DLC #49 - Fallout : New Vegas - Honest Hearts

Banish the "White Legs" in Honest Hearts

Sticking with the New Vegas theme, the barrage of DLC content begins with Honest Hearts, and is an incredibly east package to pick up some additional trophies from.
                     
The 5 trophies on offer are entirely progression based, and the only thing worth noting is that story provides a branched ending, similar to that of the main game story, which includes 2 endings, each with a relevant trophy for completing the branch.                                                        
With some good old-fashioned save game trickery, you can play out the 1 ending, and then reload back at the crux point to play out the other ending and unlock whichever trophy you didn't grab first time round.
                   
In terms of difficulty, there practically is none, and the episode takes no longer than 2-4 hours to run through in full, along with both of it's alternative endings (Providing you opt for the more time efficient option of loading from the branch-off point). Even if you do wish to play through the DLC in full twice, instead of re-loading your save, you're still only looking at about 6 hours maximum to grab all 5 trophies. It's a very linear, and incredibly relaxed piece of content.
                                                            
Easy.

Platinum #42 - Fallout : New Vegas

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 6/10                                                                              
The New Vegas trophy list follows a very similar mould to the previous Fallout game, with the vast majority of the list packed with cumulative and quest progression trophies.                                                   
There are significantly less trophies related to side quests this time round, though that's down to the branched off ending paths present at the end of the game.

In a very similar manner to the karma system in Fallout 3, which had trophies revolving around hitting the same levels with each of the 3 karma stances, and therefore promoting multiple playthroughs, this list does exactly the same thing, except with multiple game endings depending on selections and choices throughout the game.

Thankfully, and in the same manner as Fallout 3, there is also a crux point where you can choose which path to take, at which times you can use a bit of save game trickery in order to reload the game from that same section and mop up each of the trophies related to the games 4 different quest endings, without the hassle of actually having to play the game through 4 times in full.
                                 
The main questline isn't terribly long anyway, but going through each of the 4 endings individually on separate playthroughs would take a solid amount of time and dedication, and would essentially turn the list into a needless chore, so it would be in the best interest of time and enjoyment to duplicate your save file and just reload them before each quest choice.
                                          
Carrying on that progression based theme, there are a bunch of tasks all relating to small grinds over various aspects of skills including lockpicking, hacking, speech challenges and repairing. You can naturally unlock most of these, but for others, you will need to delve deeper into the expansive wasteland and side activities, especially for the trophies that have higher accumulative totals to rack up.
                                                                               
There are also handful of trophies that require you to deal 10,000 points of damage with various wasteland weapons, making caps and healing yourself but most of these are just a matter of playing through the game naturally, and will flow throughout the course of the game. Accumulating damage with weapons is easy to farm through, and there definitely isn't a shortage of dungeons and caves to blast through in order to rack up enough damage points for each weapon category.

It can get more difficult when it comes to 10,000 points worth of things such as unarmed damage and melee weapons, simply due to the reason that enemies are always more dangerous when you're closer to them, but all the points based trophies are simply just a matter of time and shouldn't be too difficult to unlock.
    
Being set in New Vegas, it wouldn't be a complete list without some casino based trophies. The  "Courier Who Broke the Bank" trophy,  awarded for getting barred from each of the strip's casinos, essentially comes down to just cleaning them out of caps, and being banned from competing inside them.

Each casino has a different limit, which is usually higher than the previous one, and even though it can be quite difficult to win so often that you clear out an entire fund pot, if you raise your in-game luck attribute high enough, you can essentially win every single game you play, which definitely takes the sting out of the challenge. Even if you didn't choose a high luck attribute at the start of the game, you can wipe and modify your attribute set specifically for these trophies, which you will most likely need to do if you want this trophy, as it's very difficult to win such a high volume of casino games without it.
                                                                                                      
The only trophy you can argue that provides any sort of challenge is the only Gold trophy in this list. The "Hardcore" trophy, awarded for playing the game from start to finish in hardcore mode, is a mode where you have to take into account various factors that pertain more to real life survival, including starvation, dehydration, prolonged limb damage and sleep.

