Platinum #151 - Balatro

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 8/10

If you look back to the 2024 Game of the Year nominees, you'll notice Balatro with a place at this table. A solo-developed game which spent just under 3 years in production and completely took a grip of the gaming world through it's intriguing twist on Poker.

How could a Poker Roguelike possibly be intriguing enough to be considered for Game of the Year contention? Pretty easily, as it goes.

Balatro is a deckbuilding game where you play common poker hands using various methods of scoring in order to beat a target score per round. The base game offers 8 antes, each consisting of a small blind, big blind and boss blind - with the boss blind of ante 8 concluding the run. You can play into endless mode should you wish to continue and see how far your deck can stretch into end game.

Each round will increase the target score and thus, your ability to keep up with the blinds and successfully surpass them is necessary, otherwise, it's game over.

You can achieve scoring in multiple ways. Cards can be enhanced with bonuses earned from opening packs in the shop and poker hands can be levelled up by acquiring planet cards in similar fashion. However, the jewel in the crown are the range of Jokers you'll have at your disposal - All giving different perks and benefits that can be combined together to create interesting synergy's and combinations to send your score through the roof.

This is the allure of Balatro. Even right up to the point of achieving the Platinum trophy, I was still discovering interesting combinations of Jokers that ensured the game remained fresh throughout the entire time I spent with it. Sure, you naturally lean towards favourites, and there are certain combinations that you'll actively strive for (Everyone is looking at you "Photochad"...) but the beauty of this game is that is also encapsulates another crucial factor. Luck.

To a lesser or greater extent, your runs will be made or broken by luck. Whether it's praying to see that final discard provide the card you need to keep a run alive, or simply what you find in the shop between rounds to help improve your run, luck stays true to the marriage that comes with casino-based card games and how the hands are dealt will always be a factor on making or breaking your progress. Every agonising miss and long shot that hits is a "one more game" rush that seldom exists in many games, and it had me completely hooked.

The pixel art graphics with every playing card and Joker carefully hand-drawn to give it's unique look. The swirling metallic coloured theme of the game interface. The catchy but equally soothing tones in the background. The replayability, variations in how your game can play out, the subtle adjustments to difficulty as you rise through the stakes. I genuinely can't pick any flaws with it and it is worthy of every breath drawn in a Game of the Year conversation. It's one of my favourite games of all time.

I wouldn't even go as far to suggest you need to be an avid Poker player to master Balatro. The game's allure is the Roguelike element, and the easy pick up and play nature is the real star of the show here. If you want the scope to be seriously good, then that exists too, and as long as you have a knack for logic, you will almost certainly enjoy what's on offer.

In terms of trophies, this is a medium sized list, consisting of 32 trophies, including the Platinum trophy. Strap in, because you're in this one for the long haul.

The trophy list does a good job of luring you in a bit here, giving you a solid amount of trophies for little effort initially. It also rewards maximum exploration of the game, with trophies also awarded for discovering every Joker, which requires you to find or purchase it for the first time in the shop between rounds. These trophies also apply to Planet cards, Tarot cards, Spectral cards and Vouchers, all of which award their own trophy for discovering each type of shop bonus. These will all certainly come naturally as you focus on 2 primary tasks this list demands of you.

The "Completionist+" trophy, awarded for Winning with every deck on Gold stake difficulty, is the first major task of this trophy list.

Before you start a run, you'll be asked to choose a deck. Each deck comes with it's own gameplay variation that shakes up the challenge a little bit and you'll eventually unlock access to 15 decks in total for which you need to reach Gold stake difficulty for this trophy. In a similar fashion, you'll also need to progress on lower coloured stake difficulties in order to climb up and access Gold stake, which is the highest tier. There are 8 coloured difficulty stakes which twist the game with certain rules, and having to win on Gold stake for all decks requires you to win a minimum of 120 runs in total.

Most of the decks are fairly basic and easy to understand, and some will force you to change the way you play and make you more tactful about the Jokers you select, but the true curveball here comes from the stake difficulty.

Each of the 8 stake difficulties will add an extra complexity that stacks, so by the time you reach Gold stake, there are a number of different modifiers combining that you need to account for when attempting to win a run. Green and Purple stake increase the score requirements to pass an ante, Blue stake permanently removes a discard, Black stake adds Eternal Jokers - which cannot be sold once active - and Orange stake adds Perishable Jokers, which are permanently disabled after 5 rounds only.

By the time you come to tackling each of the 15 decks on Gold stake, you're really up against it, and you'll need to draw on every tactic you've learned to succeed in runs. I would say this trophy starts to get difficult at the introduction of Eternal Jokers at Black stake, which is still 4 difficulty colours off Gold. Eternal and Perishable Jokers will unsettle your familiarity with certain Jokers you can generally rely on, and sometimes you'll be forced into decisions you don't necessarily want to make which you only find out later on with hindsight weren't correct.

Gold stake difficulty also reminds you of how brutal some of the boss blinds are. The Needle - which reduces your hands playable to just 1. The Flint - which halves your base scoring. The Wall - which doubles the normal target score. Just a small selection of bosses you don't want to see at later antes in runs on Gold stake difficulty. If I ever lost a high stake run, it would be because of seeing a certain boss blind I didn't want to see.

On good days, I could win up to 5 or 6 runs. On bad days, I could play a good 10 hours without getting anywhere close. It has brutally fine margins of success and that spectrum of variance was often a good reminder of this and how big of a role luck can play in your levels of prosperity. Sometimes, the cards just don't fall your way.

The game doesn't really offer much extensive stat tracking. Each successful run will generally take around 30-40 minutes, and to win 120 runs, this trophy requires a minimum of 80 hours of playtime. When you take into account all the failures in between, I would say this trophy eclipsed 300-400 hours easily - Possibly more. That sounds inconceivable until you see how much time I plugged into this game when all was said and done, and I finally unlocked this trophy just after a year of playing Balatro religiously at least twice a week. To think too, this was only half the battle.

Before moving onto the second major task in this trophy list, I broke away to tackle the Challenge mode. This lines up 20 unique challenges with set parameters you need to progress through to complete a full run, and awards a Gold trophy for beating all 20.

There are a couple of tricky challenges, but they're all defaulted to White stake difficulty, which pales in comparison after tackling every single deck on Gold stake, so this was more a nice little palette cleanser than anything else. The final challenge requires you to win a run without being able to use a single Joker, which took me a handful of attempts, but this was a stroll in the park comparatively, and before I knew it, the second big task lay ahead.

The "Completionist++" trophy, awarded for Earning a Gold Sticker on every Joker, is the second main part to this trophy list, and is arguably even more challenging than part 1.

Each time you complete a run to ante 8, the Jokers you're holding in hand at the end of the run will earn a sticker according to the colour of stake you've just beaten, and you'll need to beat a Gold stake run with every single Joker in the game, of which there are 150.

If you've completed the previous trophy, you'll already have a small handful of these Jokers with a Gold sticker attached to them, so there is a headstart in place, but there are a number of complications to consider with this trophy.

Firstly, in terms of strategy, I initially opted to complete this task using the Anaglyph deck. This deck gives you a free Double Tag for each Boss blind you defeat, with the idea behind the strategy being to continue to stack these double tags until you find a Negative tag at some point during your run. Taking the negative tag late on will trigger all the double tags and give you a bunch of negative Jokers to hold, maximising your chances of ticking off as many Jokers at the end of the run, should you win.

I ultimately didn't find this a viable approach, for two main reasons. Firstly, the negative skip tag isn't guaranteed to come, so the strategy is ultimately a bit too luck dependant to work frequently enough to be effective. Secondly, you don't have any control of the Jokers you choose. It'll just be as they come out of the shop and you have to select what you're given, which is also way too rigid for this strategy to be effective. So I did quickly pivot out of this tactic.

I settled on the Ghost deck instead, which starts you with a Hex Spectral card and adds the possibility of finding Spectral cards in the shop. I just wanted to lean on the power of Spectral cards to help me on Gold stake.

Since this is on Gold stake difficulty by default, you'll still run into the same issues of just being able to beat runs, as with the previous Completionist trophy, but for this particular task, you're trying to do this with forced Jokers that, in many instances, you wouldn't even rely on to win you a Gold stake run, which is a big problem.

