DLC #96 - The Last of Us - Reclaimed Territories

No reason to be picky..

The Reclaimed Territories pack is the first Multiplayer based trophy offering for The Last of Us, adding a further 7 trophies related to the 4 new maps bought out as part of this package.

They're such a straight-forward selection of trophies, I didn't even realise how close I actually was to completing this set until I randomly noticed my trophy collection was almost complete for this list, which I suppose tells you everything you need to know about the sort of challenge it presents.

Out of the trophies on offer, 3 of them are awarded for playing each of the games 3 different game modes (Survivors, Supply Raid and Interogation) on any of the 4 new maps, which are added into random rotation during ranked matches, so you should have no problems getting into a game on any of them.

The other 4 trophies require you to achieve 5 downs or executions in a match on any game mode for each of the 4 new maps, which really isn't difficult, even if you wouldn't consider yourself to be very good at the game. You might need to wait around for that last map to come into rotation, but if you're working on the main list of the game, where you need to play at least 168 matches to beat both online campaigns, you should hit all 4 maps multiple times during that period anyway, giving you plenty of chances along the way to full completion.

Given Naughty Dog's track record of Multiplayer trophies, this is very much at the opposite end of the spectrum to the norm. You will more than likely achieve these trophies through just progressing the Firefly and Hunter campaigns for the related gold trophies in the main list, so you won't even need any sort of focus on them, and can completely rely on natural obtainment of all 7 trophies. Very basic stuff.

DLC #95 - Call of Duty : Black Ops - Escalation Map Pack

Ensemble...

The Escalation Map Pack adds 5 trophies to the zombie mode of Blacks Ops, and is the first trophy pack in the game that includes Easter Egg related trophies.

The "Ensemble Cast" trophy, awarded for sending the crew to Paradise in co-op, requires you to fulfil the aforementioned multi-step Easter Egg contained with the newly added Call of the Dead zombies map.

At the time of writing, there have been many Easter Egg themed trophies released in the vast array of games in the Call of Duty series down the years, so even relatively new at the time of it's release, these trophies are now common place in the Call of Duty world.

This is actually one of the easier ones to follow, and even though you will need to finish it in co-op, you can complete every step of the Easter Egg with as little as just 2 people, in comparison to some Easter Egg trophies that will require you to have a full party of 4.

There are no particulary difficult parts of this process, though you will need the V-R11 from the mystery box to turn a zombie into a human during one of the latter steps, but that's about as challenging as any step gets, and you can complete the steps in large chunks providing you have a crawler present at all times. The "Stand In" trophy, will also be awarded upon completion of the Easter Egg, which has exactly the same requirements, but can also be achieved in Solo play.

The more challenging parts of this DLC come from the bronze trophies;

Shooting on Location - In Call of the Dead, kill 10 zombies with one Scavenger shot from over 100 feet away.
Quiet on the Set - In Call of the Dead, cut the lights on the Director.

The "Shooting on Location" trophy proves to be the most difficult trophy on the list.

There are proven and solid methods to obtaining this, and it is best done in Solo play, but you'll need to pull the Scavenger from the mystery box first, and then be able to gauge a position from where you can shoot a group of zombies that are far enough away in order to satisfy the requirements of the trophy. Making a group of crawlers will not only lessen the threat whilst you line up a shot, but also makes them a much easier target to group together and kill all at once.

There's more luck than judgement involved, and it could take you a handful of attempts, whether that be because you didn't manage to pull the Scavenger out of the mystery box early enough, or because you didn't kill enough zombies with 1 shot and have to subsequently start the next round.

It does also help to Pack-A-Punch the Scavenger if you can survive long enough to accumulate 5000 points, which increases the damage dealt and blast radius of the explosion on a shot, and Juggernog is always a good perk to have to hand when playing solo because being downed will end the game when you don't have any team-mates to assist you.

The "Quiet on the Set" trophy requires you to kill George Romero, who wanders around the map, and will become hostile if either shot at, or you get too close to him.

He takes alot of damage before dying, and it's actually best to play for the trophy in tandem with the above, since the upgraded Scavenger can deal alot of damage, which is exactly what you'll need to kill the Director. Standard weapons can work, but the damage is so minimal, it becomes a tedious exercise, and if you already have an upgraded Scavenger from trying to obtain the above trophy, it just makes sense to try and kill him with it too.

The crawler method is sound, though it is important to make sure the crawler is always well away from the fight, else the blast radius will cause death and trigger the next round suddenly. It's also important to make sure you shoot the Director within water, which is the only remedy to his raging rampage around the map, so focus on the centralised starting area when going for this trophy. Almost a full cip of 36 rounds on the upgraded Scavanger will be enough, so make the shots count, and you should have enough.

Again, it may take a handful of attempts depending on mystery box luck, and if you can survive multiple waves, but with the right strategy, it isn't terribly difficult, though can be frustrating having to restart the game multiple times.

Despite not being as easy as the First Strike Map Pack, Escalation presents it's own challenges, but in the bigger scheme of the Call of Duty series, it contains one of the easier to complete Easter Eggs, with some potentially frustrating, but not incredibly difficult added extras.

