DLC #170 - Call of Duty : Black Ops 2 - Uprising Map Pack

After having now played through 8 different Zombies maps/experiences across 2 Black Ops games, the level of creativity is something I have to give out some serious credit for, despite not always enjoying Zombies as an overall experience.

These packs have taken us far and wide. Different eras in time, different references to popular culture and different game mechanics to suit the themes these maps are based around.

Zombies in Uprising is set in within the famous walls of Alcatraz prison, and even includes an Easter Egg where you have to attempt a prison break - A nod to the popular culture of belief that genuine prisoners of Alcatraz island have attempted to escape on numerous occasions.

The "Mob of the Dead" also references the cast of gangsters, all taken from a variety of different mob films, emphasising an obvious theme throughout. It's good fun, and if you understand the history behind Alcatraz, or have a penchant for gangster films, you'll be hooked in. 

There are also a number of different game mechanics added in with this round of Zombies.

For the first time, death isn't treated in the conventional way. Instead, upon death, you'll be given a second chance through Afterlife mode, where you'll control a ghostly spirit of your own character, and if you can find your downed body in time, you'll be able to revive yourself from beyond the grave.

In a clever twist, you can also purposely trigger Afterlife mode in order to perform certain actions that you can't when alive. These include restoring power to perk machines, mystery boxes and traps. You can also access certain areas of the map only reachable in Afterlife and clear zombies quickly with the use of electricity as an offensive weapon.

The mode also sees the introduction of prison guard, Brutus, a terrifying presence who spawns in at random and will relentlessly hunt you down as a bigger, stronger and faster version of the traditional zombie. He's slightly reminiscent of the Panzer Soldat from Origins. Other smaller additions include the new perk Electric Cherry, which produces an electric shock with area-of-effect damage each time you reload and the Blundergat, a new weapon combining the mechanics of a Blunderbuss and a Gatling Gun, which can be crafted from parts at a crafting bench. Extremely fun to use too.

Alcatraz is also a very perilous map, full of close quarters action that can get you into trouble at any given moment. Narrow walkways and dead ends around the prison cell area, confined rooms and even limited space in the very few outdoor areas in the dock and rooftop. There were plenty of hairy moments when hunting these trophies down and it creates genuine tension.

Speaking of which, the trophy list adds a further 10 trophies as part of this final zombies experience, though the overall challenge isn't too daunting.

The Easter Egg is a little bit unusual here, in the sense that, the required steps will strive towards finding 5 parts in order to build the plane on the roof, and once done, launching the take-off sequence to escape the prison. This is one variation of the Easter Egg, and will net you the "No One Escapes Alive" trophy. I managed to get it done within just 6 rounds.

However, the plane will crash land and you'll end up back inside Alcatraz, and instead of collecting plane parts, you'll need to collect fuel tanks to refuel the plane and take-off a further 2 times, which earns you the "Making the Rounds" trophy, but again, I was only at round 9 by the time I'd done this.

Finally, there is an alternative way to complete the Easter Egg, whereby you can break the cycle and experience a different ending than just looping the map. If you engage the plane take-off in Afterlife mode, you'll end up having to revive yourselves in Afterlife once you land the plane on the bridge. However, whichever person is controlling Albert "Weasel" Arlington will revive as a target for the other players, and killing him earns everyone the "Pop Goes the Weasel" trophy.

As I said, it's a little bit unusual, and may need to be done across multiple games, but the steps are incredibly easy, and don't require you to venture too high into the later rounds at all.

However, there was still a little bit of resistance here that lay away from the Easter Egg related trophies;

Full Lockdown - In Mob of the Dead, Brutus completes his patrol.

The "Full Lockdown" trophy, awarded for allowing Brutus to complete his patrol, requires you to tick off a list of objectives where Brutus has to destroy a variety of different objects around the map in a single game.

Brutus will spawn in at random, and is noticeable from most parts of the map. When you can't see him, you'll hear his footsteps and the screen will shake to indicate his close proximity, and if he's close enough to certain objects, he'll destroy them. There are 9 objects for him to destroy in order to fulfil this trophy. These include 5 perk machines, 2 crafting stations, any single mystery box and the Plane frame located on the roof.