For example, you need to be conscious of finding a way to "carry" certain Jokers;

• Seance. Gives you a Spectral card when you play a Straight Flush. 
• Matador. Gives you $8 each time the Boss blind ability is triggered. 
• 8 Ball. Gives a 1 in 4 chance of creating a Tarot card when an 8 is played.
• Diet Cola. Gives a free double tag when sold.
• Luchador. Disables the current boss blind when sold.
• Invisible Joker. Duplicates a random Joker in hand when sold.

These are just a small handful I would personally group into this category, but there are 2 different types of "carry" Joker. Seance, Matador and 8 Ball are just a few examples of Jokers whose benefits are just way too niche or ineffective, and will need a carry because they're just not good enough to positively impact a Gold stake run.

Diet Cola, Luchador and Invisible Joker are examples of Jokers whose benefits only kick in when they're sold, which is counter-productive towards the goals of this trophy, and effectively just makes them useless Jokers by default because they need to be held in hand right up until the end of the run. They're deadweight by nature.

I would usually focus on building a strong line-up of 4 Jokers and holding a free space to carry one of these through to the end. Holding out an extra Joker slot like this on Gold stake is killer, and it cost me numerous times, but it's the only way to Gold sticker the sort of Jokers like those mentioned above. Another benefit to the Ghost deck is seeing Ectoplasm Spectral cards, which make a Joker negative to the detriment of losing a hand. This can also be brutal, but slightly widens your scope for carrying Jokers.

Further to this, you also need to be aware of the food Jokers too. These are Jokers whose perk always leads to a perishable consequence, and are timed to expire within a certain amount of hands played. There are 7 that fit into this category, including Ice Cream, Popcorn, Ramen, Turtle Bean, Seltzer, Gros Michel and Cavendish.

Timing is really important with these Jokers. You need them to appear, mostly, towards the end of your run, and taking them too early means they simply won't get far enough for you to win holding them. Due to their expirable nature, they'll never have an Eternal sticker either, so you need loads of luck in seeing them late on into runs to grab them at the optimal time so they're still in play by the end. Also, apart from Cavendish and Ramen, all these Jokers offer fairly weak benefits late into a Gold stake run when the scoring requirements are high, so they also mainly fall into the carry category too.

I would also hold a spare slot for these Jokers, in the exact same approach I took for those I deemed to be carry Jokers too. They'll offer some scoring, but generally won't influence the outcome of a Gold stake run too much. It's also important to note that you won't see Cavendish unless you've seen a Gros Michel expire in your hands before, within the same run.

A final consideration, and something that rears it's head time and time again as a conspiring factor. Luck. You'll reach that point where you only need 10 Jokers so be prepared for runs where you won't even see the Jokers you need appear. I put together plenty of solid winning runs, only to draw a blank on finding the Jokers I needed just by simple virtue of the fact the pool was so shallow. 

The Overstock and Overstock Plus vouchers will help here. They add an extra slot to the shop shelf per round and every re-roll. Similarly, the Re-Roll Surplus and Re-Roll Glut vouchers will make shop re-rolls cheaper, giving you more opportunities to spin for the Jokers you need. However, luck will play it's part here too, and you need to hope you see these vouchers available for purchase. It's unlikely you'll encounter all 4 in the same run so make the most of them if you see them. Shout out to the final Joker I needed. The Stone Joker - Which evaded me for over a week of hard pushing for this final Joker and gave me my very first feeling of burnout with this game.

I thought winning 120 different runs for the first trophy was tough enough, and this trophy was even tougher. Having to steer away from preferred builds and favourite Jokers is a tough adjustment, and some Jokers are so weak, it puts you at an uncomfortable disadvantage. I found this trophy to be the tougher out of the two, and it also took me much longer to achieve. The failure rate was way higher and it also made me commit to some rash decisions too. I'd sometimes get greedy and see a Joker I needed a Gold sticker for late in a run and taking the gamble to sell a solid Joker and risk the carry was something that rarely paid off.

According to the dashboard on the Playstation interface, I put 857 hours into Balatro. That's almost 36 days of my entire life. That does blow my mind a little bit, but I'm not that surprised when I reflect on this properly. This game took days away from me at regular intervals, and it's rare for games to grip me to that extent.

It is a tough Platinum, and you'll need to commit to it fully. The game purposely builds the difficulty to a point where it'll reward those who have learned to master it most, whilst maintaining some cutthroat doses of luck that'll speedbump you, just to remind you that you won't have it your own way, no matter how good you become. I would strongly endorse this as a 9/10, but the sheer enjoyment I got from this game from start to finish shaves a mark off the final difficulty rating. Very clearly one of the most enjoyably long-winded games I've ever played. It balances this longevity with a Platinum that requires critical thinking, intuition and luck - and it was an absolute pleasure.

Notable Trophies - 

Completionist+ - Win with every deck on Gold Stake difficulty.
Completionist++ - Earn a Gold Sticker on every Joker.

Hardest Trophy -

Completionist++

Earn a Gold Sticker on every Joker

DLC #225 - Assassin's Creed Odyssey - The Fate of Atlantis : Episode 3

"Go do this. Bring me that. Kill him. I don't know if I can do this anymore." - Quips Alexios towards the end of this final piece of episodic DLC for Assassin's Creed Odyssey in an expression of burnout and tiredness.

I'm not sure to what extent this is tongue in cheek, but it's almost as if Assassin's Creed Odyssey knows exactly what it is by this point. I felt it was a perfect summarisation of how I'm feeling too.

The final foray into the Fate of Atlantis finally sees Alexios reach the promised land itself. Ruled by Poseidon, Atlantis is situated under the Aegean Sea, and acts as the final destination for the conclusion of this journey. It's another visually pleasing setting littered with grand palaces and surrounded by water. A stark contrast to the glum Underworld in Episode 2.

This is the right time to praise the effort that has gone into creating 3 different realms for each episode of the Fate of Atlantis. The cynics among us will argue that was the least they could do after making you retread the same regions of Greece you'd already seen for the entirety of the Legacy of the First Blade. The effort here is still admirable though, and Atlantis is probably my favourite of the 3 realms within this story.

There isn't much else different of note in terms of gameplay features though. Atlantis is framed as a hub for harbouring Isu knowledge, and you'll need to fill the knowledge bar in order to access certain areas of the map. This is split into 3 levels and follows the exact same concept as Tartaros Veils in Episode 2, which would only grant you access to certain areas once you'd obtained a full armour set. Discovering Isu caches, Keeper Insights and finding Codices are all methods to fill the knowledge bar through it's 3 full levels. It's new, but not really new.

Everything else is the same. Quest structure, abilities and a new batch of characters asking for the same old things. It's hardly reasonable to expect much drastic change this deep in, is it? And with the amount of post-game content Assassin's Creed Odyssey has introduced us to, there's only so many times you can repeat yourself. Reference the opening line of this post for a clinical summary.

This final pack of episodic DLC adds 5 trophies, with yet another emphasis on questline progression.

The hidden trophy in this set is awarded at the conclusion of the final part of the story, which contains 9 main quests. Some of the other trophies intertwine as you progress towards the end goal of beating this plotline once and for all.

Completely filling the Isu knowledge sequence is one of these trophies and you won't be able to reach certain missions until you've earned this trophy, as some quests only become available to start once you've maxed out the knowledge bar. These particular quests are accounted for in the 9 mentioned above, which effectively makes this progression-based too.

Collecting all Keeper's Insights, of which there are 3, will also award another trophy. These generate Isu knowledge, so directly link into progression for the above trophy too, so it makes sense to link them all together to improve trophy acquisition efficiency.

The other trophies are awarded for simple side activities, including forging 3 Legendary weapons, which just requires you to collect Adamant from chests in secured areas. The weapons look cool, but mean absolutely nothing at this stage of the game. My character has felt way too powerful for so long, new weaponry/armour is just something nice to look at by this point.

The last trophy is awarded for Killing 10 Isu Soldiers with the Blessing of Kronos enhancement - Another ability you just need to apply an ability point to in order to unlock it's final form, and kill 10 enemies whilst it's active.

Whilst none of these DLC packs for The Fate of Atlantis are truly difficult, this particular episode did feel like the easiest run of trophies out of all of them. A straight-forward questline, with trophies which complimented this through side activities, combined with low-bar requirements. No addition of those grindy Cultist/Mercenary branches that have existed in other forms of DLC to artificially lengthen the content on offer.

