DLC #55 - Modern Warfare 3 Content Collection 3

Destroy a Battleship in "Arctic Recon"

The latest Modern Warfare 3 Content Collection ups the ante, with 14 new trophies on offer, spread across the 4 new Spec Ops missions within the DLC.

The trophies are typical of the other collections that have gone before, all of them awarded for beating the missions on Any/Veteran difficulty, and then a small clutch of mission specific tasks to perform on top.

As always seems to be the case with Call of Duty, beating the missions on veteran are mostly just all about persistence, but the trophies attached to the Arctic Recon and Vertigo missions were surprisingly difficult, with both of them requiring multiple tries and a dosage of hard patience to finally beat.

Both of these missions also contained the hardest mission specific trophies too;

dr0n3d - Complete the "Arctic Recon" Special Ops mission in under 3:30
To Jugger or to Jugger-naut - Kill all Juggernauts after they land on Veteran difficulty in the "Vertigo" Special Ops mission

Beating the Arctic Recon mission in under 3:30 is a tight squeeze and requires a very precise speed-run to finish within the limits, even when playing on recruit difficulty. There's a slightly frustrating 10 second window at the end of the mission where the clock just runs down as you watch the escape cutscene, so ideally, you're technically looking at boarding the helicopter at around 3:20, to allow for the 10 second gap between boarding and the actual end of the mission. Definitely something to be aware of, since you'll need a near flawless run.

The only thing that really makes the "To Jugger or to Jugger-naut" trophy difficult is the fact you have to fulfil the requirements of the trophy on veteran difficulty. It makes the 3 juggernauts harder to take down, along with the multiple waves of enemies who show up in between. Thankfully, there are a bunch of handy weapons lying around that can dispatch juggernauts handily, but you'll always need to be wary about the fact you're playing on veteran and how quickly you can die.

In contrast, all of the trophies related to the Special Delivery and Light 'Em Up missions are incredibly easy, and even running through on veteran should take no more than a couple of attempts for each. The real challenge of the collection comes within the earlier part of it, but once you overcome those first few missions, the rest is easy, and you're still only really looking at around 3-5 hours in regards to completion time for all trophies in the package.

Platinum #44 - Call Of Duty : Modern Warfare 3

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 5/10

We're at a stage now where you could call this a pretty typical Call of Duty trophy list.

The majority of the games trophies are catered to the single player campaign, with a large allocation relating to the progression within the campaign mode.

Aside from beating every mission in the game on any difficulty level, you also get the usual designation of trophies related to beating the missions on veteran difficulty, which is consequently one of the easiest veteran runs in any Call of Duty game to date.

The rest of the trophies are awarded for completing some incredibly simple chapter specific tasks, and, as ever, there are also 46 intel items to collect (Though there is no way to actually know from the chapter select menu which intel items you're missing, which is a little bit annoying).

Even though you can quite easily achieve every single player trophy in around 12 hours, this is still a relatively lengthy list courtesy of the new Survival multiplayer mode.

The "Unstoppable" trophy, which requires you to reach wave 15 in each mission of Survival mode, is nothing more than a slog, and it's also worth noting that you'll also need to reach level 50 in order to unlock every piece of equipment for the "Arms Dealer" trophy, which requires you to buy all weapons from the Survival weapons armoury. Another pretty big slog in itself, and definitely fulfils the grindy element of the Platinum.

The Special Ops missions also carry a sleight weighting of trophies, and even though there are only 3 attached to this mode, you do still need to achieve the maximum 48 stars for the "Overachiever" trophy. Some of the missions can be fairly challenging, but you'll most likely breeze through the rest, especially with a good co-op partner at your disposal.

All in all, despite the grindy elements of the Survival mode, this is possibly the easiest Call of Duty Platinum yet. The single player "Veteran" mode is anything but, and despite a few tough missions, the Special Ops mode is just as easy. The only real degree of challenge presented comes exclusively from the grindy nature of the Survival missions.

