DLC #140 - The Witcher 3 : Wild Hunt - Hearts of Stone

As a general rule of thumb, I do always try to acquire the Platinum trophy for a game prior to completing any DLC there may be for it. This naturally makes sense, and for the most part, is followed to these standards, but situations do arise where the necessity to deviate from the norm arises.

So, without the Witcher 3 : Wild Hunt Platinum trophy in tow, comes the first of two DLC packs for the game in Hearts of Stone.

Just for clarification purposes, I didn't deem the "Munchkin" trophy, awarded for Reaching character development level 35, in the main list, within reasonable enough grasp for the content I had remaining in the main game - Thus, I turned to the DLC content knowing that the new questlines within would give me the experience points required to also achieve level 35 simultaneously whilst going through this pack.

Hearts of Stone is a stand-alone, story-driven expansion which follows Geralt through a brand new questline to fulfil the requests of both protagonists Gaunter O'Dimm and Olgierd Von Everic.

Geralt fulfils an early Witcher contract for Von Everic, which turns out to be a set-up for the Witcher to get caught up in a pact with Gaunter O'Dimm after being captured pending death, where O'Dimm frees Geralt for a promise to return the favour in exchange. This leads to the revelation that Von Everic and O'Dimm are closely associated, and the returned favour is fulfilled through a series of tasks to be completed for Von Everic, driven by his debt to O'Dimm. It's an interesting plot that takes various twists right up until the finale, and maintains one of the games key strengths throughout, in it's excellent story-telling.

There are 13 trophies on offer within this pack, which is a fairly large quantity for any DLC offering.

Whilst there are no trophies to really specifically call out for the difficulty or length, there are 6 related to the main story, though these are a little bit more than just standard progression-based trophies. Out of these 6 trophies, 2 of them are awarded naturally, where the other 4 require you to fulfil specific tasks that are considered missable throughout the main story quests, which means, despite being story-based, aren't necessarily guaranteed.

This is an approach that unfortunately blighted the story a little bit, purely because I had to read up on the requirements of all missable trophies, which naturally contained spoilers. Under normal circumstances, I would approach story-driven games blind and then focus on trophies for subsequent playthroughs, but without the necessity to play through this DLC more than once, I reluctantly had to expose myself to the spoilers contained within the trophy descriptions, so this in itself is important to point out.

The remaining 7 trophies aren't actually related to the content. They just seem to be added to pad out the trophy list, requiring you to complete a string of relatively simple tasks. Combat, Crafting/Buying equipment and Gwent are all covered off within these remaining trophies, so they span across a varied range of elements of the game.

The questline is around 8-10 hours in length, and is not bound by difficulty, so you're free to play at your own pace. Due to the fact the main trophy list requires you to beat the game on "Death March" difficulty, which is the hardest difficulty setting in the game, I carried this story on from where I left off with the main game. Death March difficulty can be quite challenging at times, and I did struggle on the very first quest because you have a boss fight thrown straight at you which instantly peaks the challenge. Aside from this section of the DLC, it wasn't too bad throughout the remainder, though you don't need to worry about the consequences of toning the difficulty of the game down, because the trophies here are not difficulty sensitive.

Upon completion of the questline, the remaining trophies will probably take 2-3 additional hours, perhaps longer depending on your level of success with the "Killed It" trophy, awarded for winning a round of gwent with a total strength of at least 187. This is luck based to an extent because it'll depend on the draw of your cards within a deck, but ultimately still achievable without hopefully too much trial and error.

Providing you're fully aware of the missable questline trophies, this is a very casual completion - An unnecessary way to do them, in my opinion. Why not just make them naturally progressive, to avoid giving away spoilers for those that don't want to have to potentially miss them and replay the story again - Nobody else does it this way...

Once you've wrapped up the story, the rest is just a very standard clean up process, and should take no longer than 15 hours total. I did manage to grab a few more trophies towards the main list too, so will also re-assess how plausible the Platinum is before beginning the final piece of DLC now I've managed to reach level 35.

DLC #139 - Crash Bandicoot : Warped - Future Tense

Just as with Lost Treasures, Future Tenses adds a solitary level to the N'Sane Trilogy, along with a further 2 trophies to go along with it.

Where Stormy Ascent within Crash Bandicoot was a pre-existing level which was cut from the final build of the game, Future Tense was brand new, and built specifically for the N'Sane Trilogy, bundled in as DLC to compliment Crash Bandicoot : Warped.

However, unlike Stormy Ascent, the challenge here is much more leisurely, with 2 trophies that can be mopped up within just 1 casual playthrough of the level.

