no exception, with tough enemies and punishing health degeneration. 

Collective team co-operation helps, especially when you need to be open to the possibility of reviving yourself and/or your team-mates often, but caution is the best approach to unlocking this trophy. If you take your time and hang back, it doesn't really matter what happens to your team-mates, as long as you survive until the end, then you'll get the trophy. However, it is important to be aware of how many lives your team is using if they're respawning often, since you only get 15 lives to utilise on Crushing difficulty, and if they're all exhausted, the level is instantly failed and you'll have to restart, which is definitely something to note.

As far as which map to choose, it's difficult to recommend a specific one, they're all tough and contain multiple obstacles that are difficult to negotiate on Crushing difficulty, so it's just a matter of having the right approach and a good set of team-mates.

The "Statuesque" trophy, awarded for getting the Curator medal on Hard difficulty, is no doubt the toughest trophy in this package. The Curator medal requires you to not allow any RPG's to hit the statue on the Monastery Co-op adventure map, and requires a massive amount of team-work and co-ordination to complete. There is actually an identical trophy in one of the other DLC packages, that requires you to earn the medal on Crushing difficulty, and it's much easier to unlock this trophy on Crushing difficulty, since they will stack. It's hard enough doing this once, let alone twice, and since it's not actually necessary to do it twice, there's no point in making it harder than it is.

You will need a good team. There's absolutely no way you can just unlock this trophy naturally, or through a fluke, there are too many influencing factors surrounding it for any of that. The set-piece involves a number of enemies equipped with RPG's attacking from 6 different areas, in 3 waves of 4-6 enemies each time, and where they spawn from is completely random so it's important to have a method that focuses on each person covering every angle to minimise statue damage. It only takes a couple of RPG hits to knock off the statue's health bar, so margin for error is at a bare minimum, and all this time you'll be confronted by ground troops and armoured bosses, so there's alot to keep control over and high skill with flawless teamwork is imperative. 

It's also important to note, the statue section takes place at the very end of the level, meaning if you fail, you'll need to restart the whole thing, and given the fact it takes around 20 minutes to reach that point, it can be seriously frustrating if you end up trying to unlock this trophy multiple times. It's easily one of the toughest bronze (and toughest silver, if you consider the Crushing variant) trophies available in any game and makes the difficulty of this package soar.

Overall, this is a tricky piece of DLC to negotiate. It's very long winded and contains some genuinely hard challenges within. Prepare to grind for medals, especially for the other DLC packages, that contain a plethora of them, and make sure you have some dedicated and highly skilled partners to tackle the Co-op trophies, in-particular the "Statuesque" trophy. 

It's hard to nail down a time estimation, mainly for the reason that I started tackling all of the Uncharted 3 DLC at once, and just happened to complete this package first before any of the others. It isn't a quick list, that's for sure, and the challenge is representative of the other 4 DLC packages in the game, which is long and tough.

DLC #77 - Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale - Fearless

Not so Fearless...

A solitary trophy compliments the only DLC package from Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale, and it's one of the easiest trophies you could possibly wish for.

The single trophy in this package, "Fearless", awarded for performing a Level 3 super with Nariko on Fearless, can be earned within a mere couple of minutes.

All you need to do is follow the exact same method for unlocking most of the similar super stage-specific trophies in the main game list, and loading up practice mode on the Fearless stage with Nariko selected, before dropping in a dummy opponent and just casually rattling off attacks to build up your super bar to level 3.

Complete the action by offloading the super attack, and that's it. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes, and you've officially completed one of the easiest DLC packages in existence.

Platinum #65 - Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 3/10

Just incase the rating didn't give it away, this is one of the easiest trophy lists you can possibly ask for, and despite a total of 56 trophies, which is a generous amount for any full disc game, there aren't many easier lists out there than the one produced here.

Aside from being unusually high in volume, it's also pretty bland and uninspirational too, with a whopping 20 trophies allocated to beating the arcade mode with every single character in the game.

Not only is the arcade mode incredibly easy, it's also very samey from character to character, and even though  you can comfortably beat each arcade run in around 30-45 minutes, it still becomes a bit of a slog when you realise you'll have to do it for every single one of the game's 20 characters, and this alone will collectively take anywhere between 12-15 hours.