My final cumulative time on my save file sits at 145 hours and 22 minutes, meaning this package added another 7 hours onto the total - About the same length as Episode 2. It's a big level of time commitment for a game that never strayed too far from it's principle formula, and it has been a bit of a slog at times. This is what Assassin's Creed has become though with it's new direction of being a more akin to an RPG-style driven series, and the future holds more of where that came from.

Platinum #150 - Battlefield 5

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 3/10

I always referred to Warzone as the "Battlefield Killer".

Warzone was a complete game changer. Call of Duty and Battlefield fought on an even playing ground for me once upon a time, but the release of Warzone made me abandon Battlefield for a short while as a clear favourite emerged and stole most of my time.

It never truly displaced Battlefield, but I spent so much time playing Warzone that I just didn't have enough scope to be playing something within the same genre of game simultaneously, and it's important to specify that this is Warzone we're talking about - Not Call of Duty. I haven't been interested in the Call of Duty series for quite some time, but Warzone came with something different, refreshing and an experience that was also great to play with close mates.

It's true what they say though. All good things come to an end and my waning interest in Warzone made me revisit what I always thought was the superior offering out of the two series when pit against each other. I've always preferred the less arcade feel of Battlefield in comparison to Call of Duty, which started feeling a bit too gimmicky - with it's wingsuits, jetpacks and wall-jumping. Give me the best era for war games - World War 2 - A tank, old school weaponry and a few air bombers and let's call this argument a day.

Battlefield 5 is a Single Player and Multiplayer experience, set within the Second World War era, finely replicating everything from this time period. Authenticity is what Battlefield has always executed consistently well, where Call of Duty far too often strayed into the realms of abandoned realism.

I do just have to caveat this slightly. I spent much less time with this game compared to the previous titles in the series, which have contained trophy lists that have required prolonged amounts of time with the game. This was very much a fleeting visit by comparison, such were the low demands of the trophy list, so my views were based on a fairly brief experience.

This is still classic Battlefield though. War is captured eerily well. Graphically solid, from the vehicle models to the destructive environment that crumbles and folds around you from explosives and tank shells. Sounds of war are also portrayed excellently, from sniper fire pinging off in the distance to the ominous hum of an incoming bomber seconds away from dropping death from above. Authenticity has always been an ace card Battlefield has held over Call of Duty.

The most noticeable gameplay shift is in the movement and gunplay. It's not a difficult adaptation to make, but the fluid, fast-moving pace of Call of Duty sits on the very opposite end of the spectrum to the slower, slightly clunkier Battlefield. It's ultimately just another arcade to simulation differentiator, and will come down to personal preferences, but I've always felt Battlefield's style lends better to war shooters.

You can still choose from 4 different classes to play as, each with their own roles in battle. Engineer, Recon, Support and Medic all have vital parts to play in their own right, and give you a fundamental purpose to supporting your side in battle, promoting teamwork and synergy. Gaining experience points for tasks related to your role will give you better equipment for that class, so you can really hone in and focus on specific roles that interest you the most. On the other hand, the customisation options for weapon depth are a little bit lacking though.

Battlefield 5 generally isn't a game brimming with content either. The Single Player feels like an appetiser to the Multiplayer component, and the game wasn't supported with any post-game DLC of note. The Multiplayer element of the game has more depth, but people only seemingly play Conquest at this stage of the game's life cycle, whereas everything else is generally ignored. It's important to note that natural player preferences shouldn't be held against the game and it's options available. There are plenty of game modes contained within the overall package - I just barely got a chance to play many of them.

Interestingly enough, the newly added Firestorm game mode is Battlefield's answer to Warzone, however, because it isn't factored into the trophy list, I did not venture into this at any point.

Everything else was a nice way to ease back into Battlefield though. Punchy, albeit slower-paced, gameplay, but incredibly hectic fun when you have a full 64 player match as everyone contests capture zones in crowded areas and set-pieces on the map. 

In regards to trophies, this is a small-sized list, clocking in at a total of 22 trophies, including the Platinum, and it follows the theme of Battlefield trophy lists being relatively trouble-free.

Starting with the Single Player experience, which offers 3 different "War Stories" for you to complete. These were also present in Battlefield 1 - Individual tales told about specific characters representing different sides of the war, including a young Norwegian woman who attempts to save her hostage mother, a young British man who takes a plea deal by fighting on the frontlines to prevent a spell in prison and a young French-Senegalese soldier who takes command of a squad.

Going straight into these on Hardcore difficulty will earn you 6 trophies. You'll earn a trophy for completing each separate War Story, and then a further 3 Gold trophies for beating them all on Hardcore, which are stacked with Medium and Hard difficulties.

Hardcore difficulty has a couple of tough moments, but you can bypass many of the sections across all 3 campaigns with stealth and generally avoid conflict. The parts that force you into fighting prove to be a little bit of a sticking point at times, but you can still comfortably beat each story within 2-4 hours, and the labelling of "Hardcore" turns out to be a little bit disingenuous. It's definitely nowhere near the Veteran levels of Call of Duty titles from years gone by, which earned iconic status, and the checkpoint system is incredibly generous, rewarding you constantly for even the smallest amount of progress. Getting to every checkpoint in Call of Duty felt like a huge win in it's own right. Not so much here.

Completion of all 3 War Stories is all that's required to earn the Single Player trophies in the list. Previous Battlefield titles have extended their Single Player offerings to account for collectibles and specific in-level challenges/feats, but all of this has been dropped on this occasion, which is part of the reason for a significantly reduced trophy list in terms of quantity of trophies.

The Multiplayer element of the game doesn't exactly stretch the limits much further beyond the challenge presented by the Single Player segment of it either.

Just getting to grips with adapting to playing within a competitive environment saw a consistently steady flow of trophies awarded for incredibly easy tasks. In my first session alone experiencing the Multiplayer side of the game, I'd managed to unlock 9 trophies without any sort of specific focus - Almost half of the whole list - but it did also signify the beginning of the sole, real challenge of this game.

The "Death From Above" trophy, awarded for Destroying 5 manned stationary weapons with a Airplane, is the only genuinely difficult trophy in this list, and I had to set aside an entire session in order to earn it.

Firstly, you need to earn the kill AND the notification for destroying the stationary weapon simultaneously. If you're playing anew like I was, you'll only have access to 50kg bombs from the outset, and you'll be able to access up to 200kg bombs the further you progress the levelling of the bomber. The first hurdle I faced was realising that 50kg bombs weren't strong enough to destroy a manned stationary weapon in one drop, which meant enemy players would always get out and either leave the area or repair the weapon back to it's maximum health by the time you'd managed to come back round for a pass, so I quickly found out this wasn't going to work.

So I had to spend some time levelling the bomber up by just flying around and obtaining kills on infantry soldiers. It didn't take too long, but a pre-requisite I hadn't accounted for. The main positive to this was that I at least got the hang of piloting the bomber. I personally don't think the learning curve for flying in Battlefield is anywhere near as bad as some people make it out to be - It's mainly all about getting used to inverted controls but also understanding that flying it in third person is much easier than the default setting of first person too.

Secondly, I do think stationary AA guns are a little bit too overpowered. I'd find it incredibly easy to get shot down to the point where I tried it myself and realised that the hitbox for targeting planes with AA guns is incredibly generous, and most bombers will go down quickly enough if you notice them coming at you early.

To remedy this - Fjell 652 - A close quarters map that's small enough to ensure that your enemies commandeering AA guns don't have enough time to scope and shoot you down. Even the process of dropping bombs is a fairly easy once you realise that a white circle will appear just below the plane when you're close enough to the ground to release a bomb. It's a hit every time as long as your timing is on point. It took me around 6-7 hours, mostly of research and tactical planning outlined above, but I'd managed to obtain 5 kills in a handful of games of Conquest specifically on Fjell 652. You'll need to be patient but it makes a massive difference upgrading your bombs to be strong enough to wipe out a stationary weapon, and subsequently whoever's inside it, in one pass.

Beyond this, the remainder of the list is all downhill. There is another trophy to just make small note of, which requires you to capture 10 flags in Frontlines. This game mode is very similar to Conquest, but instead of capture points spread across a map, both teams compete to capture a linear set of flags where you push back the opposition until you've captured the final flag furthest down the line. Frontlines isn't available in public matches any more, so you'll need to create your own lobby and wait for at least 3 other players to populate it - The minimum amount required to start a game. This was easy to do, but I did have to hang around for a short while for something to happen.