Platinum #74 - Assassin's Creed Rogue

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 4/10

The final installation of Assassin's Creed on the Playstation 3 follows a fairly standard tradition, very much in line with the normal expectations of an Assassin's Creed trophy list, and despite being fairly lengthy, contains one of the easiest trophy lists in the series.

Shay Cormac is the main protagonist, with a heavy emphasis on sea-based travelling and combat, and a follow up from the Black Flag installment on the Playstation 4.

The "Templar then; Templar now" trophy, awarded for completing the game, relates to the main story sequence, which is actually much shorter than that of stories in other Assassin's Creed games, with just 6 sequences to get through. There are also 4 sequences relating to the present day, which don't really add much to the game other than walking around an Abstergo facility in first person of an unnamed protagonist, and merely act as fillers between main story sequences.

All of this, including going back for any secondary objectives, (which are paramount to 100% synchronisation), should take no longer than 8 hours. The story offering is very brief, and if you keep an eye on the secondary objectives, you can easily minimise the amount of replay value you'll have to contest with later on.

The bulk of the time spent on this trophy list will be allocated to the vast array of side activities in the game, which has been fleshed out way more than the main story, with a huge amount of collectibles to grab and activities to complete.

Despite some of these being new aspects to the series, they're very repetitive and grindy, and half the struggle will be getting around the amount of times you'll have to repeat these feats. There are 200 Animus Fragments, 24 Templar maps to find, along with 24 dig site locations relating to each map and 150 quest items, amongst other things. These all have their own seperate trophies attached to them aswell, so there are no shortcuts here.

However, you'll only need to complete half of the Naval campaign, and achieve 100% synchronization on just the main story missions (though this is probably mainly down to the fact all of the secondary memories in this game are collectible and activity based, rather than a deliberate plan to make things a bit less labourious for the user).

The gameplay is exactly the same as it always has been, and therefore, contains no real difficulty spikes, but that doesn't mean there aren't at least a few challenges to be had from this list here and there;

The "Master of the North Atlantic" trophy, awarded for completing all legendary battles, requires you to defeat 4 missions containing some of the hardest ships and convoys in the game. There is a big emphasis on sea-based combat in this game, which is probably the biggest change for the series, and these battles will test your skills and ship durability.

Even with a fully upgraded Morrigan vessel, these are still extremely challenging fights, and you'll need to nail down solid tactics and acquire a bit of luck to win each of them. It's probably best to make sure the Morrigan is fully upgraded before tackling any of these in order to avoid frustration, but even then, you could find yourself replaying them a number of times in order to beat each one, and this trophy ends up being the most difficult one in the list.

On the subject of the Morrigan, the "Phantom Queen" trophy, awarded for fully upgrading the Morrigan is one of the more individually grindy trophies. The amount of resources needed to achieve a full upgrade is massive, and this is mostly down to sinking and then looting other ships in the North Atlantic. Alot of them on scarce on the supplies they give out, which is the main reason this takes a while, but it also means you'll most likely have to wait longer to tackle the legendary battles too as you build your armoury and give yourself a fighting chance.

The "Supplier" trophy, awarded for taking over 10 large supply camps while only the VETERANS cheat is active, is also worth a mention. Whilst not difficult within it's actual requirements, all 4 of the trophies relating to cheats require a certain amount of Abstergo challenges to be completed before the cheat is unlocked. In this instance, 65 challenges are required to have been fulfilled before you can begin to work towards this trophy, and given the fact there are only 75 Abstergo challenges to complete, the margin for leeway is quite small.

Most of these challenges are relatively straight forward, but you may have to be forced to tackle a few that could present a few difficulties, and this will add extra mileage onto the completion time of the list. However, as mentioned previously, the actual requirement of the trophy isn't at all difficult, but the preqrequiste has be considered.

Overall, this is business as usual for an Assassin's Creed title. Despite the story mode being short in comparison to previous Assassin's Creed titles, the wealth and depth of secondary content more than makes up for this shortcoming, and you can still expect to plug anywhere between 30-40 hours into the Platinum trophy here, which is a par timescale based on other Assassin Creed games in the series.

The game mechanics are completed unchanged, and as a result, make the game incredibly easy, especially when it comes to combat and free-running, and despite the odd spike in difficulty presented by the legendary battles, and some of the optional objectives in the main story sequence, the only real challenges presented here come from overcoming the repetitiveness and borderline grindy nature of the secondary memories, side activities and collectibles, but if you can get your head around that, you have a fairly routine Platinum trophy waiting at the other end.

Notable Trophies -

Templar then; Templar now - Complete the game
Achieve full synchronisation -Achieve 100% synchronization in all main missions
Phantom Queen - Fully Upgrade the Morrigan
Master of the North Atlantic - All legendary battles completed
Supplier - Take over 10 large supply camps while only the VETERANS cheat is active

Hardest Trophy -



Master of the North Atlantic
All legendary battles completed.

