DLC #125 - Grid Autosport - Drag Pack

This package introduces Drag racing to the Grid Autosport experience, adding 3 new drag cars, 3 new drag strips and a series of 9 new drag events to complete, along with 3 additional trophies to unlock.

Out of the 9 new drag events included as part of this DLC, 7 of them are individual events, and 2 of them are new Championships, including the Hotrod World Championship and the Funny Car World Championship, both of which will award 2 of the 3 trophies upon completion.

Unlike within the main game, where you had to progress towards the upper tier Championships, all 9 of these new events are instantly available from the off, and the 7 individual events do not act as prerequisites to the 2 Championships, so you can completely bypass these preliminaries and jump straight into the main event.

Each of the 2 Championships consist of 3 events, composed of 4 rounds each, following the exact same format of drift events. There is a qualifying round, in order to narrow down the field from 16 to 8, followed by 3 subsequent knockout rounds, where you compete on a head to head basis against another driver through a Quarter, Semi and Final. Points are awarded for higher placement, and you'll win the Championship, unlocking the relevant trophy in the process, for earning the most amount of points across the 3 events.

Even if you're not familiar with the concept of Drag racing, it doesn't take too long to understand how it works, and more importantly, how to get the hang of it and start posting some good finishing times. You literally just have to drive in a straight line from point to point as fast as possible, and whilst there are more dynamic game mechanics to it than that, such as gear shifting and timing the jump start, it is really as simple of a principle as it sounds.

The Funny Car Championship is slightly more challenging than that Hotrod Championship, which is noted by the fact the former will award a Gold trophy compared to the latter's Silver, but I still managed to obtain full completion of this package within the space of 2 hours. I even left the difficulty setting as Hard, carrying on from where I left off from with the main game. The final trophy just merely requires you to beat an opponent who had a better "pass" time, with a better "reaction" time, which you'll get along the way towards winning both of the new Championships.

DLC #124 - Angry Birds Trilogy - Fowl Tempered

I mentioned previously, during my review of the Anger Management DLC, that I never wanted to see any Angry Birds content ever again, and with the full completion of this package, I am very much official on that stance.

I also said my feelings towards it were a bit tongue in cheek, which is also still the case, but after having to come back yet again, and experience some of my bigger nuances of this game which have made me feel a touch of resent towards it, I am secretly glad it's over.

This package adds a total of 5 new episodes to play through, which is 1 short of what was offered within Anger Management, but similarly spans across multiple different themes, including Halloween, Back to School and Christmas. The total number of levels contained within is 135, which is 5 more than Anger Management, but in reality, this is just more of what you already know about Angry Birds.

There are 10 new trophies in total, spanning across the 5 new episodes, of which half of these are awarded for completing each one, but you know the drill by now, and if you want to obtain full completion, you'll need to go the extra mile for it;

Star-Amplifier - Get 3 stars in every single level of Fowl Tempered.

The "Star-Amplifier" trophy, awarded for Getting 3 stars in every single level of Fowl Tempered, is par for the course at this point, having already achieved this feat for every single level in the main list, and every single level within the Anger Management list.

In all fairness, there isn't much that can be said for this trophy that hasn't already been mentioned within the Anger Management DLC.

The list of nuances is exactly the same as previously witnessed. You'll feel like you're hitting a consistent rhythm of managing to 3 star levels with regular consistency, and you'll suddenly hit that showstopper in the form of a particular level which you'll spend hours on trying to achieve that 3 star rating. It's this sort of painstaking brick wall feeling that has gotten to a point of inevitability that has made me glad to finally complete this entire game. It's even more frustrating that the pick up and play nature gives it all an undertone of addictive feeling at the same time. It did bring sessions to a grinding halt on a few occasions, where I just simply had to come back to the game another day before I lost my head over it, but it is still as sweet of a feeling as ever to finally overcome the levels you just simply cannot seem to beat.

Again, as with the Anger Management pack, once you've beaten all 135 levels to a 3 star rating, and achieved the above trophy, you'll have to go back through them with the Mighty Eagle, which, on the whole is an easier journey, but still sees you fall victim to the odd level that just makes you sit there replaying it over and over again in cyclical vein.

Again, a time estimation is difficult to nail down, purely because it'll depend on the levels of fluency you manage to achieve, and the extent to how often you hit those particular levels that take hours to get through on their own. As an average, a fair estimate would be 20-30 hours, but that's purely based upon guidance of the Anger Management pack, which roughly had the same amount of levels and trophy requirements, as both lists are virtually identical.