Finally, I moved onto the remaining Multiplayer trophies, which required a little more effort and time. You'll need to accumulate a total of 500,000 experience points whilst playing Multiplayer, with an equally proportionate amount of time to be split across each of the 4 different soldier classes with separate trophies requiring you to earn 100,000 experience points whilst playing as each class.

It's simply just a matter of playing the game, and I found I could accumulate anywhere between 8,000 - 10,000 experience points per match in what I would consider to be a good return on average. Flag captures yield up to 600 experience points per full capture cycle, making them a primary focus of attention. The game also tracks the amount of cumulative experience points you've earned per class too, which is always a useful bonus when it comes to such high accumulation trophies that would otherwise not be easy to track, especially when you consider that you'll still need an additional 100,000 exp once you've unlocked the 4 class-specific experience trophies. 

Overall times spent to reach 100,000 with each class included 6 and a half hours for Assault, just over 5 hours for Medic, just under 6 hours for Support and just over 5 hours for Recon. Achieving an additional 100,000 experience on top of this was another 5 hours and I most went back to the Recon class for this, as I very much enjoy sniping.

Battlefield has gradually continued to lower the bar for it's trophy lists, particularly in recent iterations. I almost wanted to give this a lower score than what I ended up landing on, for a breezy Single Player campaign, and some Multiplayer trophies that generally just reward you for playing the game.

Accumulating 500,000 experience points will take a reasonable amount of time though, and the "Death From Above" trophy was effectively the reason I didn't budge on my score in the end. Some people will lose patience with the Platinum over this trophy alone, and if you're not willing to stay patient with it, you're probably not even going to want to sink the extra 25-ish hours into reaching the 500,000 exp milestone anyway.

If you can overcome the "Death From Above" challenge, this can be a 30-35 hour total Platinum completion time. The Multiplayer grind for experience is high, but fairly relaxed, and the other trophies that sit around this don't put any additional pressures on that drive a competitive Multiplayer space. It would be considered an ideal trophy list for many people - Unless you hate flying planes or getting killed relentlessly by others who do enjoy flying them.

Notable Trophies -

Death From Above - In Multiplayer, destroy 5 manned stationary weapons with a Airplane.

Hardest Trophy -

Death From Above

In Multiplayer, destroy 5 manned stationary weapons with a Airplane.

DLC #224 - Dirt Rally 2.0 - Colin McRae

Admittedly, I'm not a massive Rally fan. I've always loved the Dirt series, and I've always enjoyed the Rally aspect, but as far as being a regular consumer of the sport goes? Never watched it.

However, regardless of the popularity of any sport, anybody knows the true icons of the game, and Colin McRae is exactly that. The record-breaking winner of 25 rallies had this series bear his name from the late 90's right up to the Dirt rebrand in 2008, a year after he tragically died in a helicopter accident.

It's only fitting that this DLC pays homage to a sporting great, and this will make you feel like you're the man himself - Mainly for the fact it'll push your skills to limits of near perfectionism.

The package is built up of a series of 40 different scenarios spread across a timeline, focusing on significant events that occurred throughout Colin McRae's rally career. They're further divided into 4 time periods - Early Years (1984 - 1989), Rising Star (1991 - 1994), World Champion (1995 - 1998) and A New Challenge (1999 - 2006).

The concept is simple enough. Progress through each time period, completing enough scenarios to unlock the next time period. You'll only need to complete 3 in each era to unlock the next - The trophies and their requirements are a completely different story though. 

The scenarios are varied, and range from beating a teammate, to winning a stage whilst having damage to a specific part of the car, to averaging a certain speed throughout the completion of a stage. You'll also get to drive a range of different vehicles the great man himself has driven. The Subaru Legacy RS and Subaru Impreza S4 debut, as well as Scotland and all it's routes. It's probably a bit disingenuous to suggest it's by far the best Dirt Rally DLC pack, because the others have had nowhere near the same level of depth to them, but that doesn't take away from it's brilliance.

It'll no doubt please true fans of the sport. The scenarios are well recreated and the authenticity is all there - but if you're in it for the trophies, a gruelling challenge awaits.

Speaking of which, there are 5 new trophies added to the game as part of this package, and the centric focus is on the scenarios, despite the fact there is a little bit of extra-curricular inclusion outside of these.

There's a hint of natural progression, as completing the 1995 Wales scenario will net you a trophy, and a little bit of wackiness as rolling your Subaru Legacy RS in Finland 3 times in one stage will also reward you with a trophy. I do have to admit, there was a way more cathartic feeling than would have normally been reasonable upon doing this post-completion of beating every scenario on the toughest difficulty level, which is where the main prize lies;

...Flatout - Complete every scenario on very hard difficulty.

The "...Flatout" trophy, awarded for Completing every scenario on very hard difficulty is a brutal challenge. It's one of the toughest I've experienced in any game, especially within the racing genre, which has seen me beat the Motorstorm : Pacific Rift and Crash Team Racing time trials.

It requires you to beat all 40 scenarios on "very hard" difficulty. Dirt Rally 2.0 operates it's difficulty on a sliding scale basis, where the lowest possible choice to set the game to this difficulty requires the slider to be sat on at least 91 or above, up to 100. There has never been a necessity from the trophy list to unlock any trophies on a specific difficulty setting up to this point, so this was a completely new experience for me. I knew I'd need every slight advantage I could get, so 91 it was and not a notch further.

Getting through the early stages didn't feel too bad. I won't go as far to suggest it was luring me into a false sense of security, but it was going alarmingly too smoothly to at least make me cautious. The Early Years era only has 5 scenarios, and it very much acts as an introduction to the mode. However, so far, so good.

The Rising Star era is where things begin to heat up a little bit. The amount of scenarios just over doubles and you begin to experience the more gruelling multi-stage events that end up being the notch up in difficulty that runs a concurrent theme throughout. Within this era though, they're limited to a maximum of 3 stages and only 3 of the 11 total scenarios are multi-stage events, so it's still not too bad. If you're seasoned with Dirt Rally 2.0, you'll be fine, and this era just acts as a way of getting familiar with the slow rise in challenge.

World Champion era is where this trophy truly comes to fruition though. The number of scenarios yet again expands, with 13 in total within this category, and the multi-stage events are bigger and more frequent. A total of 8 out of the 13 scenarios are multi-stage events, and 7 of these contain either 4 or 5 stages to beat a scenario. These are lengthy and will begin to challenge you in every way.

Mastering each of the routes, perfecting your times - Sometimes by hundreds of seconds - and understanding vehicle handling all become necessary to success. Some of the scenario requirements will expect you to win by a considerable cumulative margin, and this can only be achieved with an almost perfect run for every stage where you stretch a lead. Some of these stages are 7 or 8 minutes long and I lost count of the amount of times I lost concentration on the final leg, causing a reset in progress back to the start. On other occasions, I'd beaten the stage, but wasn't comfortable with the time - and this could sometimes be a matter of half a second or so, such is the demanding nature of this difficulty level.

It doesn't matter how good you get at a game, a mental lapse can happen to anyone, and playing on very hard difficulty does not allow for any margin for error. It also means you have to take way more risks if you fall behind on par times and have to catch up. This is also naturally perilous and resulted in crashes multiple times.

It was also at this point where I discovered something strange that works against you. During certain multi-stage scenarios, if you quit part-way through, which is something I did frequently when I'd given up for the day and needed a break, then resuming from where you left off would give the AI a quicker completion time for the stage you started back at. Due to how difficult some of these scenarios are, this is something that didn't seem unusual, or out of the ordinary and I spent alot of time presuming the AI was beating me up, rather than noticing an obvious glitch had occurred. It's apparently common knowledge, and you can only remedy it by beating multi-stage scenarios without pausing for a break in-between. Frustrating, because it meant I had to set aside entire days at times just to beat a single multi-stage scenario. Thankfully, this doesn't occur on all of them, but an annoying discovery nonetheless. 

Slowly I was chipping away though, and the New Challenge era is where this trophy somewhat plateaus. It still contained more of the same punishing multi-stage events, but bought something new to the table too. This final era introduces a couple of challenges where you have to average a certain speed throughout an entire stage, adding a shedload of calculated risk as you sacrifice prowess for power in the name of ensuring you maintain your speed whilst avoiding catastrophe - another new skill I had to perfect myself on, and took a while to do so.