You can choose to play through the arcade mode on the highest difficulty, which is Legend, and you will need to at least once for the "Legend" trophy, awarded for completing the arcade mode on legend. Apart from that though, there is no need to speed extra time on something that will already take you around 12 hours as a bare minimum, so it's best just play through on Rookie difficulty and blast through each characters run as quickly as possible.

Another 14 trophies in this list are dedicated to performing character specific level 3 super attacks on certain stages, and where you can, you can unlock these during arcade mode playthroughs. Otherwise, it's just as easy to open up a practice match, drop-in a dummy opponent, and just generate your attack bar to level 3 by freely hitting them, which will take no longer than a minute or so for each character.

Thankfully, there is a bit of a challenge to be had from this list, and it mainly comes from the Multiplayer side of it, which a small collection of trophies that can potentially frustrate your attempts of an easy Platinum trophy.

The "This is Living" trophy, awarded for winning a match-made online game without dying, is by far the stand out trophy in this list, and could potentially take alot of trial and error to unlock. The best way to approach it is through a 2 v 2 match, and not does this reduce the opponent count by 1 by teaming up with someone, there is also a chance you can be teamed up with a good partner whose quality will assist you in unlocking this trophy.

In reality, it's best to just avoid your opponents, because you will more than likely be killed if you try and slog out with your enemies for 3 minutes. This is obviously a difficult balance to keep when you take into account the fact that you will still need to win the match to fulfil the trophy requirements, so a sense of urgency and willingness to jump in often enough is also present. With a good partner aiding you, you will get it eventually, but you might need a good stroke of fortune and a decent enough fighting partner who is prepared to win the match with minimal assistance, and it is, without doubt, the hardest trophy in this entire list.

The "Triple Kill" trophy, awarded for earning a triple kill in a match-made online game, requires you to wipe out 3 opponents with a single super attack, and although not as hard as the "This is Living" trophy, you'll still need be prepared to endure a bit of trial and error to unlock it. You can actually choose a small selection of characters whose level 3 super attack is an automatic triple kill, including Toro, Parappa the Rapper and Spike, which can make this trophy considerably easier. However, it can be tough generating enough attack points to reach level 3 within the short time limit, especially against better/higher levelled players, so you might need to be patient.

Most level 1 and 2 super attacks in the game won't be strong enough to knock out 3 kills at the same time, so it's better to just focus on trying to accumulate enough points for a level 3 super, and even then, the automatic triple kills cannot be countered or reversed by other players, so as soon as you get yourself into a situation where you can earn a level 3 super attack, it's plain sailing from there if you have the right approach beforehand.

The only other trophy that might trouble you in this list, is the "Three For One" trophy, awarded for earning a triple kill with a level 1 super attack. There is alot of trial and error attached to this trophy, mainly because level 1 super attacks are rarely strong enough to knock out 3 opponents at once unless they're all in very close proximity.

With that being said, certain level 1 super attacks are stronger than others, but there is still a massive element of luck to unlocking this trophy regardless. There is a good chance you'll eventually unlock it through the multitude of times you'll have to go through the arcade mode playing against 3 other opponents, but it all depends on situational circumstances and just activating the attack at the right time. There is no real concrete way to unlock it, which will make it frustrating for those that might struggle.

The rest of the trophies in the list relate to dabbling in various game modes and pulling off meagre tasks that will take next to no time to complete, involving the practice mode, combo tutorials and character customisation.

All in all, this is one of the easiest Platinum trophies available in the Playstation library. It's a big list, but there are trophies up for grabs in every direction, and as long as you can stomach slogging through the games very mundane and dull arcade mode 20 times, and manage to knock off the slightly tougher trophies without any relative difficulty, there is a very minimal challenge present.

Even with the slightly tougher trophies, a sub-20 hour time estimation for completion is a very realistic timescale. It could tip over that barrier depending on how much success you have with the harder trophies in the list, but 25 hours should be the absolute maximum for most players, and this still remains one of the easiest lists in the entire Playstation catalogue.

Notable Trophies -

Triple Kill - Earn a triple kill in a match-made online game
Three For One -  Earn a triple kill with a level 1 super attack
This Is Living - Win a match-made online game without dying

Hardest Trophy -

This is Living
Win a match-made online game without dying

Platinum #64 - Hitman : Blood Money

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 5/10

Although this list really isn't dissimilar to the 2 previous titles in the HD trilogy, it is without question the easiest list of the trio, not the mention the lowest in quantity too, with just 25 trophies, including the Platinum trophy.