When you combine everything through from the main list and 2 DLC packs, there are over 1000 levels to get through in order to 100% this title, along with a Mighty Eagle run for every single one of them on top. Over 2000 individual levels, a large handful of which I would of played over and over attempting to clear them. It has been some journey, and there's no doubt that Angry Birds is frustrating, but is so in it's own charming way. 

However, after a main game (which I had to finish twice because of a Platinum-busting glitch), and 2 DLC packs, I'm ready to say farewell to it for good. With the greatest respect intended, to what is a uniquely annoying, yet addictive, game, I will never launch an Angry Bird from a catapult ever again. This is certainly a 100% to be proud of though.

Platinum #92 - Battlefield 1

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 3/10

Battlefield titles haven't exactly always been the most challenging to beat, but Battlefield 1 lowers the bar to the shortest standard yet, with the easiest Platinum trophy of the Battlefield series to date.

This list, coming in relatively small at just 32 trophies, is split between both Single Player and Multiplayer, combining to make what is one of the easiest Platinum trophies to ever make it into my collection.

The Single Player portion of this list focuses on the Campaign mode, which is a fairly original concept called "War Stories". Rather than include a normal story, with a defined beginning, middle and end, like pretty much every war game in existence does, the Battlefield 1 Campaign is broken down into 5 individual short stories, told from the perspective of 5 different characters.

Each of these stories focuses on specific aspects of the game, from "Through Mud and Blood", which focuses on Daniel Edwards, a Mark V Landship crew member, whose missions will demonstrate tank warfare, and "Friends in High Places", which focuses on Clyde Blackburn, an American pilot, whose mission will showcase air-based combat.

There are other gameplay mechanics demonstrated elsewhere, but the War Stories are an interesting and original approach for the Single Player aspect of a genre that doesn't tend to stray too far from a more standardised blueprint for Campaign offerings.

Around two third's of this whole list is dedicated towards the War Stories.

The "War to End All Wars" trophy, awarded for Completing the campaign on Hard difficulty, will require you to complete all 5 War Stories on the toughest challenge possible. Each War Story contains anywhere between 2-4 missions within, and they all individually vary on length, combining to around 6-8 hours for full completion.

You'll also be awarded an individual trophy upon completing each of the 5 War Stories, which adds a nice flow along the way. However, Hard difficulty really isn't that hard at all, and it's a very casual experience which makes this Platinum very accessible, and one of the reasons why it's such a low scorer. 

The "Master of adaptation" trophy, awarded for Completing all challenges in the campaign, is where this list starts to earn some difficulty points, albeit to a somewhat lesser extent.

Throughout the War Stories, each individual mission will contain a series of different challenges contained within, indicated via a blank codex entry on the pause menu from within the mission. They are effectively assignments which have been a staple part of Battlefield games for a long time, and often form the basis for trophies within both core game and DLC lists. There are a total of 53 codex entries to unlock, which equates to 53 challenges, which, upon full completion will award the above trophy.

It is important to note, out of these 53 challenges, there are 5 codex entries awarded for completing the final mission within any given War Story, making these automatic, and a further 13 codex entries awarded for collecting all of the field manuals in specifically chosen missions. The field manuals are just a standard collectible activity, and there are usually, but not in every instance, 5 to collect per mission, and you can take the exact approach I did and just bypass combat to the location of the field manuals and pick them up in one fell swoop, which makes them nothing more than a slight sidetrack activity. You are also awarded a trophy for both collecting all fields manuals for any of the 5 given War Stories, and for a full collection.

They vary drastically in difficulty. Some are so easy to the point where you could unlock them naturally, but there are a small handful that can be trickier, and will certainly require multiple attempts to unlock. These are usually the codex entries unlocked by completing certain sections of missions without being detected by enemies (of which there are about 3/4), and therefore focus on the stealth elements of the game, which can be naturally lengthy anyway because you need to be extra cautious, and when you're detected, you'll have to reset and go back to the start, which can be frustrating. These difficulties do also extend into other challenges, such as those that involve air-based combat and some of the tank-based missions too. The "Total War" and "Forte Et Fidele" missions from within the "Friends in High Places" story, as well as "Over the Top" from within "Through Mud and Blood" are the standout missions which contain some of the more challenging codex entry challenges.

They're not make or break by any means of the imagination, but they will stretch the overall completion time of the list, and you'll need a bit of practice to get by and unlock some of these codex entries, so it isn't always completely plain sailing.

This is pretty much where the list peaks, even before we even get onto the Multiplayer portion of the game, which contains 10 trophies, and makes up the final third of this entire list. None of these trophies will encourage you to explore anything other than the surface of the whole Multiplayer experience, despite 4 of these 10 trophies attributed to this area of the game being Gold trophies.