My average progress would be 1 scenario beaten per session, which could easily be 6-8 hours at times. These 4-5 multi-stage events exist to test your ability and perseverance. Small steps of progress like that began to feel like mammoth victories, and the odd scenario would pop up that I could do within a couple of tries, which absolutely spurred me on. 

It's crushing difficulty had me equally frustrated but hooked for more simultaneously. I've always believed there's a difference between the types of trial and error a game can put you through, and if you're failing but noticing progress, this becomes crucial to pushing through.

Beating that final scenario was a big relief. I'd originally looked up a trophy guide that had suggested this package to be within the region of 100 hours for completion, which I was very skeptical over initially. This probably took me even longer on the basis of how much time I'd spent battling through some of these scenarios.

There is also a stackable trophy, awarded for just completing every scenario, which will suit most people. However, this particular trophy is brutal and is not aimed at the casual player. You will need to be prepared to be very good to earn this, and it makes no compromise on that.

There was a final trophy still to grab, awarded for Setting a time of under 7 minutes on Newbridge House in the Subaru Impreza S4, which only took me a couple of attempts. I honestly felt like this was a breeze purely for the fact I'd practised so hard on the above trophy, everything else after this felt insignificant in comparison - A great benchmark for how well I'd honed my skills.

It wasn't a challenge I saw coming, especially based on what the Platinum trophy and it's subsequent DLC packs had thrown up thus far, but you know what they say - If you want to be the best, you've got to beat the best, and that's what Colin McRae was.

DLC #223 - Assassin's Creed Odyssey - The Fate of Atlantis : Episode 2

After a lengthy stay topside in Elysium, the reward for serving the Gods so well? Being plunged straight into the Underworld to meet Hades himself.

The immediate slaying of Cerberus throws the Underworld into chaos. If you're into Greek mythology, you'll know of the three-headed guardian whose role is to gatekeep the Underworld from the living entering and the dead escaping.

Well, courtesy of an opening boss fight, he's now also dead and this gate is being breached both ways, which rewards you with an immediate audience with Hades in order to fix this problem - or else. The God of the Underworld cuts a sinister figure, and the ultimatum kicks off Episode 2 of The Fate of Atlantis as you quest through hell to find a new gatekeeper (4 of them to be precise) and restore order back to Hades' playground.

It's clear that more effort has gone into The Fate of Atlantis compared to Legacy of the First Blade. This second episode transports you into a newly crafted realm, albeit much smaller in scale than Elysium, and there are more freshly added gameplay features to compliment a brand new episode.

Tartaros rifts can be found dotted around the Underworld, and provide enemy souls with immunity from humans until activated. Stepping into them will make souls vulnerable to attacks and adds an extra element of strategy to clearing forts and enemy camps. You won't be able to kill certain enemies until you've activated the rift they're linked too, promoting a more tactical element about how you navigate certain areas. Closing a rift also awards an ability point, so the game continues to absolutely ply you with the chance to upgrade your skill tree significantly.

Similarly, Tartaros veils block off passage to certain areas of the Underworld until you acquire the 5 pieces of a special armour set needed to pass through it's foggy barrier. This does act as a blocker to questline progression, and acquiring this armour set is heavily focused on the main questline, but it does also conceal a few optional secrets to be found within the environment, promoting off the beaten path exploration.

The environmental design does take a bit of a step back from the colourful vibrancy of Elysium. I know we're meant to be in hell, and the glum demeanor reflects that accordingly, but would it have hurt to use something a little bit more creative than just varying shades of brown to depict the landscape?

Ultimately though, despite these differences, you're still mainly running around doing fools errands - Just on behalf of Hades rather than Persephone and her motley crew. At least the motives are much clearer this time round. You've caused a problem and you're being forced to fix it, and there aren't 4 different characters chasing you around and confusing the narrative, which was a big plot issue in episode 1.

I very optimistically predicted this to be a 130 hour package by the time all 3 episodes had reached their conclusion, and we're already pushing 140 hours with an episode still remaining. It's moderately interesting to delve into the new gameplay features and explore fresh surroundings, until the predictable questline kicks in and redresses the balance of tedium.

In terms of trophies, 5 more have been added as part of this episode, with a big emphasis on main questline progression this time round, with almost every trophy being at least partially linked to the ongoing story.

The package is bookended with story-related trophies. The opening fight with Cerberus awards the first and there is a hidden trophy at the conclusion of the main questline after a similar encounter. The former is not to be treated as a spoiler, as this isn't hidden on the list, so I'm only playing by their rules in regards to what I reveal here.

Progressing everything else in between will also serve towards unlocking the other trophies on offer here. It became a common theme within each Legacy of the First Blade episode to track down a new Cultist branch as an extension of the main game. I was reluctant to point out the fact that this had been abandoned in episode 1 of The Fate of Atlantis because my research gave me a hunch that this was merely a brief reprieve.

"The One" trophy, awarded for Defeating all of the Fallen, confirms that hunch to be true, introducing 11 new targets to identify and kill in order to fulfil the requirements of this trophy. Some of these are linked directly to progressing the main quest as Hades' orders to find 4 new gatekeepers are from this selection of targets. Others are either found in the wild or linked to side quests.

You'll also need to close down all the Tartoros rifts for another trophy, of which there are 17 to find across the Underworld, and discovering the 3 Keeper's Insights will net you another trophy as well as help you acquire some more ability enhancements, exactly how you had to in the first episode prior. Access to both rifts and insights are sometimes within locations that are blocked off by a Tartaros veil, so the best starting point is to acquire the 5 pieces of Fallen armour before anything else, as acquiring the full set will give access to all locations on the map. It makes things less confusing when cleaning up trophies.

This is a much shorter experience than that of episode 1, taking the save file to a total of 138 hours, which means this clocks in at around a 7 hour package. Much of the trophy list boils down to tracking the new group of assassination targets with different end goals, whether that be because they're required by Hades' to be new protectors of the Underworld, or because they're holding a crucial piece of armour required to complete the Fallen set, as examples.

Next up - The final chapter.

DLC #222 - Overwatch - Additional Characters 3

Oh, Overwatch. I'd be lying through my teeth if I said I'd missed you.

A 10/10 Platinum trophy back in 2022 courtesy of some of it's outrageously demanding character-specific trophies. One I ultimately had to concede defeat in and boost in order to finish, despite my best efforts to plough through to the end.

Overwatch is still a well supported game. The developers are committed to rolling out regular updates and the live roster now has 52 playable characters. Initially, new characters were accompanied with their own trophies to obtain, but this soon halted - seemingly for good - with this DLC pack signifying the end of this trend.

A blessing in disguise as far as I'm concerned. I'm not sure I could have stomached a trophy list that was willing to continually add more and more undoubtedly complex trophies every time a new season ticked over and we saw the introduction of another new character. I've already said I thoroughly enjoyed Overwatch, and re-visiting it was a nice dosage of nostalgia, but in equal measure, the reasons why I was ultimately glad to leave it on the shelf made themselves known.

My original criticisms of the game from a trophy-based perspective are still current today. The spectrum of difficulty for these trophies is wide and vast - ranging from a fair challenge to borderline impossible - and many of the game features are still very trophy hunter unfriendly.  Why do I still have to wait 10 minutes in a queue to get into a game because all I want to do is select a Tank character for the purpose of unlocking a character-specific trophy?! So frustrating.

This DLC pack adds 10 new trophies which cover 5 characters who were later added to the Overwatch roster before Blizzard decided to stop releasing new trophies with any other subsequent character thereafter.

There are 2 trophies attributed to each character, and these include Junker Queen, Lifeweaver, Kiriko, Ramattra and Sojourn, and the initial step was to spend a bit of time getting used to each of these new characters. It had been a long time since I'd last played Overwatch and the step to just get familiar with these new characters in a competitive environment was a necessary one.

Onto tackling the trophies. I was determined to commit to making as much progress on these trophies as I could, putting aside big sessions to see how far I could get. One of the biggest issues with these trophies is that some of them are hugely down to circumstance, and how things align for you, which is a highly volatile factor to achievement.

This was punctuated by unlocking the "Giving Tree" trophy, awarded for Restoring 1200 health with a single use of Lifeweaver's Tree of Life. Activating this ultimate ability on a payload the moment an enemy Hanzo had unleashed a Dragonstrike is exactly the sort of circumstantial luck I'm talking about. This is one of the tougher trophies in the list to earn, but also just shows that all you may need is a bit of luck to be in the right place at the right time to find your window of opportunity present itself.

