Platinum #47 - Mass Effect 2

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 8/10

The hardest part of this list comes from the "Insanity" trophy, for completing the game on Insanity difficulty level, with a frequent number of parts throughout the whole game that just end up becoming a tough slog of trial and error as you aim to complete each mission.

It definitely lives it up it's name appropriately, and also turns out to be one of the most frustrating highest difficulty level games you will experience, with punishing enemies and vastly depleting health. Various sections of the game turn into fairly large time-sinks as you struggle to get by them and the trophy ends up being responsible for the vast majority of the difficulty rating for the entire list.

Even though you can wade straight into the game on Insanity mode, you'll most likely need more than 1 play-through regardless (It's tough to imagine that anyone will want to try and unlock every trophy, including loyalty missions and side missions, purely on Insanity mode).

The "Long Service Medal" trophy, awarded for completing Mass Effect 2 twice, or once with an imported character from Mass Effect 1, will probably see that most people do complete the game twice especially when you take into account the fact you should probably tackle Insanity mode with the least amount of obstructions possible. Alternatively, downloading the Cerberus Pack and watching the interactive comic will classify as importing a Mass Effect 1 character, and as such, will also fulfil the trophy requirements.

It's also worth noting the "Power Gamer" trophy, for reaching level 30 with one character, will extend into 2 play-throughs, due to the fact not enough experience can be earned in 1 run to fulfil the requirements of the trophy. The extent to which you have to reach in a second play-through will obviously depend on how far you get in the first, but completing everything in a single game will get you to around level 28, so a second dip into the game is mandatory.

The "Noone Left Behind" trophy, for keeping your team alive through the suicide mission, can only be achieved under certain criteria, based on which choices you make during the game, and which team members are loyal to your character. It's best advised to keep a save backed up prior to the mission, as certain choices during the mission itself will dictate the survival and death of your team members, which can very easily trip you up and undo alot of hard work.

The game does have it's fair share of easier trophies, with a generous amount of them catered towards main story progression, recruiting your team and also finishing their loyalty missions.There are also a small selection of cumulative kill based trophies granted for experimenting with a variety of weapons and special powers. 

In reality, the "Insanity" trophy is the only trophy that makes this game genuinely challenging, although there are a couple of other nuances contained within the list, such as a handful of missable trophies that are incredibly easy to overlook, ensuring your whole team survive the suicide mission and the fact it actually required 3 playthroughs of the game, rather than the 2 maximum, for me to unlock the "Long Service Medal" trophy.

Typically, you're still looking at around 60 hours to grab the Platinum. The game's list offers alot for the player to get through, and Insanity mode will test your patience and determination to the very maximum. If you have the will to beat the game on it's toughest challenge, you're practically there, as the rest of the list is just about time and making sure you keep an eye out for the missable trophies.

Notable Trophies - 

Insanity - Complete the game on the "Insanity" difficulty level without changing the setting
Long Service Medal - Complete Mass Effect 2 twice, or complete it once with a character imported from Mass Effect 1
Power Gamer - Reach Level 30 with one character
No One Left Behind - Keep your team alive through the suicide mission

Hardest Trophy -

Insanity
Complete the game on the "Insanity" difficulty level without changing the setting.

Platinum #46 - DiRT Showdown

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 5/10

The bulk of the Single Player trophies in this list are related to the Tour mode, and most of them can easily be achieved through natural progression.

There are only 60 events in the Showdown Tour this time round, which is a drastic cut from the previous DiRT games. The "GOLD!" trophy, for completing the Showdown Tour and winning Gold in every event still isn't that difficult to achieve, and there are a host of other progression based trophies tied to winning at bronze and silver levels too, as well as beating each of the 4 tiers in the Tour mode, so there is always something to spur you on.

Sticking with the gold theme, the "Max Power" trophy, which requires you to fully upgrade all vehicles, is the other gold trophy in the list, and requires you to kit out every vehicle to maximum specifications. You can earn the majority of the money needed to upgrade everything through just natural tour progression, though you may also need to venture online to scrape together the remaining money needed (or just replay the higher reward Tour events over and over).

Even though there are a considerable amount of throw-away trophies, the "Wrecker" trophy, which requires you to achieve a 5x wrecking streak in Rampage, and "Hitman", which requires you to achieve all hit types in Rampage, will test your skills, and possibly require a bit of luck in the process.