This may initially lead you to believe you're in for a tough journey, but they're all complete throwaways, and not just the 4 Gold trophies. Every single trophy within the Multiplayer part of this list is a giveaway. If you're the sort of player who's purely into grabbing those high value trophies, for lowest amount of effort possible, then this one's for you. The 4 Gold trophies require you to simply level up each of the 4 different solider classes (Medic, Scout, Assault, Support) once. Just once. This will take a few hours maximum per class, so combined, it's still an additional 6-8 hours on top, but in comparison to other games that may feature trophies for Multiplayer leveling ventures, it's a little bit too easy, and proves to be a bit devoid of ideas.

In previous Battlefield titles, the Multiplayer portion of the list has usually been where the games difficulty tends to shine through. That was certainly the case in Battlefield : Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3 at least, but here, with every online trophy accounted for collectively, you'll barely hit 10 hours to earn all of them, which also emphasises the ease of the rest of the list outside the 6-8 hours you'll need to dedicate to reaching level 2 with each of the Multiplayer classes. There's no point going into any detail for the rest individually, because there honestly isn't anything else to say. If you focus on reaching rank 2 for each class, the rest will follow along the way.

The whole list is a bit of a damp squib, to be perfectly honest. It'll suit some people but I personally feel the bigger titles should always carry a greater challenge with them when it comes to trophies, but it isn't always to be.

The Single Player portion does at least slightly elevate this challenge, which is just as well, because without the in-level challenges, we'd be looking at something lower than a 3/10, which would be a first for the collection. You'll need to beat each of the 5 War Stories on Hard difficulty, and this is unlocked from the outset, so there isn't a prerequisite to beat them once on a lower difficulty beforehand, so you're free to tackle these on Hard from the get go, which I would encourage. There is a decent amount of replay value, as you'll have to trawl back through individual missions gathering any missed collectibles and also tick off the vast amount of challenges, so I would recommend any strategy that minimises repetition, and Hard difficulty won't give even the most casual player many problems.

With around 6-8 hours to beat the War Stories once over, I would allow for around double this amount of time to go back over everything else which you may have missed. This will include collectibles and challenges, but a time that will also vary depending on the extent of tidy up required. It just happened to be around a 15 hour experience for me when it was all wrapped up.

The Multiplayer portion is somewhere in the region of an additional 10 hours for everything attached to this mode, which makes the collective package a 25-30 hour experience, which sounds about right to me. It's a shame the Multiplayer trophies didn't have more conviction put into them, as I personally believe Battlefield is still one of the best Multiplayer games on the market, though there has been a slew of DLC which has generously plied the game with some trophies, so the poor showing in the main list has been somewhat offset.

There's no doubt that this is the easiest Battlefield title to date, with a Single Player component that seldom offers a genuine challenge, and a Multiplayer portion that does even less than that, literally giving away trophies for minimal effort. Combined, it fully justifies the low score, and makes Battlefield 1 just the 7th title to receive a 3/10 in my collection.

Notable Trophies -

The War to End All Wars - Complete the campaign on Hard difficulty
Master of adaptation - Complete all challenges in the campaign

Hardest Trophy -

Master of adaptation
Complete all challenges in the campaign

Platinum #91 - GRID Autosport

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 9/10

On the recent subject of completions that have been a long time coming, the Uncharted 3 DLC seamlessly brings us into GRID Autosport.

When you consider the fact that I unlocked my first trophy in this list in June 2014, it'll be just over 5 years since I started this journey, and whilst the main reason for this has been due to breaks from the game, this is still a seriously challenging set of trophies.

The list of 51 trophies is mostly split into 2 areas of the game. These include the Single Player, which focuses on the Career mode, and the competitive Multiplayer, which contains one of the longest online leveling grinds I've ever encountered.

There are also a small collection of miscellaneous trophies attached to other game modes, such as custom cups and split-screen, but these are nowhere near considered to be a main focus.

The "I've got what Rick Scott's got" trophy, awarded for Winning each discipline's most prestigious driver's championship for Ravenwest, is exactly what you'll work towards throughout the main Career, which contains a series of events spread across 5 racing disciplines. These include Touring Cars, Endurance, Open Wheel, Tuner and Street racing, and this trophy is effectively split into 2 parts.

Firstly, you'll need to win the final event within each of these 5 disciplines, through completing a series of smaller events, and gradually working your way up towards the top event. It's a pretty standard progression model for racing games, and even though you won't need to beat all of the events in each discipline to unlock the highest one, some of these Championships can contain a lot of events, and the final event in each discipline branch always has 10 events, which will easily take a couple of hours each to complete alone.