Platinum #73 - Metal Gear Solid 2 (Part of the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection for the Playstation 3)

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 10/10

If you ever tried to beat Metal Gear Solid 2 in it's entirety back in it's hay-day on the Playstation 2, you may well have foreseen a difficult trophy list on the horizon when the HD collection was released.

Admittedly, I never beat the original game beyond a once-over on the story mode at moderate difficulty, but the HD makeover includes a trophy list that requires you to beat every aspect of the game thoroughly, and, as a result, presents a huge challenge that is tough to overcome.

Most of the games trophies are relatively straight forward. There's alot on offer for natural progression through the story mode, and completing specific actions, both accounting for well over half of the games trophy list, but the remainder throws up a challenge that propels the difficulty of the list right to the top of the scale.

Despite the length of the game being relatively short compared to most Single Player only experiences, you'll need to beat the game at least 5 times in order to unlock every item required on the trophy list.

The "Great Dane" trophy, awarded for collecting all the dog tags in the Plant chapter to obtain the Blue Wig, is the brunt of this list, but doesn't actually require you to unlock every single dog tag in the game, like the trophy suggests. Not that really matters for much, because you'll need 218 tags to earn enough, but with a maximum of 50 dog tags on offer per play-through, it will require 5 runs of the game to obtain enough to fulfil the requirements of the trophy.

This also creates the sub-challenge of the difficulty modes associated with the game too. Dog tags are achieved through holding up the various soldiers dotted around the vast amount of areas throughout the game, and can only be obtained once per soldier, per difficulty level, meaning you will have to scale upwards with each play-through of the game, most likely having to beat the game on "Extreme" difficulty as bare minimum (The second hardest in the entire game).

For the most part, the harder difficulty levels are only really obvious when it comes to boss fights, of which there are plenty throughout the game, and you'll end up spending the larger portions of the run just trying to get past certain boss battles (The Harrier Jet, Metal Gear Rays and Solidus are the stand-outs). The bits between are actually fairly easy, and as you unlock items from previous play-throughs, you can use these later on, such as the infinity (Brown) wig and the Stealth suit, and they become critical to easier progression towards the endgame during the harder difficulties. These don't impact the award of trophies like some games might do, which is a big help, so you can use whatever you have at your disposal without repercussions. 

Even then, 5 runs is still a time consuming, and ultimately tedious grind, and you'll also have to play the Tanker chapter in order to unlock more items obtained through collecting dog tags, which will add to the length of the game.

You can unlock the vast majority of the trophies in the list naturally across these multiple play-throughs, including a bunch of progression based trophies awarded for beating the multitude of bosses in the game, defeating enemies in certain ways and collecting dog tags to achieve other unlockable items.

Away from the story mode, the "Virtually Impossible" trophy, awarded for completing all VR and Alternative missions, requires you to beat 500 individual missions in the games VR mode, a collection of training exercises that require you to reach an end goal by completing specific tasks along the way. These will include eliminating all enemies on course to an exit point, defusing a certain number of bombs within an allocated time limit and reaching an exit goal without being spotted. 

Most of these are a simple case of procedure, but there are frequent difficulty spikes that will cause all sorts of trial and error upon completion. The MGS1 Snake hold up missions, all of the Variety missions and the Eliminate All missions are the pick of the bunch, but there is a general selection of these that will cause problems, and perfecting them can be an arduous process.

The sheer depth of the Virtual Reality mode is enough to make this difficult, because it becomes so incredibly time consuming, and when you hit a brick wall suddenly with a genuinely tough challenge, it escalates the difficulty of the mode even further, which can easily attribute 50+ hours to the completion of this trophy alone. You do only need to beat the mission, (though the "In It to Win It" trophy, awarded for Placing first in 50 different VR/Alternative missions ensures you still need to remain competitive to a lesser extent), which means there isn't much pressure, and the sole focus should just be about getting to the end goal, rather than trying to break records, but even that isn't so straight-forward with certain challenges.

The "Tell Me a Tale" trophy, awarded for Completing all Snake Tales, requires you to complete 5 short stories based on the spin-off from the main game. It's not a terribly long-winded mode, coming in at 5-10 hours, but it can be quite difficult, and and it actually ends up becoming a chore after you've seen the same environment 5 times already having beaten the game on every possible difficulty level previously.

There's also no actual difficulty level to choose, and you also face every single boss battle again at some point during each of the 5 tales. As if it the hardest element of the game wasn't enough 5 separate times throughout the main story arc, you have to go through them all again here and then also one more time in pursuit of the "No Boss of Mine" trophy, awarded for Completing Boss Survival. To suggest this becomes a bit monotonous is an understatement.

The "Vamp Eyer" trophy, awarded for Catching a glimpse of Vamp standing in the streets of New York during the end cinematic, requires you to pan the game camera towards an image of Vamp in the streets during the final cutscene of the game. Although not a difficult trophy, you cannot go back and have a second chance at it if you miss him without replaying the entire game.