The "Professional Mode Complete" trophy, awarded for completing professional difficulty, is really no different of a challenge to the previous games. The AI is significantly improved in this title though, and given the fact it makes enemy behaviour easier to predict, it does actually make it a less frustrating experience in comparison to before.

The challenge of Professional mode is roughly the same standard though, but added gameplay mechanics such as a notoriety bar and more intelligent enemy AI can increase the difficulty curve somewhat. Even still, there are only 13 missions in the game and a single run through from start to finish should be no more than a 12 hour experience, though it could be slightly longer if you're trying to achieve many Silent Assassin ratings (which you will need to do at least 5 times, and maybe more for the "High Roller" trophy).

On the subject of Silent Assassin ratings, the "5 Professional Silent Asssassin Ratings" trophy, awarded for achieving 5 Silent Assassin ratings on Professional mode, isn't terribly demanding, and although you will need to be shroud and clever in achieving them, you can afford to pick out the easier levels in the game in order to obtain 5 Silent Assassin ratings. It is important to try and get a Silent Assassin rating on every level though, mainly for reasons attached to other trophies in the game, but some missions can be very tough to get a Silent Assassin rating on, especially on Professional difficulty, where the requirements are heightened in comparison to easier modes.

With 13 missions with a Silent Assassin rating available to them, you do get a nice selection to choose from, just incase you do stumble across the odd mission or two that is too frustrating to beat with a Silent Assassin rank. A stark contrast to the previous game in the trilogy, where you needed to obtain a Silent Assassin rating in every mission in the game.

The "High Roller" trophy, awarded for accumulating $5,000,000, requires you to amass earnings of this total at any one time. Although it isn't clearly stated in the trophy description, you will need to have this amount of money on hand at any one time, and is not just a general cumulative total across the game.

This is important to note for a few reasons; First, and more importantly, the fact that earnings from replaying missions will decrease drastically after the first time you've beaten them, and although you can go back into missions and beat them again for additional funds, you only earn a fraction of what you earn first time round (which can easily be almost $900,000 if you nail the mission perfectly). If you get yourself into this situation, be prepared for a bit of a grind.

Secondly, even though the temptation to upgrade weapons and equipment is strong (especially given the fact there are a selection of trophies awarded for fully upgrading various weapons), it's better for the interests of unlocking this trophy to hold back until you hit $5,000,000. You shouldn't need to upgrade your weapons at all, especially if you're going for Silent Assassin ratings, and spending money on upgrades will only take you further away from the milestone you need to achieve. It makes much more sense to accumulate $5,000,000 first, and then spend all of it at once on upgrading your weapons, and if you follow this method, things will be much easier.

It is also important to point out that higher difficulty levels will pay out more money, and there are other ways to additional bonuses within missions, including successful hits on extra targets, achieving a better overall mission rating and damage/noise control. You can also be deducted funds for certain actions, such as leaving customised weapons behind in levels, failing to retrieve you suit and causing too much mayhem, so there are a variety of things that can impact your overall payout too.

The "All Firearms Collected" trophy, awarded for collecting all firearms displayed in the hideout, holds exactly the same principles as before, with a series of guns to collect by carrying them out of levels successfully. 

However, where this previously would have been considered one of the tougher trophies in other titles, it is made much easier by the addition of ICA boxes. These boxes, which can be found in every level, allow you to place weapons inside of them, and finish missions without having to worry about extracting them and being caught in the process. Not only is this ideal for larger, non-concealable weapons, which are usually notoriously hard to smuggle out of levels, but you can store as many weapons as you want inside them, meaning you can bag up to 5 weapons in one swoop for your hideout when you extract from a level.

The ICA box negates the need to constantly go into levels extracting weapons one by one, especially in the case of non-concealable weapons, which can also blow your cover and fail the mission for you. It saves a tremendous amount of time, and is a much more efficient and hassle free way to collect all the firearms you need to unlock the trophy.

The other trophies in this list are mostly just progression based, or stackable on top of anything relating to Professional Mode, and there really isn't much you can't unlock by just playing through the game naturally.