Secondly, the only way to unlock a contract for the Ravenwest team, is to beat the top event for the first time with any other team. This means you'll have to win the top event for all 5 disciplines twice in order to fully beat the Career mode and unlock this trophy. It's a little bit of a cheap way to add longevity onto the game, but the trophy specifically requires you to beat the top event, so you'll have to repeat the longest Championship in every discipline twice if you want the Platinum, so be prepared for a long journey.

The "A True Legend" trophy, awarded for Winning the "GRID Legends Series", is also another aspect of the Career mode which adds longevity to the game. As you complete more Championships within each discipline, you will obtain experience points for that discipline. Once you hit level 3 in each of these disciplines, you'll unlock the first GRID series to compete in (Grand Slam). You will also subsequently unlock the Masters series at level 6 for each discipline, and eventually, the Legends Series at level 10 for each discipline. You'll also need to win the previous GRID Series Championship in order to unlock the next one, meaning you'll need to win each of these Championships along the way.

Level 10 might not seem like much, but this amasses to 1 Million experience, and you'll unlock an individual trophy for reaching this milestone for each of the 5 disciplines. You'll manage to reach this as you progress towards the end of the Career on your way to fulfilling the requirements of the "I've got what Rick Scott's got" trophy, but these Championships, just like the final Championship at the end of each discipline within the main part of the Career mode, have 10 events, which will take a couple of hours each to beat. It all adds up, and this trophy is effectively the epilogue to the main Career mode, so just bear in mind that you're not quite finished once you beat every top Championship again with Ravenwest.

All of the other Single Player trophies are tied in to natural progression, and you'll get these along the way, providing you stick to the task of the above 2 trophies being your main focus. Nothing else requires you to go off the beaten track, so at least that's one thing about this list that's straight forward enough. There is also nothing that ties you into completing anything on specific difficulty levels, so you're allowed to go through the Career Mode at whatever pace you please, though the challenge is certainly there on the harder difficulties if you want it. I ended up playing through on hard difficulty, which caused me some challenges along the way, and even though you may need to replay races often, it's a good challenge, rather than a frustrating one.

However, the Multiplayer portion of this games makes the Single Player look like a warm up, despite the Single Player trophies coming with challenges carrying solid merits.

The "I've stopped counting" trophy, awarded for Reaching a total Online level of 250, all disciplines combined, is the longest online leveling grind I've finished to date, and by some distance too. The leveling system online works as follows;

You can compete against other drivers in lobbies specifically focused on all 5 disciplines, and your performance within any given race will award experience points towards that discipline. Each time you level up within that discipline, this will contribute towards an overall combined level, which relates to the 250 levels required for the achievement of this trophy. You can also complete weekly "Racenet" challenges, which are a series of challenges that award bronze, silver, gold and platinum medals depending on how well you complete them. There is 1 challenge set each week for each discipline, and this changes every week to a new challenge on a rotational basis, so there are 2 methods upon which you can earn experience points.

Level 250 will require a whopping 5 Million experience points, and in theory, the quickest way towards that is to reach level 50 in each of the 5 disciplines. The Racenet challenges are an absolute Godsend here, because if you earn the Platinum medal for a challenge, you'll bag 10,000 experience points, which may not sound like much in the bigger picture of 5 Million experience points, and in reality, it's not, and you'll have to chip away every single week re-visiting and keeping on top of these challenges to gradually level up over time, but I also dread to think how long this would take you without them. You can also jump into competitive lobbies and attempt to place well in races, but this has the shortfall of not awarding as much experience for the time input compared to Racenet challenges. This is, of course, offset by the limited opportunity of only being able to take advantage of earning the Platinum medal once per week, as opposed to the unlimited cap of competitive races against others.

In theory, you could just come back and play through the Racenet challenges week on week, and you would get there eventually, but this would be a very long term project, and I ended up having to deploy this method after I had finished all the other online trophies and only needed to reach level 250. It's not as tedious as some previous online grinds I've done, purely because it's naturally broken up by the fact you can only come back once a week and earn a Platinum medal from challenges, but this also means it takes way longer than it should, and technically earns the title of the longest online leveling grind I've ever completed.

The "FTW" trophy, awarded for Winning 100 Online races, is just as matter of fact as it sounds, and should be the foundation of your quest to reach level 250. Some racing games will count a podium finish as a win, but here you'll need to place in first position. It's not really as daunting as it sounds, purely by virtue of the fact the "I've stopped counting" trophy exists, and completely eclipses this trophy, but you'll need to be a reasonably good driver to notch up this amount of wins throughout the game.