He spawns amongst any normal zombie wave every 6/7 rounds, but if you can keep him alive, he'll spawn in with every wave, which does help, as the rounds will climb quickly as you wait for him to respawn and this will naturally make it tougher to survive the longer this continues.

You'll basically need to reduce the wave to the final few zombies and drag them around the map with him. Every time he gets near the objects, he'll destroy them, and all you need to do is effectively lead him around the map to the relevant areas where these objects are located. It does sound simple enough, but you're still having to fight off zombie waves in a very congested map, as well as ensuring you leave a couple alive to allow you to complete the patrol quicker.

I did also find it very buggy. Brutus will regularly run straight past objects he's meant to destroy and zombies waves will just randomly end if you perform certain actions, such as use the Gondola or Plane which are quick ways to get to different parts of the map. Brutus will still spawn in, but a new wave will start, which heightens the risk against the trophy as you're having to compete with a fresh horde every time this happens.

I dragged one attempt out to round 18 once and then died with just 1 object left to destroy, purely because Brutus wouldn't focus on the plane on the roof. As I ran a new wave in circles, I eventually got overwhelmed, died and left feeling cheated by the buggy AI.

I did manage to get it within another couple of attempts, but I have always found it hard to stay motivated with zombies mode when you have to start right from the beginning at wave 1 after losing loads of progress, which goes for any trophy-related challenge I've ever attempted within zombies mode.

It did recently come to my attention that I'm not entirely done with zombies - A misconception I was carrying through this entire clean up process for Black Ops 2 as I made my way closer to the end of the experience. I still have unfinished business with Call of Duty : World War 2, but that's a venture for another time.

DLC #169 - Grid - Season 3

There aren't any valid reasons to make this final review of Grid any longer than it has to be - These DLC packs have been literal copy and paste jobs, with the same set of trophies attached to the same sort of requirements throughout.

Season 3 adds 33 new Career events - Split down as 15 Invitational Events and 15 Track Day events, culminating in 3 Final events for the Hypercar Series Grand Finale.

Again, none of these matter as far as trophy hunting is concerned, and instead, the 3 trophies within this package are related to a further 3 time-trial based objectives.

There isn't anything to specifically mention here, and the challenge contained within is very similar to that of Season 1 - A small handful of very easily achievable objectives, all of which I managed to complete within a sub-1 hour time limit.

The 3 objectives rewarding the corresponding 3 trophies are as follows;

• Beat a 1:47 lap time on Okatuma GP with the Koenigsegg Agera RS
• Beat a 1:25 lap time on Indianapolis Sport Circuit with the Ferrari FXX-K Evo
• Beat a 1:41 lap time on Suzuka Circuit East with the Koenigsegg Jesko

Despite this being an easy selection of tasks, one thing I think may be worth mentioning - And this is something I only noticed right at the point of tackling this DLC - Some of these vehicles are extremely expensive, and you'll need to be able to purchase them to run them around the track in free-play. They can't be loaned, and if you somehow don't have the money, you'll need to play through some of these Career events and earn it. 

The selection of 3 cars required here alone will demand you to have over £4 Million in reserve to purchase them all, so just be aware of that.

DLC #168 - Grid - Season 2

It seems as though the Grid Season 1 DLC lured me into a bit of a false sense of security - After all, what would one more bump in the road be for a game that's just made me oversee a car bouncing off the walls of an oval track for over 200 hours to earn a trophy?

Season 2 adds exactly more of the same to Grid. 33 new events to tackle in the Career Mode, which are split between 15 Classic Touring GT events and 15 Modern GT events, with an additional 3 for the GT Grand Finale.

An additional 3 trophies added also follows the exact same format as prior, meaning the effort gone into including a large handful of new Career events to potentially work through is yet again wasted on trophy hunters.

Fine by me, although contrary to the sub-1 hour completion time of the previous Season, this one stung me a little bit, with a list of objectives linked to trophies that weren't quite as plain sailing as they were before.

The 3 trophies on offer this time relate to the following Season 2 objectives;

• Beat a 1:53 lap time on Silverstone Circuit Grand Prix with the Brabham BT62
• Beat a 1:54 lap time on Sepang International Circuit with the Ferrari FXX

These first two objectives fit the standard already set from Season 1 - Easily achievable within a small handful of laps at best. However, the final objective stands out, related to the following trophy;

A Wheely Good Time - Complete the A Wheely Good Time Objective.