Professional Mode isn't terribly difficult, despite the heightened AI intelligence in comparison to previous games, but achieving Silent Assassin ratings will require a pinch of extra skill and awareness, though the fact you only need to achieve 5 of them across the games 13 missions does quell the overall challenge somewhat. There are a number of things to watch out for when accumulating $5,000,000 dollars, but collecting all the firearms is made so much more easier by the addition of ICA boxes, it's only really worth mentioning at all because of how easier it is in comparison to collecting weapons in the previous 2 games.

On top of this, the game itself is relatively short, and even any additional clean up afterwards shouldn't take much longer, and a 20-25 hour completion time is a modest estimate.

Notable Trophies -

Professional mode complete - Completed Professional difficulty 
5 Professional Silent Assassins - 5 Silent Assassin ratings awarded on the Professional difficulty
High Roller - $5,000,000 have been accumulated
All firearms collected - All firearms collected and displayed in Hideout

Hardest Trophy -

Professional Mode Complete
Completed Professional Difficulty

Platinum #63 - Battlefield 3

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 8/10

Despite being an average sized list, Battlefield 3 is also one that packs a solid challenge, and a dedicated time commitment towards the Platinum trophy.

The list is distinctly split into the 3 main areas of the game, including the Single Player campaign, Co-op and Multiplayer game modes, with the challenge adequately stretched across all 3.

In regards to the Single Player campaign, the "Semper Fidelis" trophy, awarded for completing the Campaign story on Hard, requires you to beat the game on it's toughest difficulty, and although it doesn't match up to anything near the Veteran challenge of Call of Duty games, it can be tough in sporadic intervals.

However, unlike in Battlefield : Bad Company 2, where you could use a blatant short-cut to completing the game on Hard, you'll need to play through from start to finish on Hard difficulty in order to unlock the trophy this time round, which instantly makes it more challenging.

Despite this, even with the difficulty spikes accounted for, the campaign is still relatively short, clocking in at around 8 hours to beat all 13 missions throughout. There aren't so many progression based trophies this time round though, and the collectibles are completely absent from the list altogether, but there are an abundance of chapter specific trophies to unlock, and although most of them are easy enough, especially with the luxury of chapter select at your disposal, there are a few that do add a challenging edge to the game;

The "You can be my Wingman anytime" trophy, awarded for completing "Going Hunting" in a perfect run, requires you to beat the mission without a single mistake throughout, and even when following a visual guide, this is still a tricky task to execute correctly, and you'll need at least a handful of tries to perfect the run with quick reactions and spacial awareness of the other fighter jets you need to destroy and avoid. There's also a frustrating 5 minute cutscene you need to comply with at the beginning of the level that cannot be skipped too, which is hard to sit through every single time you restart the mission from scratch.

Futhermore, the "Butterfly" trophy, awarded for taking down the jet in one attempt in "Rock and a Hard Place", despite being very self explanatory, is also far from straight forward. It's widely reported as glitched, and after spending the best part of 6-7 hours alone trying to unlock this trophy using various methods and potential workarounds, I can 100% attest to those claims. I still have no idea what was done differently on the run that it eventually unlocked it, but after executing every potential workaround suggested, it made this trophy difficult for all the wrong reasons.

The worst part about this trophy is the fact that the instance where the jet appears occurs right at the end of the level, which takes about 15-20 minutes to run through, so the constant refusal for the trophy to appear, leading to the long-winded re-runs, just make this trophy a frustrating, and overly lengthy, venture of trial and error.

The Co-op portion of the game offers up more of the same thing, though in a much lesser quantity to the Single Player part of the list.

The "Army of Two" trophy, awarded for completing all co-op missions on hard, requires you to beat all 6 missions on the toughest difficulty again, and although a few might have some tricky situations attached, if you can get a good partner, you should be able to breeze through them with no issues. Co-ordination skills are definitely necessary though, and whilst all 6 missions are doable with a random partner, it will make the experience less tolerable and more challenging, so you should grab a like minded partner at the first available opportunity.

You can easily beat all 6 missions in the co-op story within 3-4 hours, though this will depend heavily on the strength of your partner, but under the assumption you can go through each mission with someone with the same goal as you, 3-4 hours is a reasonable estimate, even on hard difficulty.

Continuing the theme, there are also chapter specific trophies to slog through here too, but the "Bullseye" trophy, awarded for saving the hostages without alerting any enemies in "Drop 'Em like Liquid", is by far the stand out one, and turns out to be one of the harder trophies in the entire list.