In similar fashion, the "Taking Charge" trophy, awarded for Getting 4 killing blows with a single use of Sojourn's Overclock, happened for me in similar circumstances. Almost 5 hours after unlocking the prior trophy, and on the verge of giving up for the day, Zarya's Gravitation Surge sucked an entire enemy team in. Sensing the moment, triggering Overclock allowed me to easily get the 4 kills needed to pop this trophy. This is the rarest trophy in this particular list, and I had been actively trying to earn it within this 5 hour period, but the time I got it was when I least expected to. A timely Gravitation Surge - Which was always clutch for group-kill trophies - and then seizing that opportunity.

Ultimately, these trophies could, in theory, take forever. Perseverance will generally win the day, but it's not a guarantee, and those are the worst kind of trophies for me. They're out of your control and your best chances are down to luck. I had some here, but would also run out of it later down the line, and it's the primary reason I boosted some of the Overwatch Platinum trophies.

Before then, there is at least a nice blend of easier to earn trophies that don't require ridiculously improbable situations to present themselves. Why couldn't they all be like this? I'm not suggesting to dumb them all down, just to close the gap a bit and add some fairer balance to the trophy requirements that don't make you feel like you're fruitlessly wasting your time.

I'd go on to achieve another 5 trophies fairly trouble-free, but most of these had fairer requirements. A nice balance between challenge and the sense of feeling that they were actually achievable. It's draining sinking hours into something that still feels like you could end an entire session without any further progress. However, we eventually hit that wall...

Purified - Cleanse 5 negative effects with one use of Kiriko's Protection Suzu in Quick or Competitive Play.
Life Weaving - Prevent 3 deaths using Lifeweaver's Life Grip without dying yourself in Quick or Competitive Play.

These 2 trophies were the ones that made me tap out and concede to boosting the remainder of this list.

The "Purified" trophy, awarded for Cleansing 5 negative effects with one use of Kiriko's Protection Suzu in Quick or Competitive Play is fully dependent on matching up against players who have picked a character who has the ability to deal out negative effects.

This list is very limited, and with such a crowded roster, if you're actively attempting for this trophy, you'll need to hope that the opposition team selects a specific character. Realistically - and it's important to bear in mind that you need to cleanse 5 negative effects in one go - there are only a couple of heroes that make this viable.

Mei's Blizzard ultimate is the recommended window of opportunity for this trophy. It has a very wide area of effect, and the gradual freezing damage counts as a multi-cleanse for some reason. This means you won't need your whole team caught up in it.

Junker Queen also has a multitude of attacks that cause bleeding damage, and can again, be linked together to apply to multiple enemies at once. The problem with Protection Suzu is that this is a very small area of effect, so you also need to have your team very closely bunched together and locked into one space. This is why Mei's Blizzard also works so well.

I gave this one an honest go, but just gave up after getting into game after game without the opposition team selecting the correct characters that would allow me to obtain this trophy. Way too much trial and error just to have the opportunity to earn the trophy, let alone earn it.

The "Life Weaving" trophy, awarded for Preventing 3 deaths using Lifeweaver's Life Grip without dying yourself in Quick or Competitive Play, is another trophy built in the same vein as above.

The Life Grip is an ability that pulls a teammate away from a certain death incident, but this is a great example of the unrealistic requirements that come attached to some of these trophies. To do this 3 times AND without dying in the same game is a real stretch, and on top of this, the specifics behind triggering a "life save" are also incredibly cloudy.

There is actually a statistic in-game that tracks the number of life saves you've earned from the Life Grip ability, but these do not correlate to the trophy. I actually had this counter up at 5/6 multiple times without achieving the trophy, and it's very much up for debate what the actual requirements are to unlock this trophy properly.

The theory that makes sense is one that suggests only attacks that were due to kill your teammate count as an actual save. Attacks that fall into this category as good examples are Tracer's Pulse grenade, which is an insta-kill with a stick, and Hanzo's Dragonstrike, which will kill anyone who stands in the way too long. D.Va's self-destruct is also another good example, but much harder to get the timing right for, due to the fact if you pull your teammate away too fast, it won't count.

Either way, you're not just reliant on matching up against opponents who need to select a specific character, but the trophy is just an unclear, buggy mess. Again, I just gave up after an honest plug at this one and decided to call time on something that I just wasn't prepared to waste my time on.

Even boosting these final 2 trophies felt like hard work to get this all finished. Matchmaking 2 groups together is an arduous chore, and the first session I attempted ended after 2 hours of not even being able to pair 2 groups of 6 players together in order to get into the same lobby. Even on the second try a few days later, we had to persist even longer before getting into the same lobby, but once you're there, it's easy enough to manufacture the situations you need to earn any trophy.

I don't like boosting, and I've rarely ever resorted to it. I'll always give any challenge an honest shot before conceding defeat, but the developers really need to re-assess the logic behind some of these trophies. I know Overwatch is a constantly evolving beast, and some of these trophy requirements have changed over time as characters and their move-sets have been tweaked, but some have remained almost impossible to achieve. Maybe that's a hook to keep people playing?

Anyway, never say never, but I think this one's finally on the shelf for good.

DLC #221 - Assassin's Creed Odyssey - The Fate of Atlantis : Episode 1

Deep within the isle of Thera, a secret. A vault discovered by Pythagoras leading directly to the underwater city of Atlantis.

Beating a series of trophy-related side quests in the main game will take you to the discovery of this vault and the possibility to explore the lost city.

The Fate of Atlantis DLC starts with the obvious question. What lies beyond? The answer is Elysium. A realm depicted in Greek mythology to form a portion of the afterlife. Gifted to Queen Persephone by her husband Hades, God of the Underworld.

Mainly occupied by the dead as a paradise for those who died in honourable circumstances, Alexios finds himself trapped inside in full human form after inheriting the Staff of Hermes from Pythagoras - A tool used to keep the vault shrouded in secrecy from outsiders.

The story is fundamentally based around Alexios identifying a means of escape from Atlantis, but it was never going to be as simple as just turning round and walking back through the same way you came in. An intertwined story featuring Elysium's occupants unravels, all of whom lay claim to being the key to Alexios' way out of the realm. If you're into Greek mythology, there are some very recognisable names here.

The plot, yet again though, leaves much to be desired. I feel like I've given Assassin's Creed Odyssey the benefit of the doubt with it's guff-filled story telling, but even The Fate of Atlantis reaches dizzying new heights on it's lack of clarity. The main characters make themselves known very early on and it's at least clear they all have different motives. However, the quest structure is really messy and contains objectives that completely conflict Alexios' loyalties to each of the 4 main characters in all of this.

If I side with one character, that should surely change how the others perceive me, and maybe even impact the questline? Nope. Alexios will just do as he's told and everyone will overlook the fact he's pimping himself out to anyone who asks the question, despite the obvious tensions between the main characters and their motives.

So the lore and storytelling is as confusing as ever, but the package does at least freshen up the experiences with some additions and changes. One of the biggest is the new environment. A desperately needed refresher after spending over 100 hours traipsing across Ancient Greece. Elysium is bright, vibrant and simply just a necessary change of scenery at this point. It's sheer verticality is a little bit intimidating, and the terrain is awkward to transverse at times too. However, it's still a welcome change. You do have the ability to teleport vertically through the new Hermes gates teleportation pads, once you get bored of the flowery, water-drenched landscape.

You'll also experience some new enemies in the form of Isu Soldiers and Colossi, who protect the Elysium grounds. Their attacks block adrenaline and prevent the use of special abilities, changing combat dynamics drastically. Colossi are especially dangerous, but will remain dormant until open combat is engaged, so despite their power, they're easy to avoid and prevent engagement with.

Abilities have also been tweaked slightly too. You can now unlock enhancements for all abilities that can be upgraded to 3 levels. Once you hit the third, you'll be able to apply an ability point to enhance that ability, which essentially just buffs it further. Experience rewards for beating quests have been significantly ramped up, so you'll level up and acquire ability points at a much quicker rate. You'll need to find Keeper Insights to unlock them - Special tablets dotted around the world that'll grant you access to these enhancements. There's a trophy dedicated to finding all 4 within this first episode.