You also need to collect all 100 hidden packages in Joyride mode, as well as beat 100% of the Yokohama and Battersea missions too, which aren't only a touch grindy, but frustrating at times aswell.

Venturing online, and the "Showdown Superstar" trophy, which requires you to reach fanbase level 30 online, makes a return, and has the exact same fanbase target as DiRT 3 (250,000 fans). In the exact same way too, it is also incredibly lengthy and will easily take somewhere in the region 30-40 hours alone.

The "Running the Show" trophy requires you to dominate a friend in challenge mode (10 wins on the bounce), which is no minor task, though as long as you make sure you don't post any challenges to them, you should be able to accumulate this over time, as long as your friend keeps on posting challenges to you.

There are a couple of trickier online trophies, including "Loot Carrier", which requires you to hold the loot for 2 minutes in Smash and Grab, which is a tall order when you take into account the games are only 3 minutes long, and "Showdown Haulage Co.", which requires you to drop the flag off 5 times in a round of Transporter.

Generally speaking though, this is a pretty easy Platinum to achieve. The Showdown Tour shouldn't take any longer than 15-20 hours to complete in full, and given the fact you can achieve the vast majority of the single player trophies on the way to obtaining a gold trophy in every event, the need for a mop up afterwards probably won't be hugely necessary.

Even though the Multi-player trophies do their best to step up the challenge a notch, there still isn't anything overly difficult, and if you can get over the fairly steep completion time (About 70-80 hours in total), you've netted a pretty easy going Platinum.

Notable Trophies - 

GOLD! - Complete the Showdown tour and win Gold in every event
Max Power - Fully upgrade all vehicles
Wrecker - Achieve a 5x Wrecking streak in Rampage
Hitman - Achieve all hit types in Rampage
Showdown Superstar - Reach Fanbase Level 30 Online
Running the Show - Dominate a Friend in Challenge mode

Hardest Trophy -

Showdown Superstar 
Reach Fanbase Level 30 Online

Platinum #45 - Motorstorm : Apocalypse

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 4/10

A large potion of this trophy list is dedicated to the game's story mode, with a generous offering of progression based trophies for simply finishing the 3 different campaigns in the single player festival.

Collectively, each story path takes no longer than a couple of hours, and you aren't even required to win every race to be able to unlock all of the relevant trophies (You simply have to place in the top 3).

This makes for a quick and incredibly easy batch of trophies, a stark contrast to the festival mode of Pacific Rift, which was hugely punishing, and required you to win every race too.

The single player portion of the list does throw up some frustrating collectible based trophies though, with the "Found 'Em All!" trophy awarded for collecting all 150 of the Motorstorm Cards. Whilst, for the most part, these are easy to grab, there are a handful of them that can be difficult to collect, and require an element of trial and error to get. It's also important to mention that the sheer volume of them will stick at least a few hours onto the Platinum time too.

The hugely unforgiving regressive online levelling system present in Pacific Rift has also been ditched, and substituted for a more traditional system where you can still level up irrespective of your finishing position in each race, and never have to worry about being demoted ranks.

You can earn experience points for practically everything, which maximises your potential experience for every race. Earning medals and accolades are the way to level quickly, as they grant huge experience rewards, especially the later tier accolades which can frequently award 10000 experience points and much more.

Even with this taken into account, the "Jackpot" trophy, for reaching rank 40 in Multiplayer, is still a hefty time sink, where you can easily be looking around the 20-25 hour mark to reach the highest rank (trophy-wise). There are even trophies granted at levels 5, 15 and 30 as spur on incentives on your way to hitting rank 40.

The rest of the list is just based around menial tasks within races, and exploration of other game modes and gameplay options. These require nothing more than a bit of dabbling (though a few of them can be a bit tricky), and some can even be easily obtained naturally whilst going through the story mode and online related trophies.

Overall, it is a very watered down list, especially in comparison to Pacific Rift, which was harder and more time consuming to the ten-fold, and even though you'll still be looking at a decent time investment to Platinum Apocalypse, it's still way too easy, and as long as you have the patience for the online levelling grind, the rest is a complete breeze.