The level requires a perfect run of executing a high volume of targets without being spotted or alerting any other enemies in the process, and perfect co-ordination and timing are needed for best results. I'd almost go as far to say that a headset is a necessity, and without an instant form of communication, it makes it extremely difficult to communicate effectively enough to fulfil the requirements of the trophy.

You can't even afford to take your time in most areas, because the squad you need to protect will always be on the move, so you need to adapt to situations quickly and eliminate threats on a regular basis, which just emphasises the importance of instant communication when going for this trophy. You should be prepared to attempt this multiple times, but persistence is key and practice will definitely pay off, you just need to be willing to stick with it.

The Multiplayer portion of the game is where this list throws out the biggest challenge.

The "Colonel" trophy, awarded for achieving Rank 45, is a standard levelling fare, but hitting the rank of Colonel requires 1,875,000 experience points, which is a hell of a slog. It will take anywhere between 50-60 hours, typically, for most people, but actually took me just over 62 hours. The game will throw experience points at you for everything, and it's always important to work towards medals, which, despite often requiring a heavy accumulation of ribbons (usually for every 50 of each one), award a healthy 10,000 experience points per medal, which is always a welcome boost given the fact you'll need to accumulate almost 2 million points in total.

On a good game, you can easily accumulate anywhere between 15-20000 experience points, and with the additonal bonuses and ribbons on top, this can easily exceed 30000, but that would be during a game with maximum tickets, which roughly last around an hour and a half, so you'll definitely be in for the long haul, and this trophy alone ends up equating to around 3/4 of the overall completion time.

The " Decorated" trophy, awarded for receiving one of each ribbon in the game, requires you to unlock all 46 ribbons on at least 1 occasion, and although the vast majority of these ribbons are actually quite straight forward, there are a small handful that are much tougher and will require more than just natural play.

The ribbons in question mostly relate to kills through land and air vehicles, and the best way to unlock them is to just jump into big map games with maximum tickets, in order to give yourself plenty of time to rack up enough kills for each ribbon. Tank kills, transport kills, stationary weapon kills and especially air kills are the stand-out ribbons in the collection, and even though it might take a bit of time and patience, the longest games should give you enough time to work through them and rack up enough kills from each to unlock the ribbon. You'll need extra support for the air kills though, simply for the reason that jets planes and helicopters will practically require a real life piloting license to understand the controls and mechanics properly.

All in all, the challenge in this list is definitely ramped up from the previous title in the series, with an equal measure of challenging trophies and a hefty time consumption on top. 

The hardest difficulties in both the Single player and Co-op portions of the game aren't the most difficult you'll come across by any stretch, but they still offer some tough individual trophies catered to specific chapters, and you'll need to plump about 20-25 hours into fully beating both modes.

The Multiplayer is where the game's true difficulty shines through, with a levelling grind totalling upward of 50-60 hours, and collecting every ribbon, not to mention trophies awarded for specific leaderboard finishes which will require you to finish 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the entire lobby. It amounts to a challenging experience, with almost 100 hours needed to grab the Platinum trophy. Solid.

Notable Trophies -

Semper Fidelis - Complete the campaign on Hard
 You can be my wingman anytime - Completed Going Hunting in a perfect run
Took down the jet in one attempt in Rock And A Hard Place
Army of Two - Completed all co-op missions on Hard
Bullseye - Saved the hostages without alerting any enemies in Drop 'em Like Liquid
 Colenel - Rank 45 achieved!
Decorated- Recieved one of each ribbon in the game

  Hardest Trophy - 

Colonel 
Rank 45 achieved!

Platinum #62 - Grid 2

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 4/10

The brainchild of PS3trophies.org, in the form of 51 trophies split across both the Single Player and Multiplayer components of the game, proves to be one of the easiest racing games available in the entire Playstation 3 catalogue.

The Single Player part of this list focuses mostly upon on the WSR, which is a standard progression through the ranks career mode, with a vast amount of trophies awarded solely through progressing in the 5 seasons of the WSR, and culminating in "The World's Greatest", awarded for becoming the Ultimate WSR Champion.

You can decide to play through the WSR on whatever difficulty mode you so choose, and without any influence or implications on unlocking the trophies within this list for sticking to a certain difficulty, or indeed altering it at any point, it makes the Single Player portion of this list an absolute breeze to get through.