Beating the level and collecting all boxes will award 1 trophy, with the other being awarded for using the bazooka to shoot any of the UFO scientists that can be seen occasionally travelling through the background of the level.

It should take no longer than 20-30 minutes to beat the level whilst earning all boxes. There are a couple of tricky sections, and there is a death route to account for, but if you've beaten the Lost Treasures pack prior to this, then this is a nice come down to complete the Trilogy.

Once you've managed to reach the death route, dying becomes inconsequential for the rest of the level, and it is a little bit surprising there isn't a trophy for beating the level in time trial mode for a Gold Relic, which had a heavy emphasis throughout the entire Trilogy, including the other piece of DLC within. We could have had to tackle another Stormy Ascent-esque challenge here, but it wasn't to be, and ends up being a nice and easy note to finish on.

DLC #138 - Crash Bandicoot - Lost Treasures

Lost Treasures adds a solitary level, considered as DLC, rather than just part of the main game, to the original Crash Bandicoot within the N'Sane Trilogy series.

Perhaps the reasoning behind this was because the level in question, Stormy Ascent, was eventually not included in the original Crash Bandicoot after being cut from the game, and it finally makes an appearance with a vengeance right here.

Despite there being only 2 trophies on offer for it, it turns out to deliver the toughest level in the game. None of the Crash Bandicoot levels really come close to the challenge on offer here, not even High Road, making you quickly realise why this level never made the cut in the original game.

The "Crown Jewel" trophy, awarded for "Seek and destroy" simply requires you to earn the level Gem for breaking all boxes. Simple.

However, that merely exists to whet the appetite and lure you into a false sense of security for what's to come;

An Ancient Antiquity - Do hard time.

The "An Ancient Antiquity" trophy, awarded for "Doing hard time", simply requires you to earn a Gold relic or better on the Stormy Ascent level. I say "simply", purely in theory.

As previously aforementioned, this is the toughest level to Gold relic in Crash Bandicoot. To take a direct quote from the development team; "It was too long and too hard and we ran out of time".

The completion time to qualify for a Gold relic is 4 minutes and 30 seconds, and it's important to note firstly, that this is plenty of time. You don't need to be faultlessly quick, which becomes an important tip to understand, because the best way to get past certain segments of this level without dying is to take your time.

Another key thing to note is the fact that, you're going to have to practice this run. A lot. The level is set on the side of a castle, and contains hazards such as sliding staircases and platforms that move and change direction at varying speeds. There are also awkwardly placed spike traps that can obstruct your path, particularly when jumping. You're only going to get closer to achieving this trophy but putting a minimal amount of hours in, understanding which points within this level are the hardest, and finding an approach that works to get past them. Then you just have to string it all together into a deathless run within the required time limit.

I would suggest I spent around 8 hours on this trophy altogether. I didn't track the amount of attempts it took me, and nor does the game, but I did manage to get it within 3 sessions. Video guides do help slightly, but such is the basic nature of Crash Bandicoot, and understanding that all you literally have at your disposal is the single jump action, the skill element purely boils down to timing, which is something a video can't really teach you. It's just mostly about practising the route, hitting a rhythm and most importantly, not being phased by the reality that this will test your patience.

8 hours might not seem like alot, but it's one of those trophies that mentally wears you down. The repetitive action of replaying the same level and failing at the same spots over and over has a very robotic notion to it, and causes you to dip in and out of focus. I died a reasonable amount of times purely through lapses in concentration bought about the monotony of the task, which never previously existed in any Crash Bandicoot Platinum across all 3 games.

The most challenging parts of this level are also right at the very end, so you don't tend to get as much exposure to these as you do the earlier parts of the level. Both the last 2 segments are tricky, but you get limited opportunities to practice them, and they effectively come down to just whether you can nail those last few segments with a bit of blind luck. This is where the video guide comes in handy, where you can pause to regroup, just watch the video for reference, and take your shot based on that, which is what ended up working for me. I only reached the final segment of the level twice, such was the challenge reaching that point.

This isn't the sort of the trophy you'll manage to just fluke on a few attempts. It requires sufficient enough knowledge of the level to be able to pull off some of the requirements necessary to reach the end of the level and nail the correct timing depending on where you are. Practice will make perfect, but it will also require potentially alot of patience, something I ran out of twice before coming back for my third session and finally completing this pack.

It did give me a good sense of accomplishment, despite the fact my attention started to wane significantly throughout this challenge, and even though my eventual Gold relic time was 4 minutes and 4 seconds, which was 26 seconds within the tolerance, it still felt like a hard fought victory.