Even though you have to keep the permutations of Hardcore mode switched on throughout the whole game, you can choose to play it on any difficulty, which does make this considerably easier. It is still tough to keep tabs on the various survival factors in the game, but they degenerate your characters health at a much lower rate on the lower difficulty levels, meaning you're not constantly keeping an eye out on your survival factors so often.

If you want a genuine challenge, Hardcore mode will provide it on the games higher difficulty levels, but that really is the only way that this list will test you. There are a few difficulty spikes in some other areas too, but this Platinum is really just about time. Playing through the main quest is an 8-12 hour experience, and you will need to play through each of the 4 different endings, which, despite being a massive timesaver if you utilise the save game trickery mentioned above, will still take a fair amount of time.

The abundance of side activities and other quests that have trophies attached to them will add to the overall completion time significantly, and you can expect anywhere between 80-100 hours for a general estimation. If you're up for the grind, this is a relatively easy list, but you should expect a slight challenge.

Notable Trophies - 

Veni, Vidi, Vici! - Completed Veni, Vidi, Vici
Eureka! - Completed Eureka!
Render Unto Caesar - Completed Render Unto Caesar
All or Northing - Completed All of Nothing
Hardcore - Played the game from start to finish in Hardcore Mode. 

Hardest Trophy -   
                                                                                                                                

  

Veni, Vidi, Vici!
Completed Veni, Vidi, Vici.





Note : Any of the 4 main ending trophies could be deemed as the hardest trophy, but I felt this one just about edged it in terms of difficulty.

DLC #48 - Modern Warfare 3 Content Collection 2

Take out some choppers in Kill Switch.

Content Collection 2 is more of the same from Modern Warfare 3, with 6 new trophies spread over 2 new Special Ops missions.                                    
Trophy structure follows the exact same pattern as the first content collection, with 4 trophies awarded for beating the missions on veteran, and then 2 further trophies for pulling off specific in-level tasks in each mission as well.                                                                        
The Kill-Switch mission, which tasks you with detonating an EMP in a Russian factory, is definitely the easier of the 2 missions, and shouldn't take more than a few attempts to beat, even on Veteran difficulty (Though there is a slightly tough part around the middle portion where you have to cover your team-mate with sniper fire which may cause a few re-tries). The sub-task for destroying all 6 helicopters in the level is a breeze.
                
The Iron Clad mission, which sees you guide a tank to an extraction point, is much harder, especially the sub-task of escorting the tank without losing any of it's health. The trick is to make sure the tank is always as far back as possible (aside making sure you go for this trophy on regular difficulty, of course), since there are multiple dangers to the tank, including suicide bombers, RPG experts, choppers and other tanks. Make sure you take advantage of the tanks missiles to destroy air support as quick as possible, everything else should be killed/destroyed by yourself.                                                                                                                             
As far as beating the level on veteran goes, it really isn't too hard if you make sure you take your time and advance forward at a steady pace, but cover areas are quite sparse so just make sure you're extra careful.                                                                                                                                  
When all is said and done, it's no longer than a few hour package, very similar to the first content collection. As seems to be the case with most Call of Duty levels on veteran difficulty, as long as you take your time and are willing to persevere, it's easy enough.

Platinum #41 - Bulletstorm

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 5/10                                                                                    
The Bulletstorm trophy list is split into 3 distinctive areas, involving the Single Player campaign, Echoes mode and the Anarchy Multiplayer mode.                                                                                  
Truth be told, the majority of the challenge with this Platinum comes exclusively from the latter section of the list, with some gruelling Multiplayer trophies presented to the player.
                                           
The single player consists of a heavy dose of progression based trophies, but does also include 4 stackable, difficulty based trophies, with the "Blood Symphony" trophy, awarded for completing the campaign on Very Hard difficulty being the peak of these trophies.