Notable Trophies -

Found 'em All! - Collect 150 of the hidden Motorstorm Cards
Jackpot - Reach Rank 40 in Multiplayer

Hardest Trophy -

Jackpot
Reach Rank 40 in Multiplayer

DLC #59 - Worms 2 : Armageddon Puzzle Pack

Stress your brain with a logical twist.

The final piece of Worms 2 DLC (and definitely the most challenging), adds yet another 12 trophies, with 20 further levels based around a series puzzles where you're tasked to defeat an enemy worm with limited items at your disposal.

The trophy list format follows the same sort of structure as the rest of the DLC, with 3 trophies awarded for beating all 20 of the new levels. However, some of them are seriously tough, and if you resist the temptation to use a walk-through guide, you'll easily be racking your brain over some of these puzzles for a good few hours alone. It can get frustrating at times when nothing seems to work, but it is much more rewarding when you finally nail a solution to a puzzle you've been stuck on for ages.

The remainder of the trophies all revolve around beating specific levels within certain criteria. The 3 trophies that require you to have at least 1 item left in your inventory definitely furthers the puzzle aspect, since you have to go back and determine how to beat a certain level, minus 1 piece of equipment that you'll need to have left over to unlock the trophy. Cue more brain racking.

With all of that taken into account, the length of the DLC will depend on how quickly you can solve all of the puzzles. Naturally, it will take some longer than others, but I cleared everything up within about 6-7 hours, though it is important to note, there was an extensive amount of time spent on a select few puzzles that were much harder than the rest.

DLC #58 - Worms 2 : Armageddon Time Attack Pack

Fly through some time attack, Worms style.

Still in Worms 2, with the Time Attack DLC, which takes a slightly different angle on the Worms experience, and adds a further 12 trophies to the package.

As previously, you can pick up a small clutch of the trophies (3, in this instance), for beating the fastest times for the 20 new levels included in the DLC.

First of all, there's a little bit of confusion when the trophy description mentions completing all of the levels with a "fastest time". From what I gathered, there wasn't a set time to beat the level, and just simply getting to the end of all 20 levels granted the respective trophies. Even racking up a bunch of fall and mine penalties didn't seem to effect the qualifications for "fastest time", so it remains a mystery as to what the requirements for the trophies really are. 

Regardless, you can absolutely fly through all of the levels in less than half an hour, they really are that easy. The rest of the trophies are where the DLC puts up a slight challenge, including some tricky time attack related trophies that require you to beat certain levels within a specified time limit that will take a numerous amount of restarts to beat, but apart from that, there are an easy 12 trophies on offer here, and the whole package takes no longer than a couple of hours to earn every trophy on offer.

DLC #57 - Worms 2 : Armageddon Retro Pack

Go Retro!

Revisiting the Worms 2 DLC with the Retro Pack adds a further 12 trophies, with the package comprised of 20 new single player missions, with all the trophies on offer attached to them in a variety of ways.

You can grab 4 of the trophies just through beating the 20 levels, and although the majority of them are relatively easy, and should take no more than a few attempts, there is a slight difficulty spike towards the end, where the last few levels end up presenting a stiff challenge (although that is mainly due to the frustratingly accurate computer opponent).

The rest of the trophies are mission specific, and require you to fulfil various requirements within certain levels. Again, none of these trophies are really too demanding, and using the correct tactics for each should ensure that you complete them without many further attempts at all.

Grabbing all of the trophies should take no longer than 5-6 hours. You can expect to beat every level once within 3-4 hours, and the clean up is just a matter of how long it takes, but even then it's still no longer than a few extra hours on top to conclude a fairly straight-forward trophy set.

DLC #56 - Skate 3 San Van Party Play

Re-visit the classic San Van skate park!

The final piece of Skate 3 DLC re-visits the old stomping ground of San Van, complete with 9 new trophies.

Although the requirements are incredibly linear, and simply involve beating the small clutch of newly presented missions, there is a fairly solid challenge to be had in certain instances.

Every new challenge, including a range of film, photo and own the spot challenges, grant an individual trophy upon completing them, which ensures a nicely even spread on the package, and given the fact most of them only require a couple of tries to beat, it's a generous offering of trophies.

However, if you're still looking for a challenge, you'll get one thanks to a specific trophy in this DLC;




Marraffanator
Complete the "Marraffa's Skatepark" OTL challenge 



                                                                                                            The DLC is about 4-5 hours in total length, but the majority of this time will be spent trying to beat the Own The Lot challenge for the DLC.