Platinum #106 - God of War (Part of the God of War Collection on the Playstation 3)

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 4/10

Having recently gone through the process of assessing my PS3 collection, which isn't too far off full completion, I have decided to apply some heavy focus onto finishing it, given the fact the Playstation 5 has now finally arrived.

This brings us to God of War, originally released on the Playstation 2 in 2005, and bundled in with the later released God of War 2, in order to create this HD remaster on the Playstation 3.

Just as a quick side note, I won't be completing God of War 2, purely for the reason that I'm looking to finish my Playstation 3 backlog at this point, and certainly not looking to add to it, so unfortunately, God of War 2 will remain untouched for this reason.

God of War marks the very beginning of Kratos' journey, as the leader of a successful barbarian army. This is until one day, where Kratos is forced to call upon the original God of War, Ares, to save him and his army from an impending defeat, which is a wish that is granted by Ares in turn for Kratos' service to him and his army.

Ares ends up using this to manipulate Kratos, leading to a situation where he is trapped into accidentally killing his family. As a consequence, a story of revenge is born, where Kratos pledges to serve other Gods in order to rid himself of his guilt. Eventually becoming tired of this, he is tasked with the job of killing Ares to be relieved of his service to the Gods forever if he can fulfil this task.

This is a purely Single Player experience, like every God of War game prior to this, where the vast majority of this medium-sized trophy list is focused around the games story mode, with a very subtle change of direction for a few extra-curricular activities outside the main story.

The "Prepare to be a God" trophy, awarded for Beating the Game on any Difficulty, requires you to finish the story on any difficulty level, within any given amount of time (This is relevant to mention because there is a speedrun trophy to touch upon later).

It's actually quite rare for trophy lists that are heavily focused around story-driven games to not have difficulty related trophies, and out of the previous 3 God of War Platinum trophies I've earned, 2 of them have required you to defeat the game on the games hardest difficulty mode, so this is a slightly surprising change in stance here.

In the spirit of upholding traditional values, I decided to tackle this game on "Hard" difficulty, which is one below the hardest (God), and despite at least wanting a reasonable challenge, I still managed to clock the story within just under 10 hours. There weren't many parts of this game that caused any great challenge, and the standard of beating a story-driven game in less than 10 hours would be considered short in modern day terms - A stark reminder that this is an old game, where standards of game length were more within these expected timeframes back then.

What makes this easier is the fact that the game mechanics seem to have stood the test of time. Combat is slick, the camera functionality is steady and despite there being situations where it can feel like you're overwhelmed, it never seems unfair or insurmountable. It all contributes to a relatively painless experience, and even the big set-piece boss fights that God of War would become known for, and where you would expect the challenge of the game to peak, doesn't really achieve that. It may be a different story on the "God" difficulty setting, but I had no reason to pursue that option.

Upon completing the game for the first time, I had 31 out of the 36 trophies on offer. Discounting the Platinum trophy, that left me with just 4 trophies remaining to complete the list.

Of these 4 trophies, 2 of them were to be unlocked away from the main game, 1 of them was to be unlocked on a subsequent speedrun playthrough, and the final trophy I missed was for missing a very early on mini-game, so I managed to get through a very hefty portion of this list barely realising it.

Upon reflection of the rest of the list, it is very progression-heavy, with practically every trophy being awarded for either reaching certain plot points within the story, or defeating a certain enemy type whilst meeting them for the first time, or a significant boss battle. There are a few other trophies to obtain which require you to perform story-driven tasks within a certain way, meaning you can still miss them if you're not aware to them, but even with these requirements, this didn't seem to stop me in my tracks at any point. It is important to note though, if you do miss these, you will be required to playthrough the game again in order to reach these specific points, due to the absence of any sort of chapter select feature.

This will also apply to the small handful of trophies related to collecting all upgrades and maxing out all weapons and magic - If you miss any of the collectible upgrade chests, or don't manage to collect enough red orbs throughout the story, then you'll need to replay through the game in order to achieve these trophies. The upgrade chests, despite being collectibles, are generally easy to find, even when hidden around corners and breakable surfaces, and providing you're using 1 playthrough to take your time and scour every part of the game world, this won't be an issue (This is also the main reason I would recommend doing the speedrun on a separate playthrough, where you will be a little bit more pressed for time).