The game itself presents a minimal challenge, even on the toughest difficulties, due to it's very arcade nature, and also clocks in at a short 6-8 hour venture, and although you can expect alot of repetition of chapters and play-throughs in the quest for collectibles and executing every possible skillshot, it still makes for a short game on the surface.                                                                                                                       
Speaking of which, there are almost 50 collectibles in total, in the form of Newsbots and Electroflies, strewn around the Single Player campaign , but the ability to view any missing collectibles and replay any relevant sections through the chapter select makes these a complete breeze. They're also very easy to find and associated to a variety of skillshots, which makes things even easier for the player.

The "Golden Idol" trophy, awarded for performing every single skillshot in the game, might seem tough, but the majority of them will come through natural progression throughout the campaign, with only a small handful of them being slightly tougher or involving some form of luck.

Most of the skillshots are chapter specific, and just end up becoming a matter of trial and error as you reload chapters or playthrough the game again if necessary. The tougher skillshots are the ones that fall into the "General" category, and can therefore be achieved anywhere throughout the campaign, but it can be tricky finding the best locations for certain skillshots, however, apart from that, the 135 total skillshots really isn't as daunting of a figure as it might initially seem.
                                                                                                                                             
The Echoes mode trophies are definitely the easiest part of this list, and are mostly based around collecting stars within the 14 original echoes. It's very similar to the main campaign, where levels are re-run with score requirements set for performing strings of skillshots and combos, and even though the mode requires a basic knowledge of skillshots to achieve the relevant points targets, the fact you'll most likely already have tackled the levels in the campaign, and also have a solid understanding of skillshots, there's nothing that will trip you up.

The "Hoarder" trophy, awarded for having a total of at least 150,000 points in one Echo round, is just a simple matter of points accumulation, and you will need to replay a few echoes to breach the 150,000 barrier. It's not extensively grindy by any stretch, but you will need to plug away for a bit, even after obtaining the "Supernova" trophy, awarded for getting 3 stars on each of the 14 original echoes.

The Multiplayer Anarchy mode only has a small handful of trophies allocated to it, but is definitely the toughest part of this Platinum.                                                                                                            
The "Anarchy Master" trophy, awarded for achieving a score of at least 50,000 as a team requires a high level of quality in regards to teamwork and communication. The trophy description is actually very misleading, and the 50,000 points needs to achieved in 1 wave within a single game of Anarchy.

The amount of points required to pass each wave escalates as each round passes, however, the earliest time you can earn 50,000 points is wave 20, which takes a good couple of hours just to reach, meaning any sort of failure will set you back 2-3 hours and require you to retry the whole run, which is beyond frustrating. Once you get to wave 20, it's just a matter of teamwork and solid communication, and although there is a very straight forward tactic available to nail this trophy, it will still require the right execution in order to fulfil the 50,000 points requirement, and definitely makes this the hardest trophy in the entire list.

The "Final Echo" trophy, awarded for achieving level 65 in Anarchy mode, is a standard levelling affair, and although  isn't as gruelling as some online levelling grinds that have gone before it,you're still looking at a good 20-25 hours to achieve level 65. You can go a long way to reaching this milestone with the other online trophies in this list, but this will still be the final trophy you unlock in the Multiplayer portion of this game.

It isn't necessary to play with others either, and there is actually a relatively efficient self-play method that can help you rank up and achieve the trophy slighty quicker than if you were to play with others, but it is extremely mundane and does drain the fun element out of the online mode, so it might be something to consider as a final push, but nothing more.
                                 
All in all, this is a pretty moderate difficulty Platinum with everything taken into account. Most of the trophies make this a pretty straight forward list, but there is a genuine challenge present too in places, albeit a fairly subtle one. There is a sizeable time commitment too, clocking in at around 40-50 hours in total.