As with all OTL challenges, there are a couple of incredibly tricky tasks to pull off, and you never feel like you get enough time to tick off all 12 tasks in order to "Own the Lot" and unlock the trophy. Even though most of the 12 tasks are quite simple, there are a couple that will peg you back and halt your progression, which will definitely require you to retry this challenge a handful of times.

It's a little bit frustrating to get so close, but having to re-do everything because you couldn't tick off a couple of the boxes on the trick list, but as long as you persevere, you'll be OK and eventually nail it.

Apart from that though, there's alot of easy trophies on offer here, and if you're willing to be patient, grabbing all of them isn't too demanding.

DLC #55 - Modern Warfare 3 Content Collection 3

Destroy a Battleship in "Arctic Recon"

The latest Modern Warfare 3 Content Collection ups the ante, with 14 new trophies on offer, spread across the 4 new Spec Ops missions within the DLC.

The trophies are typical of the other collections that have gone before, all of them awarded for beating the missions on Any/Veteran difficulty, and then a small clutch of mission specific tasks to perform on top.

As always seems to be the case with Call of Duty, beating the missions on veteran are mostly just all about persistence, but the trophies attached to the Arctic Recon and Vertigo missions were surprisingly difficult, with both of them requiring multiple tries and a dosage of hard patience to finally beat.

Both of these missions also contained the hardest mission specific trophies too;

dr0n3d - Complete the "Arctic Recon" Special Ops mission in under 3:30
To Jugger or to Jugger-naut - Kill all Juggernauts after they land on Veteran difficulty in the "Vertigo" Special Ops mission

Beating the Arctic Recon mission in under 3:30 is a tight squeeze and requires a very precise speed-run to finish within the limits, even when playing on recruit difficulty. There's a slightly frustrating 10 second window at the end of the mission where the clock just runs down as you watch the escape cutscene, so ideally, you're technically looking at boarding the helicopter at around 3:20, to allow for the 10 second gap between boarding and the actual end of the mission. Definitely something to be aware of, since you'll need a near flawless run.

The only thing that really makes the "To Jugger or to Jugger-naut" trophy difficult is the fact you have to fulfil the requirements of the trophy on veteran difficulty. It makes the 3 juggernauts harder to take down, along with the multiple waves of enemies who show up in between. Thankfully, there are a bunch of handy weapons lying around that can dispatch juggernauts handily, but you'll always need to be wary about the fact you're playing on veteran and how quickly you can die.

In contrast, all of the trophies related to the Special Delivery and Light 'Em Up missions are incredibly easy, and even running through on veteran should take no more than a couple of attempts for each. The real challenge of the collection comes within the earlier part of it, but once you overcome those first few missions, the rest is easy, and you're still only really looking at around 3-5 hours in regards to completion time for all trophies in the package.

Platinum #44 - Call Of Duty : Modern Warfare 3

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 5/10

We're at a stage now where you could call this a pretty typical Call of Duty trophy list.

The majority of the games trophies are catered to the single player campaign, with a large allocation relating to the progression within the campaign mode.

Aside from beating every mission in the game on any difficulty level, you also get the usual designation of trophies related to beating the missions on veteran difficulty, which is consequently one of the easiest veteran runs in any Call of Duty game to date.

The rest of the trophies are awarded for completing some incredibly simple chapter specific tasks, and, as ever, there are also 46 intel items to collect (Though there is no way to actually know from the chapter select menu which intel items you're missing, which is a little bit annoying).

Even though you can quite easily achieve every single player trophy in around 12 hours, this is still a relatively lengthy list courtesy of the new Survival multiplayer mode.

The "Unstoppable" trophy, which requires you to reach wave 15 in each mission of Survival mode, is nothing more than a slog, and it's also worth noting that you'll also need to reach level 50 in order to unlock every piece of equipment for the "Arms Dealer" trophy, which requires you to buy all weapons from the Survival weapons armoury. Another pretty big slog in itself, and definitely fulfils the grindy element of the Platinum.

The Special Ops missions also carry a sleight weighting of trophies, and even though there are only 3 attached to this mode, you do still need to achieve the maximum 48 stars for the "Overachiever" trophy. Some of the missions can be fairly challenging, but you'll most likely breeze through the rest, especially with a good co-op partner at your disposal.