Speaking of which, there are 5 trophies added to this ever-growing list, and most of these trophies can be earned through simple progression of the story arc.

There are 3 trophies awarded for beating every quest within Elysium, whether that pertains to the main story arc or the various side quests scattered around the landscape. Participation in side quests only influences story outcomes, so whilst many of them are optional, the less you do will provide less options towards the sort of ending you experience.

However this doesn't make any of these trophies missable, and you can still unlock these 3 trophies without any concerns of not fulfilling certain quests. The side quests which lead towards trophies are mandated, as some are heavily linked to main quest requirements, so you can bypass content without the worry of any detriment towards trophy progression. This is important to note because this was an unexpectedly lengthy package.

The "A Growing Perception" side quest, briefly mentioned above, pertains to finding the 4 Keeper Insights that will allow you to access ability enhancements, as well as the "Gathering Strength" trophy, awarded for Collecting all the Keeper's Insights in Episode 1.

The "Give 'Em Hades" side quest, where you have to reduce the influence of Persephone on Elysium, is linked to the "No More Rulers" trophy, awarded for Killing all Overseers in Elysium. By far the quickest way to reduce the influence of each region is by killing the regions Overseer and destroying their fort, so I'll count these tasks as mutually linked.

Finally, the "Free Their Minds, the Rest Will Follow" side quest, where you have to rescue 8 enslaved mortals from each of the 3 territories Elysium is broken down into will eventually award you with "The Conqueror" trophy at the very end of the episode.

Outside of this, there is a hidden trophy that produces a nice little Easter Egg revelation, and this is also linked to another side quest involving the recruitment of rebels to overthrow Persephone, and you'll also need to track down 18 Marble Maidens - Statues scattered around Elysium that'll need to be destroyed for the "Blasphemer" trophy. A small handful of these are very well hidden within underground caves and water systems, so some reasonable level of exploration is required.

I did touch upon the fact that this piece of DLC had an unexpectedly lengthy time completion, and this jumped my save file from 119 to 131 hours, so a circa 12 hour experience. This was a little bit surprising given the fact the previous episodic DLC consistently clocked in at around 3-4 hours on average per episode, so this first episode alone is already just as long as the entire Legacy of the First Blade combined. The general tedium of conducting the same actions within quests still lingers, but the injection of freshness from a new environment, as well as some new gameplay features does help.

It certainly makes my prediction of the whole thing being around 130 hours all in completely wide of the mark, but crucially, we're one more step further to the end.

DLC #220 - Assassin's Creed Odyssey - Additional Feats

Ubisoft really wanted to squeeze every last bit of life out of Assassin's Creed Odyssey, didn't they?

Just incase 6 episodic pieces of DLC weren't going to be enough, the idea was manifested to keep plying the game with a bunch of side quest content - presumably to keep the appetite at bay. You almost have to admire the brazenness of the belief that the one thing everyone who played 80-100 hours of Assassin's Creed Odyssey's main game wanted more of was generic stocking filler content.

"Additional Feats" or better known in-game as The Lost Tales of Greece, are simply a collection of side quests, released steadily beyond the main game - Delivered to tide players over between each episodic release of it's story-driven post-game DLC.

They're a bunch of short stories centered around a host of different characters. Some new and some existing, each with their own predicaments or situations Alexios is naturally required for his assistance on. I didn't do much side questing at all throughout my main experience with Assassin's Creed Odyssey, simply because I didn't need to in the end, but side-questing in open world games is so predictable, I'll generally avoid it until I have good reasons to indulge. Like when there are trophies on offer.

There is a little Easter Egg theory that each of the quests relates to a Greek God/Goddess and what they were most known for in Greek mythology. Cool, if true, but that's about as interesting as it gets. Each quest, despite who you may run into or where they may take you, simply just boils down to running around doing silly errands for someone - Something Assassin's Creed Odyssey has become way too comfortable with at this point.

The odd quest is somewhat intriguing, and there is a way this sort of content could have proven more useful. However, I don't need the experience points any more, the weapons/armour rewards are made redundant by the fact I'm comfortably scaled and the lore doesn't really add anything a story that has long concluded. Fetch this, kill them, discover that. It's classic stocking filler, and for something that was designed to tide players over between episodic DLC, it's only made me further desire the moment I can finally shelve this one for good.

There are 13 trophies added to the package as part of these additional feats, and each trophy relates to the completion of an individual quest.

They're quite lengthy and make up an entire questline built up of multiple quests in most instances, with the majority of these trophies taking between 1-2 hours to achieve each, especially if you're taking in the dialogue and lore, of which there is plenty.

There are 2 trophies linked not to questline completion, but taking down mythical creatures that roam the land, and these are slightly shorter as a consequence, but the longer-winded nature of the majority of these quests serves only to make them feel more like a chore to full completion. They just feel way too similar to one another, despite different story angles, and it makes Assassin's Creed Odyssey just feel more exhaustive each time you pick it up. 

Even the quest structure is predictably rigid. In very noticeable fashion, most questlines are broken down into groupings of 3. Speak to 3 people to trigger a quest for each person or visit 3 different locations to complete a quest within each of those areas - Usually a wolf-ridden cave or snake-infested tomb. I was mostly sleepwalking through this content at the sheer predictability of it's nature.

I tackled everything in mostly random order, and the exercise itself is a fairly straight-forward one with no surprises to completion along the way. Beat one questline, unlock the trophy for it and move onto the next until the list is complete. It's very self-explanatory. Just a quick note on a couple of the trophies;

• The "Every Story Has an Ending" trophy did require a few additional hours of pre-requisite questing. I had some outstanding questlines to complete before I could unlock this one. It ties up a few lose ends regarding a couple of main story characters.
• The "Heir of Memories" trophy requires you to begin the build up and opening portion of The Fate of Atlantis DLC and you'll experience the entire opening sequence to this content before seeing Atlantis itself on your way to unlocking this trophy. Both trophies leaned towards the higher end of 1-2 hours per quest guideline mentioned above as a result.

This package took my overall save file completion time from 107 to 119 hours, meaning an estimated overall completion for the package to be around 12-13 hours. With 3 more episodic DLC packs still remaining, we're pushing towards, at least, a 130 hour experience in total. 

That's alot for any game, and I would question the true value this content added to the experience. Some people will always want more, and that's fine, and I have said before that more of the same isn't always necessarily a bad thing. It has to be the right thing to do though. Releasing drip-fed quests into the game designed to be tackled in bitesize chunks isn't a bad idea on paper. However, it doesn't translate well for those that have to complete it all in one go and just ends up dragging.  

At least it was free though, but it's left me almost on my knees praying for The Fate of Atlantis DLC to be the deserving conclusion we're desperately after at this point.

DLC #219 - Grid Legends - Winter Bash

Drifting. It straddles the fine line of serious racing discipline and party mode - but it's always been a common fixture in racing games, including being the chosen theme to put the lid on the Grid Legends experience.

The aptly named Winter Bash celebrates the end of road for Grid Legends. We've explored a variety of different themes in this post-game content, but the final piece of DLC puts a focus on the art of drifting, with one last series of additions to the game.

One final chapter of new events closes out the Grid story. The BMW 2002 TII Race Car, Bugatti Bolide and SRT Viper GTS-R make the cut at the last checkpoint and the interesting decision to introduce a downhill racing drift track for use in drift events completes the meatier side of the package.

I was a little bit critical of the Enduring Spirit pack, for the simple reason that I didn't feel as if it actually leant into it's Endurance theme enough. The same can be said here too. Most of the new story chapter events are just standard circuit races, and only 3 of them are actual drift events. Even the pass objectives for the story events are based on "party" goals such as executing a certain number of barrel rolls and overtakes mid-race, furthering the stance that drifting is generally considered to be included as a party-esque, arcade mode of racing.

A final 10 trophies are also added to the main list, with the template remaining just as consistent throughout.

The new story branch adds 8 new events, and 3 of the 10 trophies are awarded for natural progression within this. You can technically stretch this to 4 trophies, for an additional trophy that requires you to execute a barrel roll. The chapter 3 pass objective is to execute a couple of barrel rolls during the race, which effectively makes this progression-related too.

The remainder of the list is the usual collection of miscellaneous trophies, including alot of interaction with the new group of cars added to the collection. You'll need to win 5 drift events in the SRT Viper GTS-R and 3 time attack events in the BMW 2002 TII Race Car for 2 additional trophies, both of which can be fulfilled within the race creation tool.