Notable Trophies - 

Golden Idol - Perform every Single Player skillshot in the game
Hoarder - Have a total of at least 150,000 points in Echoes Mode's total high score
Anarchy Master - Achieve a score of at least 50,000 as a team in Anarchy mode
Final Echo - Achieve level 65 in Anarchy mode

Hardest Trophy -
                                                                   

Anarchy Master 
Achieve a score of at least 50,000 points as a team in Anarchy Mode

How EA ruined Ultimate Team

"Team of the Year" cards, just another
Ultimate Team cash spinner.

I'm playing the Best of the best tournament, 5 star teams only, and I've battled into the final with a team that I've nurtured from the very beginning and slowly assembled as I've taken my team through strength to strength. It's a slow but extremely rewarding experience. It's rags to riches stuff of the gaming world and once upon a time it was a hugely addictive feeling. Until now.                                                                            
I've beaten some good teams to reach this final, and my 82 rated side is ready. I hit the search button and get quickly get matched up with another finalist. "Established : April 12", it reads. He hits play without any hesitation, and I'm virtually rubbing my hands at the anticipation of being matched up in the final against someone with less than 1 month's worth of experience on Ultimate Team. How could anybody with less just few weeks experience of Ultimate Team possibly be able to compete in a tournament which requires an ensemble of players equal to 5 stars? 
                                                   
As always, I glance toward the top right corner for the teams overall rating upon the pre-game loading screen. "86.....Fucking EIGHTY-SIX?!". I glance back over to the left side to inspect the team-sheet. TOTY (Team of the year) Sergio Aguero, TOTY Eden Hazard, IF (In Form) Hatem Ben Arfa. It doesn't get any more promising for my chances of victory, with a midfield reading to the tune of IF Xavi, Andreas Iniesta and Xabi Alonso. An IF Thiago Silva and Lucio make up a formidable centre half pairing.                                                                                                                          
The long and short of it as far as the actual game itself goes is, I lost. 4-1. The real issue though is how somebody so new to the game produces a squad with the rating of 86 so quickly, and can suddenly eclipse so many older players in terms of strength.                                                                
Back in 2009, FIFA released the concept of Ultimate Team. You begin with the most basic set of bronze players and work your way up to the top to produce the best team possible. It worked well back then for a number of reasons.                                                                                                          

Ultimate Team 2009 - The glory days

The most important thing to note, and probably the most significant in the context of this post, is that buying packs for real money wasn't an option back in the 2009 instalment of Ultimate Team. The example outlined above is a testament to the fact that, if you've got enough money to spend on the game, you can buy your way to success in a matter of hours. It completely crushes the purpose of what Ultimate Team stands for and has ruined the game for the more honest players who enjoy the concept of building a team from the bottom up, which is the exact foundations Ultimate Team were originally built upon. There was no choice back then, if you wanted a good team, you had to earn it through sheer determination. It's akin to real football, if you want to compete, you have to spend money, or your chances of success will be extremely limited.   
                                                       
The player development factor went a long way in UT 2009. Every player had a core rating, but every single player in the game could be trained to a rating of 99. I miss the days of terrorising defences with a forward line of Chris Eagles, Emile Heskey and Michael Kightly. The best thing about it was the fact that the squad you built was all through winning games, earning coins and developing your own players, so there was always a huge sense of satisfaction of winning tournaments and achieving trophies.                                                                                                                  
It's true that it made player values practically worthless, given the fact that a 99 Emile Heskey was as good as a 99 Lionel Messi (Admit it, you'd rather have Heskey anyway), but there were no shortcuts from buying packs with real money, and most revenue streams came from just simply winning games.                                                                                                                                          

"Man of the Match" cards. Yep, another
money spinner...