Given the fact you'll get a handful of chances to obtain this trophy (with the sheer amount of times you'll have to beat the game), it's still worth noting because you can only obtain this trophy at the very end of the game, and if you somehow missed it, you would have to go through the game in it's entirety to get the chance to unlock it again. The trophy didn't actually register for me the first couple of times I tried to it, so it's best to look out for it and grab it from the first available opportunity.

It's also definitely worth noting the controls, which haven't been tweaked in any regard since the games original release way back in 2001, and can often feel clunky and unfinished, which proves a grand obstacle when trying to tackle VR missions that require intricate or subtle movements, and boss battles during the story mode that may require quick reactions and instinctive motions.

Despite actually being a fantastic story driven experience, the repetition factor will prove tough for anyone to overcome, especially with the amount of times you'll have to play through the game in order to achieve the Platinum trophy. The fact you'll also have to scale the difficulty level each time in order to unlock all the required dog tags not only makes it a time consuming venture, but a challenging one too.

The Virtual Reality mode is equally as challenging, both in the time consuming and difficulty sense, and combined with the requirements of the main story, this game will easily surpass the 200 hour mark in terms of a general completion time, and anybody who manages to earn every single trophy in this list should be proud. It's a long and gruelling road, but one that ends in the reward of one of the toughest Platinum trophies available in the entire Playstation catalogue. There are 6 other Metal Gear Solid games with trophy lists, and if this somehow isn't the hardest out of all them, then I dread to think what's to follow.

Notable Trophies -

Great Dane - Collect all dog tags in the Plant chapter to obtain the Blue Wig
Virtually Impossible - Complete all VR and Alternative missions
Tell Me a Tale - Complete all Snake Tales
Vamp Eyer - Catch a glimpse of Vamp standing in the streets of New York during the end cinematic

Hardest Trophy - 

Virtually Impossible
Complete all VR and Alternative missions

DLC #94 - Skyrim - Dawnguard

Vampires vs Werewolves

Back to the main story-driven content of Skyrim DLC, this package adds 10 further trophies to the game, along with a brand new story arc centred around a vampire cult whose sole goal is to find an Elder scroll that holds the key to vanquishing the sun, the vampires only true threat.

Only 3 of the 10 trophies are geared towards progression through the main quest-line (though there is also an extra trophy for completing a lengthy side quest too), with the "Kindered Judgement" trophy, awarded for completing the kindered judgement quest and thus, concluding the story. This contains 12 additional quests and contributes a solid 8-10 hours towards the game.

The difficulty of this will always depend on what difficulty you choose to play the game on. You're never overwhelmed by enemies and there aren't any challenging boss fights worth noting (even the final one), so you can drop the difficulty if you wish to, and even changing this mid-game has no sanctioning effects on the unlocking of trophies.

In regards to the rest of list, most of it that isn't achieved by merely completing quests, can be earned through very basic tasks, but there are still a small bunch to look out for;

Werewolf Mastered - Acquire 11 werewolf perks
Vampire Mastered - Acquired 11 vampire perks
Legend - Defeat a Legendary Dragon

The "Werewolf Mastered" and "Vampire Mastered" trophies go hand in hand, and require you to maximise the brand new skill trees for each class by killing enemies and either draining their blood (vampire) or feeding on their heart (wolf). One reason they're both referenced to is because they can be quite grindy, and there aren't enough enemies available to kill throughout the quest-line to satisfy the demands of both trophies, so you'll need to go the extra mile afterwards for whichever class you didn't choose to fulfil first. This will include some dungeon crawling, though you can speed up the process and visit major cities killing off the population of people within them, but you cannot fast travel whilst in either creatures form, which is a bit of an annoyance, so hopping around from dungeon to dungeon and killing anything else on the way in between is probably the best method.

However, the main reason they're both referenced is because the "Werewolf Mastered" trophy is actually missable. The Beast Form power (which grants you the ability to change into a Werewolf) can only be granted back to the player on one occasion IF you choose to cure yourself when Harkon offers you the Vampire Lord power at the beginning of the new quest-line. You can speak to Aela of the Companions guild, who will offer you Beast Form only once thereafter, whereas you can actually become a Vampire an unlimited amount of times, so as long as you make sure you prioritise the Werewolf perks, then it shouldn't matter, but it's easy to overlook if you're not well informed about the situation. It is probably better to reject the Vampire power when offered it and go through the quest-line using Beast Form, and then transforming into a Vampire at a later time (Just make sure you've actually obtained the Werewolf power beforehand, because you get this power through the main game during the Companions story arc and not during this DLC).

The "Legend" trophy requires alot of work to be able to even reach the stage of where unlocking it actually becomes a possibility, not to mention how hard it can be to slay a Legendary Dragon. The general consensus seems to be that the Legendary Dragon will only appear once the player reaches level 78 and beyond. This means there is a huge amount of grinding to be done on skills in order to reach this threshold. Under previous circumstances, this would have taken a ridiculous amount of dedication, but the Skyrim Legendary Edition added the ability to make skills "Legendary", which was an update also rolled out into older versions of the game.