Notable Trophies -

The Best of the Best - Complete the campaign on Hardened of Veteran difficulty
Unstoppable - Reach Wave 15 in each misson of Special Ops Survival mode
Arms Dealer - Buy all items from the Survival Weapon Armoury

Hardest Trophy -

Arms Dealer 
Buy all items from the Survival Weapon Armoury




Note: The trophy itself isn't challenging in the slightest, but you'll need to hit level 50 in Spec Ops/Survival missions in order to unlock the last weapon required to qualify for the requirements of the trophy.

DLC #54 - FIFA 12 - UEFA Euro 2012

The Euro 2012 DLC adds 10 trophies, with a variety of tasks that will require you to invest a huge amount of time if you want to unlock all of them and maintain the 100% look.

Keeping with the core theme of the DLC, there are  a couple trophies attached to winning the Euro 2012 tournament. However, you will need to do this a series of times, including online, with a friend (or a secondary controller if you wish) and regularly in single player, each with their own respective trophy in the list.

Winning the tournament online for the "Glory Moment" trophy might prove to be tough, given the fact you'll need a decent level of consistency against human opponents in order to reach and win the final. There are 3 group stage matches and then 3 straight knock out matches, so you'll most likely need to win 5 out of 6 games (Definitely 4, maybe 5), in order to unlock that particularly trophy. Tough.

There is also a trophy ("Make it Happen") for succeeding in a challenge, which as of the time of writing, is actually unachievable, due to the fact newly updated challenges were halted shortly after Euro 2012 actually finished, in reality, at the end of July. This also actually affects the "My Euro 2012" trophy, awarded for winning a match in every game mode in the DLC, which also encompasses challenges and therefore, if you haven't finished a challenge, this trophy will also become unachievable. 

There is no guarantee the challenges will ever be rolled out again. It is highly unlikely given the fact the real life tournament has long been concluded, and when you couple that with the imminent release of FIFA 13 at the end of the month, you can bet on these remaining unachievable for good, which is a shame for anybody that hasn't managed to unlock them yet.

Regardless, the bulk of the massive time investment from this DLC comes from the Expedition mode, and more specifically one trophy;

 


Collector - Collect all Mosaic pieces in Expedition.





There are 180 mosaic pieces to collect in total, and 159 of them are awarded for beating each team in the DLC 3 times. You collect the rest of them at certain milestones, which also consequently award trophies related to beating all the teams in any group, and beating all 53 teams at least once.

There are no two ways about it, it will turn into a massive grind, mainly because of the fact you're forced to play all these matches against the incredibly boring computer AI, and have to suffer the 1-dimensional side of the game known as the single player mode. In all fairness, I did actually enjoy the mode, considering I almost died a little bit inside when I found out you'd have to beat the computer in 159 matches (and the many more I lost trying to stubbornly win on Legendary difficulty).

The Ultimate Team-esque way of building an ever stronger squad is what kept me going I think (aside the motivation of the trophy, of course), but there is no doubting you'll be slogging through it right to the end if you want that final mosaic piece that'll grant the "Collector" trophy though. For the benefit of those who can't stomach the challenge, this is what the final piece looks like;

Apart from that, the other trophies tied to Expedition are simply awarded on your way to collecting every mosaic piece, so as long as you're striving for all 180 pieces, you'll unlock those too. 

Like salt in the wound though, you'll actually need to carry on your Expedition a little bit longer due to the "National Pride" trophy, which is awarded for winning a match in Expedition mode with 11 players from the same country. This just means you'll have to pick a team, beat them 11 times, fill out your squad with those 11 players, and then win another match, just incase it wasn't grindy enough for you...

All in all, the experience easily borders on 100 hours, and the Expedition mode is one of the biggest and most challenging slogs in any DLC I've played to date. The element of skill required is  minimal, though winning Euro 2012 online does add a slight difficulty edge to the package, but this is just mostly about how much time you're prepared to invest in it to unlock all the trophies.