Ultimate team 2010 did shift away from the player development angle, implementing fixed ratings depending on the quality of players. It also sparked the beginning of the downfall of Ultimate Team too, as the option to allow people to spend real money on packs was introduced. Naturally, the charm of Ultimate Team was lost on some people, as you ran into players who had quite clearly spent real money to obtain the very best team possible, but every single player came in a single form (No IF or TOTY cards) and once you'd bought the best players, you'd essentially hit the end-game, due to the lack of extended options.                            
It was the 2011 instalment that kick-started the "special cards", with the addition of specific IF cards, depending on exceptional weekly performances from a selected clutch of players. Picking up from 11, and moving into 12, this is really where the problems all stem from. The constant re-release of weekly In Form cards, Super In Form cards, Team of the Year cards, and the recently introduced, Man of the Match cards have completely over-saturated the market and give people greater incentives to spend real money on the game in order to try and pull one. The exclusively limited Man of the Match cards can only be obtained for a specific amount of time, which means some serious money is thrown around during "happy hours", as everyone clambers for these special cards before the chance is gone and time expires.                                
The astronomical prices of these cards also make them impossible to get hold of unless you're one of those people willing to plug some serious money into the game, which creates a greater competitive imbalance and increases the divide in quality between players.                                                                                        
Sadly, there's no way EA will get rid of the option to buy packs with real money. Why would they? They'd be stupid to get rid of such a feature, but it completely goes against the spirit of what Ultimate Team was all about. Ultimate Team has just turned into a matter of whose willing to spend more money, and the days of success without spending a penny are long gone. I still get some enjoyment out of Ultimate Team every now and again, but it's incredibly demoralising to work hard on a team you're constantly trying to improve, only to get beaten by others who are too lazy to do the same thing.

DLC #47 - Bioshock 2 - Minerva's Den

Visit Minerva's Den, and uncover a few
more secrets...

The Bioshock 2 DLC bows out with a story driven expansion in the name of Minerva's Den, which see's you track down "The Thinker", the mastermind behind Raptures system links, and stop Reed Wahl's plans of self control.

Out of the 8 trophies on offer, you can obtain 4 hidden trophies for simply completing the story, which takes no more than 3-4 hours. None of the trophies are tied to any specific difficulty either, despite making you choose a difficulty level at the beginning, so you can cruise through at whatever pace you wish.

You also need to find and destroy all 10 vaccuum bots, which requires exploration of every corner of Minerva's Den, but is still incredibly easy if you make sure to check every possible part of the map. Failing that, you can still use a guide, but you really shouldn't need to.

Aside the 4 story-related trophies, there is a further 1 hidden trophy for achieving a score of 9999 in the Spitfire mini game within Minerva's Den. It can be accessed from a specific terminal and throws up the only really challenging trophy within the DLC. Expect a bit of practise to achieve 9999 points in 1 game.

You can nab everything in 1 playthrough, just as long as you keep track of every trophy that isn't story related, since that obviously makes them missable, but providing you scoop everything up at once, the experience is an easy one and shouldn't take longer than 6 hours or so.

Platinum #40 - DiRT 3

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 7/10                                                                                        
As with the previous DiRT game, the Single Player trophies are mostly emphasised around the World Tour mode, with the vast majority of the trophies on this list all awarded for completing races and challenges throughout the main story.

The "From DiRT to Glory" trophy, awarded for achieving first place finishes in all DiRT Tour events, is the most difficult trophy in this list, and although there are nowhere near the same amount of events in the World tour in comparison to DiRT 2, it's still a lengthy journey that will definitely test your driving skills to the maximum, particularly into the latter stages of the game.

You can expect to beat the Tour mode in around 25-30 hours, though achieving a first place finish in every event, along with the Platinum medals in the Tour challenges, you can expect alot of replay value which will add anywhere between 5-10 hours onto the overall timescale. Some of these events will guarantee multiple attempts, especially the multi-tiered championship series in the latter stages of the game, and given the fact most of these are about 30 minutes in length, you'll want to beat them with as few retries as possible.

Most of the other trophies attached to the Single Player portion of this list will be unlocked along the way to winning every event, and there is a heavy slant of progression injected into the list.

The "Platinum Performance" trophy, awarded for achieving Platinum medals in all DC challenges, requires you to beat the top target time for all 26 DC challenges scattered throughout the World Tour, and although most of them can be beaten within a couple of attempts, there are a few that can be incredibly frustrating, and will require alot of practice to understand the best routes in order to beat the Platinum times.