This meant you can maximise a certain skill to Level 100, and then enter "Legendary" mode, where it would reset back to level 15 and you could start levelling it all over again, whilst it still contributed to your overall character level. Imagine trying to hit level 78 where you had to stretch out every single skill and level them all to an equal measure. Torture.

Even with this, I still had to make the Alteration skill Legendary 9 times, and standing there casting the Muffle spell on myself still took about 5-6 hours out of my time just to be able to reach the minimum reported level to trigger the appearance of a Legendary Dragon, and even before all of that, there were an almost 70 solid levels dedicated towards the main game and it's 3 DLC packages, which is a big commitment in itself.

In regards to fighting the Legendary Dragon itself, I managed to find one very quickly after hitting level 78, so the reports are fairly solid, and the fight can be a challenging one if you're that way inclined and want to pit yourself against one of the hardest enemies in the game. It has some brutal life draining shout and deals heavy ground damage, but patience is the best defence and as always, you can alter the difficulty level without any adverse effects on trophy progression.

If you're prepared to overcome the barrier of grinding for levels, there isn't much else that will stand in your way of unlocking every trophy in this package, though it is important to always be aware of the missable trophy, and take the appropriate steps to ensure you can unlock it. If you've already earned the Platinum trophy, you'll at least have hit level 50 already, and the rest is just a matter of playing through the DLC offerings and then grinding out Legendary ranks for whichever skill is most efficient for you to level up with ease.

The story is expansive, but won't contribute greatly your overall level, and there aren't many more opportunities to level up within any of the extra side content. The amount of time you'll spend grinding levels just depends on how far you need to go to trigger the Legendary dragon, but it's nothing terribly difficult.

DLC #93 - Sleeping Dogs - Year of the Snake

Explosive action.

The Year of the Snake DLC continues the Single Player story theme, with a slightly different angle where you take on Shen's police responsibilities for the first time in the game, and seek to take down a Cultist group responsible for the mass installation of bombs around the city.

The trophy count for this package is slightly lower than the previous, with just 4 on offer, but the theme is exactly the same, with trophies awarded for story progression, completing extra side content and collectibles.

Half of the package consists of progression based trophies, with the "Cult Master" trophy, awarded for defeating the Cultists, and consequently concluding the main story arc for this episode. 

The new story is actually slightly longer than Nightmare in North Point, though only by an extra hour or so, but there's still no real difference in terms of difficulty and the 12 new missions are nice and easy to blast through without any problems.

The "Goodie Monster" trophy, awarded for collecting all evidence, requires you to find 20 evidence bags scattered around the map. These don't actually show up visibly on the radar until you've beaten the main story arc, so they're best left until the end to save referencing a manual map, along with the favours and additional side content that will net you the final trophy and complete the list.

You can complete everything on offer within 4-5 hours, and the time allocation to beat this list is the only notable difference between both pieces of DLC. The trophies are identical in nature, and the challenge is consistently slight, making for a very straight forward set of trophies.

DLC #92 - Sleeping Dogs - Nightmare in North Point

Not so Smiley Cat.

This DLC package adds Sleeping Dogs to the forever growing list of games that gets the popular treatment of zombie-themed game design, where North Point is over-run by a re-incarnated zombie horde led by Big Scar Wu AKA Smiley Cat.

The 5 trophies on offer are very similar to those you'll find in the main game's list, treading familiar ground with their requirements.

The "Can I Haz Banishment" trophy, awarded for banishing Smiley Cat, tops off the 7 mission episode, which should take no longer than a couple of hours to beat, with the same ease of challenge reflected in the gameplay as anything that went before it.

There is a small slice of additional content available from this list, including trophies awarded for completing a clutch of side missions and discovering all 10 hell shrines scattered around North Point, which are extremely routine tasks.

The "Cursed Gold" trophy, awarded for Achieving 5 Gold Awards, was the sort of trophy that was responsible for the challenge provided in the game's main list. None of the 5 new challenges are exactly tough, though they will require slight elements of grind in them to be fulfilled to gold standard. This mostly applies to the Vampire Hunter and Demonic Exorcism challenges, which require you to kill 200 Jiang Shi (the regular enemies in the game) and to kill 15 Yaoguai with the Peachwood sword (the less common mini bosses in the game that appear at random).

Not enough of each of these required figures will pop up throughout the main story arc alone, and you'll be required to parade around the city finding the remaining number of enemies during the end-game, which does ultimately become a slightly tedious exercise. It doesn't add too much time onto the package, but it ends up feeling like 2-3 hours too much, especially with the extremely limited combat system in full swing.

Overall, this is still a relatively straight forward package. The 7 new missions will only take a couple of hours to beat in their entirety, and the side content is enough to tag another 2-4 hours on top of that. There is a very slight grind element in a few of the gold award requirements, but nothing any more difficult to get through than what is present in the main game.

Platinum #72 - Resistance 3

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 3/10

The follow up to a game that still holds one of the most prestigious Platinum trophies available in the entire Playstation catalogue couldn't be further away on the spectrum.