You can use your own cars, purchased through the car shop, and also spend winnings on upgrading them and using them in races against other drivers, which will give you an edge as you get deeper into the online journey. This will help you out towards winning races, and of course, any experience, win or lose, will all go towards hitting that 250 milestone required on your way towards the Platinum trophy, so no losing effort ever feels like it's being done in vein.

However, this trophy is definitely the biggest skill related trophy in the game, and 100 wins is still 100 wins at the end of the day, so you'll need to brush up on every ounce of driving skill you have if you still want to achieve this trophy. After all, you could still, in theory, hit level 250 before you win 100 races, and you certainly won't want to be playing this game beyond reaching that milestone, so make sure the wins are ticking over nicely. I'd consider driving games one of my stronger genres, and I still had over 500 races finished by the time I got 100 wins, so be warned about the fierce competitiveness of this game online.

The "An icon in the pit lane" trophy, awarded for Advancing a car to level 99 in Online, requires you to max out the level for any purchased vehicle. Throughout the Online journey, and during competitive races, you'll be loaned a vehicle if you do not own the specific vehicle required for that particular race, but you can also acquire these vehicles for yourself. Racing owned vehicles will level them up and unlock performance upgrades for the car.

The benefit of this is the fact you can make them more powerful than a loaned vehicle, which will always remain at the minimum spec. Reaching level 99 will also take some time, and it was actually one of the final trophies I unlocked, even coming after I had reached level 250 collectively. This may have been down to the fact I never really focused on purchasing vehicles initially, until I realised I'd need to max one of them out for the purpose of this trophy, so it's important to get a headstart on this as soon as possible.

Racenet challenges will go some way to upgrading your vehicle significantly, but the events each week are always predetermined, so there's always a chance your cars don't become available for selection. However, if you buy as many as you can, and work on them on a simultaneous basis, you'll have enough in your rotation to level them up consistently enough to reach level 99 with at least one car sooner or later. The one thing you absolutely don't want to do is only own a couple of vehicles, so as long as you avoid this, you'll be OK.

The "Sofa, so good" trophy, awarded for Completing a Splitscreen race, is in here purely to reference the fact you'll need a second controller for this Platinum. Anything that requires you to own additional peripherals deserves to be called out, and there are actually a couple of other trophies within this list that can only be unlocked in local Co-op.

This is the most difficult racing game I've finished since Motorstorm : Pacific Rift, a whole 8 years ago. That was a 10/10 for a similarly grueling Multiplayer component, which had a unique regressive leveling system, and whilst GRID Autosport does not, the grind to level 250 is for the seriously dedicated. However, the Racenet challenges deny this being a 10/10 Platinum, purely because they take the intensity away from the grind. Don't underestimate this leveling journey, but the Racenet challenges, and the fact you don't have to play hours straight on end to achieve level 250, takes the edge off considerably.

If you'd prefer to hammer out races in public lobbies and accumulate the experience points at a faster rate, something you'll need to do to a lesser or greater extent anyway, due to the fact you'll need 100 wins, then you can take this approach, but completing the Racenet challenges each week will give you a much longer, but leisurely journey that just requires ample patience. It's good to have options, and you may find you want to combine both methods to maximise your progress.

When you add on top of this a Single Player Career mode, which is not only lengthy, but can also contain a strong challenge if you're that way inclined, then you have a big task on your hands. 

The collective timescale is easily 200+ hours, and that's even when taken as a very low end estimate. The fact you can play on a weekly cyclical basis through Racenet challenges will aid progression, but the 100 race wins redresses the balance to ensure this isn't just all about time, and that you'll need to display some strong driving skills to get this list over the finish line. It's the ultimate mix of long and hard, and very close to another 10/10 Platinum, stopping just short by virtue of the fact the Racenet challenges will throw most people a lifeline during the grind to the top.

It's a very high end 9/10 though, and it feels good to get a credible Platinum trophy back into the collection.

Notable Trophies -

I've got what Rick Scott's got - Win each disciplines most prestigious driver's championship for Ravenwest.
A True Legend - Win the GRID Legends Series.
I've stopped counting - Reach a total Online level of 250, all disciplines combined.
FTW - Win 100 Online races.
An icon in the pit lane - Advance a car to level 99 in Online.
Sofa so good - Complete a Splitscreen race.

Hardest Trophy - 

I've stopped counting
Reach a total Online level of 250, all disciplines combined.