The "Cool Running" trophy, awarded for beating the Bobsleigh in the Norway Speed Run DC challenge, is actually one of these challenges, and turns out to be one of the hardest individual trophies in the list. It will require complete perfection of the route and has absolutely no margin for error.

Sticking with the theme of Platinum medals, the "Teacher's Pet" trophy, awarded for achieving a Platinum medal in all of the Gymkhana Academy tutorials, is the exact same deal as the DC challenges, and again, even though most of the tutorials are easy enough to obtain a Platinum medal in, there are a couple where you'll need to practice heavily in order to achieve a high enough score to meet the Platinum criteria.

Away from the DiRT Tour mode, the "Battered Battersea" trophy, awarded for completing 100% of the Battersea compound missions, is centered around a free mode where you drive around a selection of open areas completing various challenges, and this trophy requires you to beat every single one of these challenges. They vary extremely, involving jumps, performing powerslides and also include collecting a bunch of hidden packages, and although there's only a few that are genuinely challenging, they add about 3-4 extra hours onto the overall list.
                                                                                                                      
There are also a small handful of Multiplayer trophies in this list, but there is arguably one that stands way above the rest, and ends up being the sole focus of this list, regarding the online game modes.
                                                        
The "Super Star" trophy, awarded for earning enough fans to achieve the Superstar title, which effectively requires you to reach Rank 35 online, and is one of the longest online grinds in any game available to date. It takes a fanbase of 250,000 to reach the title of Superstar, and you'll probably average around 500-700 fans per race, which means you'll mostly like be playing in excess of 250 races to hit Rank 35. It's also worth noting that this game has some horrible continuity between races, and lobby loading times are seriously long, which is definitely something that exasperates the grindy element of this trophy.

You'll probably spend around 30-40 hours trying to achieve this trophy, and it ends up working out to about half of the overall time of this list, which is a big ratio for an individual trophy across an entire list.

The only other trophy that's really worth mentioning is the "Honourable Driver" trophy, awarded for completing an online Multiplayer race with a 'Cautious' rating, requires you to race clean for a consistent length of time. Your rating will either rise or drop based on your conduct during races, and if you're constantly aggressive, your rating will plummet and make this trophy harder to achieve, so it's best to just be careful for 4/5 races in order to steadily boost your driver rating but the longer you go with a bad rating, the more races you'll need to complete cleanly in order to move yourself back up to 'Cautious' so you have to make sure it doesn't slip away from you too much.
                                                                                              
Along with the sizeable element of skill required, you're looking at around 60-80 hours to Platinum this game. It's a list packed with trophies that will require you to get the very most out of the game, and you'll need to beat practically everything on offer to achieve the Platinum trophy, which combines a genuine challenge along with a solid time commitment.

Notable Trophies -

From DiRT to Glory - Achieve first place finishes in all DiRT Tour events
Platinum Performance - Achieve Platinum medals in all of the DC Challenges
Cool Running - Beat the Bobsleigh in the Norway Speed Run DC Challenge
Teacher's Pet - Achieve a Platinum medal in all of the Gymkhana Academy tutorials
Super Star - Earn enough fans to achieve the Superstar title

Hardest Trophy -                                                                                                                                              

From DiRT to Glory
Achieve first place finishes in all DiRT Tour events

DLC #46 - Modern Warfare 3 Content Collection 1

Special Ops time!

Infinity Ward break their usual DLC trends, with the addtion of 6 new trophies for the 2 new Spec Ops missions contained within the first content collection pack.

You can nab 4 of the trophies for just completing both the missions (named Black Ice and Negotiator) on veteran difficulty, where the other 2 are granted for performing specific in-level actions in each of the missions.

The Black Ice trophies are incredibly easy to achieve, even on veteran, but Negotiator will certainly require a bit of persistence. The level itself is definitely tougher and the requirement of saving all 35 hostages demands a fast and methodical approach which will also take a few attempts to perfect.