All in all, despite the grindy elements of the Survival mode, this is possibly the easiest Call of Duty Platinum yet. The single player "Veteran" mode is anything but, and despite a few tough missions, the Special Ops mode is just as easy. The only real degree of challenge presented comes exclusively from the grindy nature of the Survival missions.

Notable Trophies -

The Best of the Best - Complete the campaign on Hardened of Veteran difficulty
Unstoppable - Reach Wave 15 in each misson of Special Ops Survival mode
Arms Dealer - Buy all items from the Survival Weapon Armoury

Hardest Trophy -

Arms Dealer 
Buy all items from the Survival Weapon Armoury




Note: The trophy itself isn't challenging in the slightest, but you'll need to hit level 50 in Spec Ops/Survival missions in order to unlock the last weapon required to qualify for the requirements of the trophy.

DLC #54 - FIFA 12 - UEFA Euro 2012

The Euro 2012 DLC adds 10 trophies, with a variety of tasks that will require you to invest a huge amount of time if you want to unlock all of them and maintain the 100% look.

Keeping with the core theme of the DLC, there are  a couple trophies attached to winning the Euro 2012 tournament. However, you will need to do this a series of times, including online, with a friend (or a secondary controller if you wish) and regularly in single player, each with their own respective trophy in the list.

Winning the tournament online for the "Glory Moment" trophy might prove to be tough, given the fact you'll need a decent level of consistency against human opponents in order to reach and win the final. There are 3 group stage matches and then 3 straight knock out matches, so you'll most likely need to win 5 out of 6 games (Definitely 4, maybe 5), in order to unlock that particularly trophy. Tough.

There is also a trophy ("Make it Happen") for succeeding in a challenge, which as of the time of writing, is actually unachievable, due to the fact newly updated challenges were halted shortly after Euro 2012 actually finished, in reality, at the end of July. This also actually affects the "My Euro 2012" trophy, awarded for winning a match in every game mode in the DLC, which also encompasses challenges and therefore, if you haven't finished a challenge, this trophy will also become unachievable. 

There is no guarantee the challenges will ever be rolled out again. It is highly unlikely given the fact the real life tournament has long been concluded, and when you couple that with the imminent release of FIFA 13 at the end of the month, you can bet on these remaining unachievable for good, which is a shame for anybody that hasn't managed to unlock them yet.

Regardless, the bulk of the massive time investment from this DLC comes from the Expedition mode, and more specifically one trophy;

 


Collector - Collect all Mosaic pieces in Expedition.





There are 180 mosaic pieces to collect in total, and 159 of them are awarded for beating each team in the DLC 3 times. You collect the rest of them at certain milestones, which also consequently award trophies related to beating all the teams in any group, and beating all 53 teams at least once.

There are no two ways about it, it will turn into a massive grind, mainly because of the fact you're forced to play all these matches against the incredibly boring computer AI, and have to suffer the 1-dimensional side of the game known as the single player mode. In all fairness, I did actually enjoy the mode, considering I almost died a little bit inside when I found out you'd have to beat the computer in 159 matches (and the many more I lost trying to stubbornly win on Legendary difficulty).

The Ultimate Team-esque way of building an ever stronger squad is what kept me going I think (aside the motivation of the trophy, of course), but there is no doubting you'll be slogging through it right to the end if you want that final mosaic piece that'll grant the "Collector" trophy though. For the benefit of those who can't stomach the challenge, this is what the final piece looks like;

Apart from that, the other trophies tied to Expedition are simply awarded on your way to collecting every mosaic piece, so as long as you're striving for all 180 pieces, you'll unlock those too. 

Like salt in the wound though, you'll actually need to carry on your Expedition a little bit longer due to the "National Pride" trophy, which is awarded for winning a match in Expedition mode with 11 players from the same country. This just means you'll have to pick a team, beat them 11 times, fill out your squad with those 11 players, and then win another match, just incase it wasn't grindy enough for you...

All in all, the experience easily borders on 100 hours, and the Expedition mode is one of the biggest and most challenging slogs in any DLC I've played to date. The element of skill required is  minimal, though winning Euro 2012 online does add a slight difficulty edge to the package, but this is just mostly about how much time you're prepared to invest in it to unlock all the trophies.