The "A Wheely Good Time" trophy, awarded for completing the A Wheely Good Time Objective is linked to the following objective requirement;

• Beat a 1:40 lap time on Crescent Valley GP with the Aston Martin Vulcan AMR Pro

I've loaded up each of these time trial objectives with 50 laps, which is a standard practice, but never did this in anticipation that I'd actually need to exhaust the full amount of laps without having achieved a par time - This did somewhat come unexpectedly given how easy the DLC content had been up to this point.

I did see the warning signs fairly early though. The first few laps are always used to get used to the car handling and the track, and even though I never expect to achieve the time requirement within the first few laps anyway, they do act as a good measure of expectations - And I was over 10 seconds short in the early going, which made me realise quickly I was potentially in for a fight here.

The 1:40 lap time is harsh. There's practically no margin for error, and the Aston Martin Vulcan AMR Pro is an extremely fast Supercar that is challenging to control around a track like Crescent Valley, which contains alot of tight cornering and hairpins. I burnt through 50 laps mastering the track and still needed to find an extra 4 seconds or so, so I had to start tuning the car to accommodate acceleration to power through tight corners where loss of speed occurred.

I booted up for another 50 laps, and whilst I was getting close, I was still around half a second, to a full second out from the target time, and after hitting another 20 laps, I decided I had to look into further tuning to squeeze that last second out from somewhere.

After experimenting with adjusting the traction levels, and somewhere between another 10-15 laps, I managed a 1:39.82 lap time, and just about popped the trophy, but I did not expect to put 80-90 laps into any of these trophies when I originally researched their requirements.

Time trials have this fascinating aura of hooking you in sometimes, and the trophy reward on the other side of accomplishment always brings out that addictive form of repetition that simply doesn't exist elsewhere. It may have taken me 3-4 hours for this single trophy, playing this on repeat and only breaking away to delve into some fine-tuning, but persistence will usually win the day.

Thankfully, from here, it's straight, smooth and all downhill the rest of the way.

DLC #167 - Grid - Season 1

If there was ever a game that would benefit most from a quiet exit, it would almost certainly be Grid.

I can't overstate how much that main trophy list grind wore me out - Even more so the impressive feat when you realise it literally required me to do almost nothing and still somehow made me feel that way towards it.

Thankfully, the DLC for Grid is much more forgiving, and we can end this particular relationship on fairly amicable terms at least.

Season 1 adds a hefty chunk of content to the game, including a host of new events, presented as an extension to the main Career Mode under a new tab labelled "Season 1".

There are 33 events in total, split between 15 new Street Racing events, 15 new Pro Racing events and 3 Super Hatch Series Finale events to conclude the season. The package also adds a handful of new cars, but there is an absence of new locations/tracks, which is still a little bit disappointing given the fact this was already a big weakness the game should have addressed. The Season 1 events will still require you to use alot of the existing vehicle roster too, so it'll probably feel like you're mostly just replaying the main Career Mode over again for the most part. Same cars in the same places.

I did toy with the idea of possibly using these additional race events to clock some extra milage towards the "Around the Globe" trophy from the main list, but opted against this because I wanted to just settle on what I ultimately felt was the path of least resistance approach, which eliminated this idea from the decision-making process.

Regardless, the 3 trophies on offer don't require you to go anywhere near the Season 1 Career, and are instead focused on completing 3 new Objectives added to the Player Profile screen.

It was never mentioned in the main list review, but Objectives are just a collection of tasks you can perform to earn some additional experience points away from the core actions of in-game racing, and each of the 3 trophies corresponds to completing a specific objective - All of which are earned for achieving a hot-lap as follows;

• Beat a 4:11 lap time on Okutama Sprint Mizu Mountain with the Audi S1 Quattro Concept
• Beat a 1:38 lap time on Shaghai Waibaidu Way with the Lancia Delta HF Integrale Super Hatch
• Beat a 1:52 lap time on the Havana Paseo de Marti with the MINI Hatch JCW

In all honestly, none of these time trials caused me any issues, and I managed to polish off all 3 trophies within around an hour of play. It's good fun to see and use some new vehicles, but it's all over very quickly. It's also unusual to see so much content left outside of the trophy list, but in this particular instance, that's not a complaint.