All in all, it shouldn't take much longer than a few hours to achieve all 6 trophies. It's probably easier to do them in solo, but still not too difficult if you choose to partner up and achieve the trophies with a buddy.

Platinum #39 - Assassins Creed : Revelations

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 5/10                          
The single player trophies follow the typical mould of Assassins Creed games.                                  
There's a ton of progression based trophies for completing the various sequences throughout the game, with 15 trophies awarded for beating each of the games main story sequences, both for Ezio and Desmond, which is capped off with the "Revelations" trophy, awarded for completing DNA sequence 9, and beating the game.                                                                         
Even though the story has a modest length, clocking in at around 12 hours, there is room for alot of post-game work on this list, with a handful of trophies that will keep you playing way beyond the completion of the main story arc.

The "Fond Memories" trophy, awarded for achieving 100% synchronisation in all sequences, requires you to fulfil a range of challenges in order to fully synchronise every mission throughout the main story. The requirements range in difficulty, with some being extremely easy and some being quite challenging to fulfil, however the vast majority of the missions in the game slip into the former category, rather than latter, meaning the challenge isn't as great as it could have been.

You'll still need to go back and replay the mission in full in order for any progress to be saved, which can be a touch time consuming, depending on how many missions you need to achieve full synchronisation for, but the requirements are laid out in the pause menu, so you can always reflect on them before, or during, a mission in order to make sure you know what you'll need to do and minimise the need to replay DNA sequences at the end.
                                               
There are also some ever present collectible based trophies in this list too. The "Capped" trophy, awarded for collecting all Animus data fragments, requires you to collect 100 fragments in total, and it can be tough to begin with because there's no way for them to appear on your in-game map and assist with collection progress. However, when you manage to reach 50, the rest automatically appear on the map and are ready to be collected, which suddenly makes the task significantly easier, but up until that point, the help from the game is non-existent.

The "Sage" trophy, awarded for collecting all available books, is even more difficult, and requires you to obtain 28 books from various outlets within the game. Some of them are given to you throughout the main story, and by beating certain side quests, but the majority of them have to be purchased, and are incredibly expensive.

The cumulative total of every single book is around 450,000 coins, which is an incredible amount of money to amass, and the best way to raise money is by indulging in any activity that generates hourly income, including shop renovations, property purchasing and Mediterranean defence missions. The more of these you purchase and control, the more money you'll make each hour, and it's definitely something you should get onto early, otherwise you'll find yourself grinding out a very long end-game as you wait for each hourly tick to bring in enough money you need to buy every book. Money generating side activities unlock quite early, so if you indulge in them straight away, you'll spend less time trying to accumulate the money at the end of the game when everything else is finished and you have nothing left to do.

The "Mentor" trophy, awarded for having seven trainees reach the rank of Master Assassin, requires you to indulge in another somewhat grindy element of the game, and even though levelling up your Assassin crew isn't really difficult, you need to get seven of them to reach the highest rank (by sending them on defence missions, and returning them as successful), and even after the highest rank, you need to perform an assassination mission for each of them to earn the Master Assassin title. 

It's also important to note that Assassin's can die, in which case you'll have to start from scratch for each unit that does not return from a mission, and they also have a cooldown time period before they can be sent out again. It doesn't make it anymore difficult, just long winded and grindy.
              
The "Tax Evasion" trophy, awarded for getting your money back from a tax collector, has a massive element of luck which causes nothing but annoyance. The spawning of tax collectors isn't only random, but also extremely sparse, and having to wait for hours for this trophy to pop was nothing but frustrating. There are methods that allegedly make him spawn quicker, though I didn't find any correlation personally, and it was just a matter of waiting around, literally for hours, for him to spawn and take my money.

The Multiplayer portion of the game is much more relaxed this time round, and definitely a step down from the gruelling tasks included in the trophies from Brotherhood.                                                                                            
The "True Templar" trophy, awarded for reaching level 20, is less than half of what was required in the Brotherhood, and it will take the average player no longer than 6/7 hours to hit that level.