Speaking of which, the "Speed of Jason McDonald" trophy, awarded for Beating the game in under 5 hours on any Difficulty, will require you to race through the game from start to finish in what is a reasonably lenient timeframe. It is dependant on a couple of very important points though;

Firstly, you need to be able to bypass many areas of the game that would usually require you to clear groups of enemies, rather than stick around and fight them. There are certain parts of the game that won't allow you to physically pass into the next area until you beat all enemies in the current area, however, where you can just walk past enemies, it is important to stick to that approach. Secondly, despite being an action/combat game, there are a reasonable amount of puzzle sections that would usually require you spend some time to think about how to solve them. Having to complete the game within 5 hours won't afford you the luxury of this, so it is better to make sure you pause the game (which stops the timer), and just familiarise yourself with how to complete the puzzle so you can avoid spending so much time on it.

The fact you can fulfil this trophy on any difficulty level is a massive help though, and if you've chosen to the beat the Challenge of the Gods, which you'll need to do to unlock this Platinum trophy, you'll also get an array of skins to choose from which grant you specific abilities. I went for the Dairy Bastard costume, which grants unlimited magic, and comes in handy when clearing those sections where you have to beat alot of enemies quickly in order to progress. I also chose the "Easy" difficulty level, which is the lowest in the game, and ended with a clear time of 4 hours and 26 minutes.

So far, so good, but we do have to close on the only real notably hard trophy in this list, and does end up contributing significantly to the rating of this game.

The "I'll Take the Physical Challenge" trophy, awarded for Completing the Challenge of the Gods, requires you to step away from the Story mode, and take on a series of 10 challenges, set with specific parameters for completion. This mode is unlocked upon beating the game once, and requires you to beat what is a varied range of challenges, mostly, but not limited to, combat.

In terms of the challenges themselves, most of them are actually fairly easy, and you just simply have to beat the current challenge to move onto the next. However, challenge 8 and challenge 10 are significantly more difficult than any of the other challenges.

Challenge 8 requires you to defeat all waves of enemies, which contains soldiers and Gorgons, and challenge 10 requires you stay on a platform whilst defeating enemies on the platform to raise it high enough to reach the end goal. It's the first time the game seems to lose it's aforementioned fairly balanced combat, with both challenges seemingly overwhelming you with enemies to the point where constant failure becomes normal, and trial and error quickly takes over. Challenge 10 is the toughest, where you're constantly having to find ways to stay balanced on a platform where even blocking enemy attacks can end up knocking you off and failing the challenge.

What's even more frustrating is the fact that you have to beat all 10 challenges in succession. There is no ability to save your progress after each time you successfully complete a challenge, and if you quit the game, you'll have to start from the beginning. Once I'd managed to surpass challenge 8, I had to leave my console on for 2 days because I didn't want to have to go through that challenge again, and accepted I would leave it on for as long as it took me to also beat challenge 10, which is certainly something not to be overlooked here. I would estimate I spent more time on this mode than it took me to Speedrun the game, and it only really comes down to 2 out of the 10 challenges. It ends up making this trophy the only genuinely difficult one in the whole list.

When I look back at the previous God of War games I have the Platinum trophy for, this is certainly the easiest. The fact you're not under any obligation to beat the game on a specific difficulty level, unlike other God of War games, which require you to beat the game on the hardest setting, is a big factor in the overall rating.

The fact I managed to unlock around 88% of this list by just simply playing through the game in order to purely take in the story is telling, and the Speedrun can be comfortably beaten with time to spare, providing you follow the key tips outlined above.

I finished my main playthrough within 9 hours and 42 minutes, and with a subsequent speedrun time of 4 hours and 26 minutes, that means I've managed to collectively beat the game twice within 15 hours, and one of those playthroughs was on "Hard" difficulty, proving that this wasn't really that challenging.

The Challenge of the Gods mode does stick a large spanner in the works though, and probably added another 5 or so hours on top of the experience for me, as well as being the first time I felt genuinely challenged whilst going through this list. If it wasn't for this trophy, I would probably be angling this within the region of a 3/10, but this definitely does enough to notch an extra mark on top of it, and despite the difficulties it caused me, this was still a Platinum trophy earned within just over 20 hours, making it an incredibly short experience, justifying it as my easiest God of War Platinum trophy to date.

Notable Trophies -

Prepare to be a God - Beat the Game on any Difficulty.
Speed of Jason McDonald - Beat the game in under 5 hours on any Difficulty.
I'll Take the Physical Challenge - Complete the Challenge of the Gods.

Hardest Trophy - 

I'll Take the Physical Challenge                                                               Complete the Challenge of the Gods

DLC #137 - Call of Duty : Black Ops - Annihilation Map Pack

This one's been a long time coming and it's purely down to what is possibly one of the most frustrating Easter Egg experiences across the entire Call of Duty franchise.