If you are inclined to go for a steeper challenge, and play through the game on hard/very hard difficulty, then you can get a solid enough test out of this list, and in reality, it is pretty much the only genuine challenge you can extract from this list on the whole, and makes it the most difficult trophy in the game, if that's the way you choose to approach the list.

With that being said, the "You rOCDed!" trophy, awarded for finishing first in every career event, will require you to achieve a first place finish in the 50+ events within the whole 5 WSR seasons, which may require some repetition as you clean up at the end game, and definitely will take a significant amount of time too.

Aside from the regular series events, you'll also need to beat the promotional events, which increases the event total by an additional 20 or so, which is where most of the longevity of the WSR comes from, especially when you consider that the promotional events in some instances are endurance races, which are naturally the longer events in the game.

You can expect to nail everything in the career within around 20-25 hours, but this will depend on how many events you have to go back and replay, and what difficulty you opt to play through the WSR on. A bottom end estimate could see you beat every single event in first place within 15 hours, whereas slogging through everything on the higher difficulties will at least double that time frame and quite possibly take you beyond if you're willing to stick it out without adjusting the difficulty for the sake of saving time.

The only other noteworthy trophy from the Single Player side is the "Gone in 60 Seconds" trophy, awarded for completing a lap of Chicago - Wabash Run driving the Ford Mustang Mach 1 in less than 60 seconds, which is 1 of the few trophies in the whole list that actually requires a solid element of skill to achieve. You'll need a flawless run to get round the track in 60 seconds, and it will require multiple attempts before you perfect and nail the run.

The rest of the trophies are awarded for meagre tasks and reaching specific milestones and targets that you will knock out throughout the career mode, and even though some of the trophies will require you to set up specific events and go out of your way to unlock, there is nothing that won't take more than a couple of attempts at the very maximum.

The Multiplayer side of this list follows the same sort of patterns in terms of challenge and difficulty, but only contributes to a fraction of the overall list.

The "Global Domination" trophy, awarded for winning a week of global challenge, requires you to beat a friend over a collective set amount of events where points are awarded for bettering your friends score. When the week is up, if you have the highest amount of points across all events, you'll unlock the trophy, which can be tricky, especially if the people you're up against are decent at the game. It's also time limited, meaning if you miss it one week, then you'll have to wait an entire week for another to chance to unlock it, which can accumulate heavily.

You will also need to win a few races too, which can be tough given the general smash happy elements of online Multiplayer racing games, but the levelling based trophy, "Dipping your Toes", awarded for reaching level 10 online, is just a matter of a couple hours at the very most, and one of the easiest levelling trophies in any game.

In reality, practically the whole rating of this list comes simply from the personal choice to play through the WSR on the harder difficulties, and if you so choose to just cruise through this list on the lesser difficulties, it becomes one of the easiest Platinum trophies available in the entire Playstation collection. The challenge becomes so minimal, it just turns into procedure as you go through the WSR knocking out events, earning first place finishes and unlocking most of the trophies along the way.

The Multiplayer trophies don't excel the challenge any further, and the truth of the matter is, the only real challenge to be had from this list is if you make the choice of tackling the game on the harder difficulties, but that will always be a choice and nothing more.

In terms of a timescale, anywhere between 20-30 hours is a realistic estimation, even when playing on the harder difficulties and increasing the challenge. The main focus will be the WSR within the Single Player portion, which will eat up the majority of this time, especially when you take into the account that the Multiplayer part will only contribute a couple of hours towards the overall completion time.

Just a final word on the list from a personal perspective, given the fact I am closely associated to the creators of the list (PS3trophies.org). I personally wouldn't have minded a more challenging Platinum, and it's a bit of a shame that it's left down to the player to create the challenge for themselves, but can you really expect anything else from a website dedicated to obtaining trophies? Some of the trophy ideas are quite fresh and there are a couple of funny references thrown in, but that's the best thing I can say about it because I generally prefer a challenge in my trophy lists. Maybe next time...

Notable Trophies -

The World's Greatest - Congratulations, you have become the Ultimate WSR champion. What an Investment!You rOCDed! - You finished first in every career event, during season play and/or via the timeline
Gone in 60 Seconds - You completed a lap of Chicago - Wabash Run driving the Ford Mustang Mach 1 in less than 60 seconds
Global Domination - You won a week of Global Challenge

Hardest Trophy -

The World's Greatest
Congratulations, you have become the Ultimate WSR champion. What an Investment!