Every other trophy related to the online portion of the game can be easily accomplished on your way towards that milestone, and none of them really provide any sort of challenge, and you will even unlock most of them natrually as you work your way through to level 20, making the Multiplayer the easiest aspect of this whole list, a very stark contrast to the previous game in the series and it's gruelling trophies.
                                                                                                                                                 
The series definitely takes a step back from the difficulty spike presented within Brotherhood, and goes back to it's original and much familiarly easier roots. 

The Multiplayer trophies are so casual, you won't even need to go out of your way to unlock most of them, and as long as you're just focusing on hitting level 20, you'll probably end the Multiplayer side of the list as soon as you hit that milestone. 

Some of the Single player trophies can be extremely grindy, or at least feel a bit repetitive, but the element of genuine challenge is very little, and the games combat system is still as easy as ever. Some of the challenges to achieve full synchronisation of memories will give you a few tests, but that's about it in terms of difficulty, and if you don't mind a bit of a slog throughout, and into the end-game, this is a relaxed Platinum trophy, even though you can safely put a 35-40 hour minimum completion time onto it.

Notable Trophies -

Fond Memories - Achieve 100% Synchronisation in all Sequences
Capped - Collect all animus data fragments
Sage - Collect all available books
The Mentor - Have seven trainees reach the rank of Master Assassin
Tax Evasion - Get your money back from a Templar tax collector

Hardest Trophy -                                                                                                                                               

Tax Evasion
Get your money back from a Templar tax collector

DLC #45 - Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories : The Ballad of Gay Tony

Take on the role of Luis Lopez,
and do the dirty for Tony Prince

The Ballad of Gay Tony does everything The Lost and Damned did tenfold. More trophies, greater time commitment and much more difficult to achieve 100%.                                                                                  
Going through the smaller scale stuff provides some interesting (and some not so interesting) tasks, such as free-falling for the maximum amount of time possible and perfectly pulling off a series of quick time event dancing mini-games in both nightclubs. There's also a few standard progression related trophies for completing the main story within.                                                                                                  
The less interesting stuff in the content requires you to perform 25 gang wars, which are OK for the first few times, but very quickly recycle and cause the inevitable feeling of dragging on.                                                         
There's also 15 base jumps to complete, which are slightly less boring, but only because there are less of them to do. It's still has a very "chucked in" feel to it for the sake of longevity.                                                                                                                                             
Aside completing the 26 main story missions once, which is a good 8-10 hours in it's own respect, there is a challenge to be had here in the form of 1 trophy;
                      

TBoG : Gold Star
Score 100% in all Missions : The Ballad of Gay Tony


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
Each mission comes with a set of it's own criteria, which must all be fulfilled to attain 100% in that particular mission. This will require multiple playthroughs, given how difficult it can be to achieve all the criteria in 1 go for the majority of them.                                                      
For some missions, it simply isn't possible, and they're required to be broken down as you go through the mission 3/4 times in order to make sure you tick off each criteria systematically.
                      
Some people will definitely find it a slog, and probably more hassle than it's actually worth, especially when you consider the fact it is merely a bronze trophy. Some of the missions have some testing requirements, and you'll have to face up to the fact these certain missions will need a bit of perseverance and metal in order to finish them to 100%.                                                            
I personally found it quite enjoyable, which is somewhat surprising given the amount of repetition, but the constant drive to better my last effort meant I always saw reasons to go back and retry a mission. None of them we're insanely difficult by any means, it was mainly the completion times criteria that served up the problems for the harder missions, but when you didn't have to worry about meeting any other criteria you had already achieved, speed runs become somewhat easier.
                  
Overall, it's roughly a 25-30 hour experience, though that will vary depending on the extent to which you need to replay missions. The challenge is stern though, so it's safe to suggest most people will push to the higher end of that boundary. Great piece of DLC though, I can't recommend GTA highly enough.