Where Resistance 2 was a 10/10 in the truest form, Resistance 3 is anything but, and although it can throw up the odd difficulty spike, these are in short supply, and the overall challenge is quite meagre.

The first thing to note is the fact there are an extremely unusual amount of trophies in this list, totalling 59 including the Platinum, with 53 of these being bronze trophies.

The main bulk of the difficulty comes from the "Brutal" trophy, awarded for Completing Campaign Mode on Superhuman, and there are some tough portions of this game, particularly as you creep towards the end of story.

This is mainly due to the unforgiving health system, where enemies will deal some serious damage which will deplete your health bar significantly quickly. Certain parts of the game where you're bombarded with enemies will test your patience as you retry them multiple times, and with practically no cover system and the absence of any form of health regeneration, the game mechanics don't really do the player any favours when trying to counter the punishing health system.

The story isn't terribly lengthy either, clocking in at around 8-10 hours or so, and you can quite easily beat it twice within 25 hours, including the massive bronze trophy clean up that will most likely follow.

It is also important to note that you will need to beat the game once in order to unlock Superhuman difficulty, as you did in Resistance 2, but with the sheer amount of trophies on offer, and given the fact the vast majority of them are attached to the campaign mode, it's actually more ideal to break it down over 2 play-throughs because there are alot of trophies to keep track of to manage over one trip. There is the benefit of a chapter select feature too, which is useful, because there is alot of clean up potential in this list.

The "Juggler" trophy, awarded for Simultaneously burning, freezing and poisoning 4 separate enemies, is possibly the pick of the rest of the list. The majority of it is so easy, it's difficult to pick out anything genuinely challenging, but there are problems with this trophy registering correctly. There are a few prime locations with groups of enemies where this can be found, but the ticker is very sketchy when counting the 4 times you need to execute the requirements of this trophy, but were clutching at straws a bit here in all honesty. You will unlock it eventually, it's just very bugged and will take longer to unlock than it should do.

Much was made about the "Killing Machine" trophy from Resistance 2, but you won't need 10,000 Multiplayer kills this time round though. You technically won't even need an online connection, though there are a couple of co-op trophies. However, these can easily be farmed in local co-operative mode if you possess two controller pads. If not, they are still achievable through the Multiplayer mode, though connectivity to another person at this stage in the game's life cycle may be extremely difficult.

The rest of the list is just full of small menial tasks that you will either manage to complete naturally during the story, or through chapter select for anything you may have missed across the two play-throughs. This includes collectibles, which are registered automatically and tracked through specific in-game menus. They also do not have to be collected in one go, which is another good example of why this list is so easy.

Overall, the challenge this game presents in it's trophy list is extremely minimal. Superhuman difficulty can provide some stern moments, and there are an excessive amount of trophies on offer for a normal retail list, which can be a bit overwhelming. Even though you have to play the campaign mode twice in it's entireity, and with the potential for high clean up afterwards, you can still quite comfortably beat this game in a sub-30 hour timescale.

It isn't terribly far off being towards the very most opposite end of the spectrum to it's predecessor, and if it wasn't for a moderately challenging top difficulty mode, it probably would be. Superhuman difficulty saves it a little bit of grace, but this is still one of the easiest lists available in the Playstation catalogue.

Notable Trophies -

Brutal - Complete Campaign Mode on Superhuman
Juggler - Simultaneously burn, freeze and poison 4 separate enemies

Hardest Trophy - 

Brutal
Complete Campaign Mode on Superhuman

Platinum #71 - Infamous 2

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 3/10

It's actually really easy to say what makes this game different to it's predecessor, despite both trophy lists being an almost identical copy of each other.

Everything that presented a challenge within the Infamous 1 trophy list has either been changed to make it more accommodating for the average trophy hunter, or even excluded completely for the sake of an easier list.

The "Just One More" trophy, awarded for picking up all blast shards scattered around New Marias, is the exact same trophy as seen in Infamous 1, but much less hassle this time round.

The shard hunt in Infamous 1 is still one of the most gruelling collectible ventures seen in any game to date (and that's almost 6 years on from the release of the game), but everything that made it difficult has been improved to make it much easier this time round.

Not only does the shard count drastically reduce (by well over 100 shards), you also get in-game support to assist you in tracking them down, rather than having to rely on a manual checklist/map as you had to do with Infamous 1. Simply clicking R3 will emit an electrical pulse that will show the location of any nearby blast shards, which makes collecting them hassle free, and just turns into a standard fetch quest, albeit a fairly lengthy one, as there are still 305 blast shards to collect in total, and they will need to be done in one play-through, which is important to note in a game that will require a minimum of 2 full plays to achieve the Platinum trophy.

On the subject of which, the whole concept of good vs evil is also still fully integrated in the trophy list. The "Fight the Good Fight" and "Forging Your Own Path" trophies, awarded for unlocking the good ending, and unlocking the evil ending, respectively, confirm the need to play through the game at least twice.