Despite the fact I haven't had a terrible amount of exposure to these Easter Eggs, and since their introduction within Black Ops 1, I've only sampled them within 2 other Call of Duty games (Black Ops 2 and World War 2), so they may make my prior statement a little bit underqualified, but I still say it with enough conviction based on my own personal experience with this pack, and having also completed the Escalation Map Pack, whose Easter Egg related trophies were a complete breeze in comparison.

The Annihilation Map Pack adds a further 5 trophies to the Zombies mode within Blacks Ops 1, focused around the new Shangri-La map, an exotic jungle-themed setting with some interesting game mechanics, which are explored within the requirements of the trophies on offer here.

Out of the 5 trophies, 4 of these are fairly simple tasks, requiring you to obtain kills on the 2 new types of zombies (The Shrieker and the Napalm zombie), in specified ways, along with an additional trophy which requires you to use the new 31-79 JGb215, which will be referred to as the Shrink Gun from here on out, on each type of zombie. 

It is more than possible to obtain these naturally through normal play, but the final trophy is where the challenge of this pack properly kicks on;

Time Travel Will Tell - In Shangri-La, acquire the focusing stone.

The "Time Travel Will Tell" trophy, awarded for acquiring the focusing stone, is a complicated Easter Egg, which requires 4 people to achieve successfully, which is the first barrier to mention here. 

Within the previous Escalation Map Pack, you could achieve the Easter Egg trophy with just 2 people. This is also the same for the Rezurrection Map Pack, which I have yet to write up about, for which the Easter Egg trophy can be earned with just 2 people, making them much easier by sheer logic of requiring less preparation and co-ordination.

The frustrating thing is, the only reason you need 4 people is because you have to stand on 4 tiles simultaneously spread out around the map in order to activate the staircase in the spawn area which turns out the be the focal point for a few steps throughout the Easter Egg.

The completion of the Easter Egg is also subject to some classic RNG, requiring you to pull the Shrink Gun out from the mystery box, and then holding onto it long enough to be able to Pack-A-Punch it for a later step. The later you pull it, the more difficult the game becomes as natural progression takes you into higher waves, and if the person with the Shrink Gun dies, the weapon is lost to the void and will need to be pulled again.

My honest take, irrespective of anything else, is to hope to pull the Shrink Gun as early as possible. If you start getting into the latter rounds without still having it, you're going to struggle to fight off the hordes and the map is very small and compact, making it difficult to survive on for prolonged periods of time. With some groups I attempted this trophy with, we reached round 11/12 without having pulled the Shrink Gun and would call it quits under the belief it was just better to restart the game, which is a frustrating reality of this trophy.

Just incase that wasn't enough, you'll also be subject to some further RNG, because you'll need to spawn a Napalm zombie in order to help fulfil a step which requires some gas leaks to be lit by the fire he emits. This isn't anywhere near as bad as the RNG around the Shrink Gun, but the Napalm zombie will blow up if players get too close, or can just sometimes blow up seemingly after a certain period of time, which did cost us a run one time where the Napalm zombie just seemed to disappear and did not spawn again before we all succumbed to a higher round anyway.

I'm not too sure how many attempts this took me in the end, but just to share a final painful experience;

I should have had this trophy when I first went for it at the time I gathered the rest of the trophies in the pack, getting to the final few steps before realising that the person in the party who had the Shrink Gun had accidentally forgotten to save enough points in order to Pack-A-Punch the weapon, which meant we had to play on a few more rounds in order for this person to accumulate 5000 points. We didn't manage to and failed on the subsequent round, which is actually the main reason I left this trophy for so long.

I did re-visit it for a few attempts on a very irregular basis since then, but every failed attempt killed my motivation to spend more time going for this, but it did dawn on me recently how old this game was, and with a new console generation recently born, I figured now would be as good of a time as any to start completing some of these incredibly old Playstation 3 titles.

I'm slightly surprised I managed to finally unlock it, and had this game down as a very high risk one towards 100% completion, purely for this trophy alone, so I'm glad to finally have it. I can't really offer much more strategic advice, because you will mostly be at the mercy of RNG. If you want to attempt to play on through the higher waves and hold out for the Shrink Gun, it is still doable, but I always felt like it was time-efficient to just restart the game, rather than battle through the possibility of higher wave rounds. The fact you need a willing group of 4 people is also not to be understated, and something I would consider to be a concern at this point in the games life cycle too.

With my final 2 trophies within the Rezurrection Map Pack achievable on a solo basis, at least the pressure is off with the accomplishment of this pack, and that's always the main thing.