There are also 3 additional trophies related specifically to the Bugatti Bolide. You'll need to set a hot lap on the Strada Alpina (Circuito Stradale) course, reach a 265MPH speed and accumulate an unnecessarily large 200 miles. The full Strada Alpina circuit is roughly 7.5 miles, meaning you'll need to execute around 27 laps of this course. The Bugatti Bolide is quick, sharp and hard to control at times, and the hot lap trophy requirement is 3:03, which means you'll need around 2 hours just earn these trophies alone, assuming you achieve the hot lap trophy prior to accumulating 200 miles of distance. Make sure you've acquired all of the tier 3 upgrades for the Bolide - It makes the time requirement much more achievable. It does make more sense from a time perspective to just lap the oval, especially with the speed of the Bolide, but I took a bit of time to get the hot lap trophy, so felt it made sense to just keep lapping this circuit to reach all 200 miles.

By this point, the route to completion had become a very familiar one. Progress the new story branch, jump into the miscellaneous trophies and clean up. The decision to move away from trophies tied to sponsor objectives was a good call too - We didn't need those to persist any longer than necessary, and it made the packs less time consuming going forward.

Winter Bash should take somewhere within the region of 3-4 hours to complete. The race creator will allow you to knock out the events with the minimum requirements quickly, and despite needing the majority of around 1.5/2 hours dedicated to some slightly grindy tasks for the Bugatti Bolide, you should still be able to fit within the completion timeframe easily. 

DLC #218 - Assassin's Creed Odyssey - Legacy of the First Blade : Episode 3

I noted a belief in the review of Episode 2 that I knew where the conclusion to this story was heading. It's exactly what I expected. A story that takes a tragedy-laden turn in the sort of fashion that only Asssassin's Creed knows how.

For this final episode, Alexios island hops one more time to Messenia in order to tie up the loose ends of the Order of the Ancients and come to terms with the future of his bloodline.

I'm ultimately critical of the execution of the overall plot for Legacy of the First Blade. The plot itself is intriguing, but the execution is clunky, and there are too many elements to it that just don't make any sense, most notably the ending to Episode 2, and the overall conclusion to the story in Episode 3. There are too many continuity errors and critical plot points feel forced to steer the story down a certain narrative route that dilute the storytelling and deprive it of any natural flow.

When you combine this with an equally predictable gameplay loop, it almost feels like I've played the same piece of content 3 times over. Another main questline packed with fetch quests and fort infiltration. Another cluster of Order of the Ancients to track down and kill. Even the trophy list is a familiar template at the point. I now have just over 107 hours on my save file for Assassin's Creed Odyssey after the conclusion of these 3 episodes of DLC and it's seldom truly given us anything different to what we saw in the opening few hours of the game - and there's still more content to come.

The trophies add 5 more to the package, with alot of aforementioned familiarity attached to them for the conclusion of this sub-story.

The hidden trophy is related to story-progression, and is awarded upon completion of the final main quest. Episode 3 is much more narrative driven in comparison to previous episodes, and there is alot of storytelling involved. As a consequence, there are only 4 main quests that you'll need to complete to reach the end of the episode and unlock this trophy. It definitely felt like you're more detached from gameplay in comparison to Episode 2, and whilst there are a handful of sub-missions that link to main quests, these are present to hunt down some of the Order of the Ancients targets for another Gold trophy related to finally killing all of the Order of the Ancients across the entire sub-story. There are 7 more added specific to this episode.

The package also adds yet another new ability to the skill tree that you'll need to reserve an ability point for, and the relevant trophy on this occasion is awarded for killing 10 enemies using the Fury of the Bloodline. I had to purchase this skill, but I was holding a spare ability point back specifically to use in light of this trophy. Again, you can always reset your skill tree and reassign ability points for the purpose of this trophy if necessary to do so.

There is also another similar trophy awarded for healing yourself by getting 10 headshot kills with the Golden Harbinger equipped - A legendary staff that will heal you each time you kill an enemy with a bow and arrow. You can only obtain the Golden Harbinger from Gergis of the Order of the Ancients. If you choose to allow him to walk away, the item will be available in a chest later on instead.

There's also a final trophy awarded for acquiring the Sword of Kings. Upon completion of the main questline, you'll obtain an epilogue quest to visit the blacksmith in Phokis. He will be able to craft the sword for you, providing you have enough resources to do so. Adamantin and other normal crafting resources are required to do so, and I was crafted the sword automatically without any necessity to farm additional resources, so the extra-curricular tasks were fairly straight-forward for me. Also, being granted the actual iconic hidden blade, instead of yet another non-descript item of loot, would have topped any ending we ultimately got here. Talk about a missed opportunity. 

Full completion of the Legacy of the first Blade added a total of just over 13 hours onto my save file, taking it to just over 107 hours for total play time. A long time to still be investing into any game at the post-game content stage, especially when you consider there are still 4 content packs to complete - and when it feels like I've been trapped in an endless gameplay loop since minute one. I hope the Fate of Atlantis story is good.

DLC #217 - Grid Legends - Rise of Ravenwest

There isn't anything much more iconic about Grid than Ravenwest. The original protagonists. Always the team to beat - And with the cinematic production levels of Grid Legends, this DLC gives the people associated with Ravenwest the limelight to portray their obnoxious personas.

The previous 2 pieces of DLC content have focused on gimmicks, touching on Demolition and Endurance racing. Rise of Ravenwest is just a nostalgic nod to the past and focuses on the roots of Grid through a longstanding icon of it's series.

It doesn't do anything spectacular, but it's still my favourite individual piece of DLC so far, mainly for the subtle features that build on the nostalgic vibes. The user interface changes to the bold, vibrant yellow text originally featured in Race Driver : Grid. The lighting and slightly grainy filter give it an old school ambience. The classic Ravenwest liveries return, though it is a shame you can't use them outside the new story branch. The Miami race location returns. All of this with a story told that stretches way back to the beginning of the Grid series. It won't mean anything to some, but I'm a bit of a nostalgia freak so I loved seeing these surprises pop up as I progressed deeper into the content.

Expanding on this, the Miami location adds 2 new track variants and there are 4 new classic vehicles added. These include the BMW 320 Turbo Group 5, 1967 Chevrolet Corvette, 1971 Plymouth GTX and 1967 Ford Mustang Fastback.

Again, there are 10 trophies added to this collection, and these are a bit more straight-forward compared to previous sets.

The new Rise of Ravenwest story branch is the most fleshed out offering yet, containing 11 new events to progress through. This is the most amount of events for any story branch thus far, and as a result of the prolonged length, 6 of the 10 trophies on offer are purely progression-based in relation to completing the story.

With no real dedicated racing theme connected to this expansion, circuit racing is heavily featured within these events, and the requirements are fairly simple for the most part, requiring you to finish anywhere between 4th place and just simply complete the event. You'll need to go on to win a couple of them, but this isn't too demanding, even against tougher AI. All 11 events should take no longer than 2-3 hours, given the fact you shouldn't really have to replay many of them, if any at all.

Trophies tied to sponsorship objectives are chopped for this package. Instead, you'll be required to beat 3 hot laps using specific vehicles on specific tracks. These are with the new vehicles added to the game as mentioned above - A nice touch to give you an excuse to use them, and whilst it's true these are nowhere as grindy as the sponsorship objectives, there is a crucial detail to know.

I was stuck on the first hot lap for hours and thought it was just a matter of practice and developing my strategy. I had the vehicle maxed out with performance upgrades and I felt like I was pulling off the optimal lap each time, yet I was consistently falling a good few seconds short of the required lap time for the trophy.

I did some research and discovered that the default setting for custom events switches off performance upgrades, which negated the upgrades I had installed on the vehicle. Once I'd turned this on, I managed to achieve the hot lap time straight away. Applying the same settings to the other hot lap trophies yielded similar results. It's a good job I checked. I knew something wasn't quite right and it was a crucial piece of information to find out about. I'd lost a few hours unnecessarily but sometimes you find things out the hard way and that's just how it is.

Taking this into account, it's an easy completion. The trophies are heavily weighted to the story and the hot lap trophies are also easy once you know about the trick above. You might need to drive the required mileage to unlock the tier 3 upgrades, which is a little bit grindy, but it's still a better direction than fulfilling sponsorship objectives.