There are also, as before, a collection of trophies awarded for completing karma specific missions which can only be left down to each good and bad play-through, so it's just a matter of knowing which choices to make in order to unlock the correct trophies during the critical story points where you have to make a choice. This does also apply to certain side missions that are locked out when the opposite choice is made, but these are easily distinguishable by their blue and red icons that clearly represent each karma stance.

The first play-through of the game will be fairly meaty, simply for the reason that this should be utilised for covering alot of the extra content that will unlock most of the other trophies in this list, which are either just tied to side missions, exploration or racking up totals for various actions. However, you can smash through the main story alone within 10-15 hours on a second play-through, even on the hardest difficulty, as long as the story is your only focus and the only trophies you need left are the progression based trophies tied to whichever karma stance you didn't choose in your first play-through.

The "Pain Builds Character" trophy, awarded for finishing the game on hard difficulty, isn't hard at all. Again, it's about the same level of challenge as what was present in Infamous 1, with just a couple of potentially sticky points that might require a bit of patience, but nothing more than that.

You will also need to unlock the hard difficulty by beating the game once, but that's not really terribly important to mention given the fact the game requires at least 2 play-throughs to fulfil the requirements of both the good and evil endings anyway. It is recommended to go through the game casually first time round and unlock practically every trophy available that isn't related to the opposite karma stance you're playing towards, in order to make sure that all you need to focus on in the second run is merely beating the game.

The "UGC Veteran" trophy, awarded for playing 25 user-generated missions, is a new concept to Infamous whereby you can create missions for other players to beat. This is actually an online trophy, so it is not entirely accurate to say this is a Single Player trophy list, even though the mode is actually integrated into the story. It isn't a challenging trophy in any way, but it does rely on server support, and will make this Platinum trophy unachievable one day, so it's definitely one to look out for and make note of.

One final thing that I feel is also quite important to mention is the fact there are no trophies for completing the stunt list in this game, which was one of the decisive elements of the Infamous 1 rating, and subsequently why Infamous 2 is also an easier game. There are powers unlocked through pulling off stunts, but there isn't an actual list of them to go through, nor are there are trophies on offer for performing them all. This was one of the more difficult elements of the previous game, so the fact it is omitted from the trophy list is a big part of the reasoning behind the lower rating of this game.

Overall, this is a much easier offering in comparison to it's predecessor, The game itself isn't really challenging, even on it's hardest difficulty, and even 2 play-throughs of the game, along with completing all of the side activities and extra content that award trophies, can be beaten within 30 hours collectively. 

Even the harder parts of the original Infamous game have either been stripped down to be made easier, or completely excluded, which is a telling factor in this list. There are a small handful of online trophies to watch out for, and a couple of instances where the game can be tough during hard difficulty, but this is list you can beat with minimum drama within a very reasonable timescale. 

Notable Trophies -

Just One More - Pick up all the blast shards scattered around New Marais
Fight the Good Fight - Unlock the good ending
Forging Your Own Path - Unlock the evil ending
Pain Builds Character - Finish the game on hard difficulty
UGC Veteran - Play 25 user-generated missions

Hardest Trophy -

Pain Builds Character
Finish the game on hard difficulty

Platinum #70 - Call of Duty : Black Ops 2

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 8/10

Call of Duty titles are hard to predict, it seems. Their general difficulty ratings spike up and down so erratically, it makes for a tough list to call on each year.

Black Ops 2 moves towards the upper end of the scale, with a list that proves to be both challenging and time consuming in equal measure, and it's a set of trophies that takes a slightly different guise to Call of Duty games of the past.

There are still certain things that haven't changed, most notably in the Single Player portion of the list.

It is still, for the most part, a progression based game, with a large chunk of trophies awarded for beating each level in the game, along with a further batch of trophies that are awarded for performing certain actions at specified points in the story.

The "Black Ops II Master" trophy, awarded for Completing the campaign on Hardened or Veteran difficulty, gives the player an option, which has been a trend in the more recent Call of Duty lists, but also retains a few trophies that require you to beat certain levels exclusively on Veteran, so it doesn't really make any sense to play through on Hardened difficulty anyway.

As far as a challenging experience goes, Veteran difficulty doesn't come anywhere near certain previous titles in the series, and the story itself is still relatively short lived, clocking in at anywhere between 8-10 hours. (This estimate includes the new Strike Force missions, which are optional to the main story, but compulsory to the trophy list).

The toughest part of the Single Player portion of this list comes in form of the "Giant Accomplishment" trophy, awarded for Completing all challenges in Black Ops II. This is a completely new concept to the Single Player part of Call of Duty games, adding a total of 160 challenges to the 16 levels contained within the game. They're essentially just a collection of in-game objectives to go through and complete in check-list fashion, and although the majority of them are relatively hassle free, there are a chunk of them will test your patience, and to a lesser extent, skill level.

There are also generic challenges that pop up in each level, including finding all intel and getting through the entire level without dying. You'll be subjected to playing each level through multiple times in order to fulfil all 10 objective criteria, and sometimes excessively for the handful of levels that contain more difficult challenges (of which I'd personally say are about 4/5). It does get laborious when you consider you'll have to play through each mission at least 2/3 times in order to lock off every single challenge, and the consistent repetition is enough to make it feel harder than it actually is, even though you can speedrun most of the levels by lowering the difficulty level.

It ends up actually being quite a time consuming part of the game, mostly down to the sheer repetition required through beating the levels over again in the name of beating the game, completing challenges and fulfilling conditional trophies influenced by decisions made at critical mission points.

Unlike alot of other Call of Duty lists, the Multiplayer portion also gets some trophy consideration this time round, though there isn't that big of an emphasis in terms of quantity. 

The "Welcome to the Penthouse" trophy, awarded for Prestiging once in a Multiplayer Public Match, will require you to level your character to maximum level at least once. The maximum level in this instance is 55, and most people will be aware that entering prestige mode will reset everything, which is something you'll have to deal with if you want the trophy. There's nothing really out of the ordinary from what you'd expect from a standard levelling affair, but it will take somewhere in the region of 20-25 hours to reach level 55 and enter prestige mode for the average player, which is a reasonable length of time for a single trophy.

The final part of this list relates to an old Treyarch favourite, with the Zombies mode getting a generous helping of trophies added too. Most of them aren't terribly challenging, and can actually be earned in solo mode without the need to rely on a group of other players to help you out.

The "Tower of Babble" trophy, awarded for obeying the voices in TranZit, is one of the favourite cryptic zombies trophies that have popped up in previous Call of Duty titles (and also within the DLC packages for this one). It is effectively just a step-by-step process that you need to follow in order to come to a specific conclusion, but it can't be done solo and some of the steps can be tricky to fulfil depending on certain circumstances. You'll need at least 2 players, though 3/4 is actually recommended, mystery box luck is also required, because you'll need someone to pull out the EMP grenades to fulfil a step that requires you to kill the electric zombie that is spawned through activating the power and further multiple steps require players to perform actions at the same time at different parts of the map, which is borderline impossible without some form of communication.

If you can find a dedicated group who are committed to achieving the trophy, there's every possibility that this won't take too many attempts to crack, but it isn't one you'll be able to just jump into a random public game and beat on the fly. It's just way too specific in it's instructions for random players who will just be playing zombies mode in it's purest form, and half the battle can be getting together a like-minded bunch who are dedicated to cracking the Easter Egg and earning the trophy.

Even then, it still requires a fair amount of preparation and you might need to be willing to play out a few games in order to gel a strategy together and make sure everybody knows their role and is capable enough to get through each step beginning to end. Things can very quickly get out of control in zombies mode, so teamwork is of high importance when it comes to these Easter Egg trophies, and it turns out to be one of the most challenging trophies in the game.

Finally, the "You Have No Power Over Me" trophy, awarded for defeating "him" without being attacked by "him", refers to beating the electric zombie that spawns after the power is turned on in TranZit. Again, you'll need to pull out an EMP grenade from the mystery box, then it's just a matter of drawing him out and making sure you kill him quickly in order to prevent any damage taken from his attacks.

There are actually a couple of methods you can try for this, both of which I exhausted plenty without any success until I managed to get lucky with the EMP grenade. Some people will recommend purchasing the Galvaknuckles for 6,000 points, which will take a couple of close combat hits to banish the electric zombie, but that's alot of points to accumulate, and being that close to "him" is a dangerous approach. I eventually managed to find success with the EMP grenade, which is a 1 hit kill, but it's just a matter of getting lucky with the mystery box, and when he appears (which is apparently meant to happen between rounds, but I experienced him popping up during rounds on a number of occasions, which can lead to cheap hits when you're surrounded by normal zombies too), just spotting him out straight away before he gets an attack off. 

The rest of the zombies trophies are easy enough, and as a whole, so is the majority of the list, but the small selection of trophies that present a challenge will push you and make you work hard for this Platinum trophy. 

Overall, both the challenging and highly time consuming nature of this list contribute to it's score. The Single Player portion of the game is ultimately a heavy grind with it's fair share of frustrations, and it's a journey that will test your patience as you re-tread old ground time and time again in the quest to unlock every trophy. The Multiplayer part of the list is mostly a levelling fare, but still a fairly lengthy one at that, and the zombies mode trophies have a few stumbling blocks to throw into the mix, with the "Tower of Babble" trophy, which many people will consider to be the toughest trophy in this list.

It's a very different list to what you can usually expect from a Call of Duty title, but it's still another Treyach Call of Duty game that provides a solid challenge to the series.

Notable Trophies -

Black Ops II Master - Complete the campaign on Hardened or Veteran difficulty
Giant Accomplishment - Complete all challenges in Black Ops II
Welcome to the Penthouse - Prestige once in a multiplayer Public Match
Tower of Babble - In TranZit, obey the voices
You Have No Power Over Me - In TranZit, defeat "him" without being attacked by "him"

Hardest Trophy - 




Giant Accomplishment
Complete all challenges in Black Ops II