Platinum #91 - GRID Autosport

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 9/10

On the recent subject of completions that have been a long time coming, the Uncharted 3 DLC seamlessly brings us into GRID Autosport.

When you consider the fact that I unlocked my first trophy in this list in June 2014, it'll be just over 5 years since I started this journey, and whilst the main reason for this has been due to breaks from the game, this is still a seriously challenging set of trophies.

The list of 51 trophies is mostly split into 2 areas of the game. These include the Single Player, which focuses on the Career mode, and the competitive Multiplayer, which contains one of the longest online leveling grinds I've ever encountered.

There are also a small collection of miscellaneous trophies attached to other game modes, such as custom cups and split-screen, but these are nowhere near considered to be a main focus.

The "I've got what Rick Scott's got" trophy, awarded for Winning each discipline's most prestigious driver's championship for Ravenwest, is exactly what you'll work towards throughout the main Career, which contains a series of events spread across 5 racing disciplines. These include Touring Cars, Endurance, Open Wheel, Tuner and Street racing, and this trophy is effectively split into 2 parts.

Firstly, you'll need to win the final event within each of these 5 disciplines, through completing a series of smaller events, and gradually working your way up towards the top event. It's a pretty standard progression model for racing games, and even though you won't need to beat all of the events in each discipline to unlock the highest one, some of these Championships can contain a lot of events, and the final event in each discipline branch always has 10 events, which will easily take a couple of hours each to complete alone.

Secondly, the only way to unlock a contract for the Ravenwest team, is to beat the top event for the first time with any other team. This means you'll have to win the top event for all 5 disciplines twice in order to fully beat the Career mode and unlock this trophy. It's a little bit of a cheap way to add longevity onto the game, but the trophy specifically requires you to beat the top event, so you'll have to repeat the longest Championship in every discipline twice if you want the Platinum, so be prepared for a long journey.

The "A True Legend" trophy, awarded for Winning the "GRID Legends Series", is also another aspect of the Career mode which adds longevity to the game. As you complete more Championships within each discipline, you will obtain experience points for that discipline. Once you hit level 3 in each of these disciplines, you'll unlock the first GRID series to compete in (Grand Slam). You will also subsequently unlock the Masters series at level 6 for each discipline, and eventually, the Legends Series at level 10 for each discipline. You'll also need to win the previous GRID Series Championship in order to unlock the next one, meaning you'll need to win each of these Championships along the way.

Level 10 might not seem like much, but this amasses to 1 Million experience, and you'll unlock an individual trophy for reaching this milestone for each of the 5 disciplines. You'll manage to reach this as you progress towards the end of the Career on your way to fulfilling the requirements of the "I've got what Rick Scott's got" trophy, but these Championships, just like the final Championship at the end of each discipline within the main part of the Career mode, have 10 events, which will take a couple of hours each to beat. It all adds up, and this trophy is effectively the epilogue to the main Career mode, so just bear in mind that you're not quite finished once you beat every top Championship again with Ravenwest.

All of the other Single Player trophies are tied in to natural progression, and you'll get these along the way, providing you stick to the task of the above 2 trophies being your main focus. Nothing else requires you to go off the beaten track, so at least that's one thing about this list that's straight forward enough. There is also nothing that ties you into completing anything on specific difficulty levels, so you're allowed to go through the Career Mode at whatever pace you please, though the challenge is certainly there on the harder difficulties if you want it. I ended up playing through on hard difficulty, which caused me some challenges along the way, and even though you may need to replay races often, it's a good challenge, rather than a frustrating one.

However, the Multiplayer portion of this games makes the Single Player look like a warm up, despite the Single Player trophies coming with challenges carrying solid merits.

The "I've stopped counting" trophy, awarded for Reaching a total Online level of 250, all disciplines combined, is the longest online leveling grind I've finished to date, and by some distance too. The leveling system online works as follows;

You can compete against other drivers in lobbies specifically focused on all 5 disciplines, and your performance within any given race will award experience points towards that discipline. Each time you level up within that discipline, this will contribute towards an overall combined level, which relates to the 250 levels required for the achievement of this trophy. You can also complete weekly "Racenet" challenges, which are a series of challenges that award bronze, silver, gold and platinum medals depending on how well you complete them. There is 1 challenge set each week for each discipline, and this changes every week to a new challenge on a rotational basis, so there are 2 methods upon which you can earn experience points.

Level 250 will require a whopping 5 Million experience points, and in theory, the quickest way towards that is to reach level 50 in each of the 5 disciplines. The Racenet challenges are an absolute Godsend here, because if you earn the Platinum medal for a challenge, you'll bag 10,000 experience points, which may not sound like much in the bigger picture of 5 Million experience points, and in reality, it's not, and you'll have to chip away every single week re-visiting and keeping on top of these challenges to gradually level up over time, but I also dread to think how long this would take you without them. You can also jump into competitive lobbies and attempt to place well in races, but this has the shortfall of not awarding as much experience for the time input compared to Racenet challenges. This is, of course, offset by the limited opportunity of only being able to take advantage of earning the Platinum medal once per week, as opposed to the unlimited cap of competitive races against others.

In theory, you could just come back and play through the Racenet challenges week on week, and you would get there eventually, but this would be a very long term project, and I ended up having to deploy this method after I had finished all the other online trophies and only needed to reach level 250. It's not as tedious as some previous online grinds I've done, purely because it's naturally broken up by the fact you can only come back once a week and earn a Platinum medal from challenges, but this also means it takes way longer than it should, and technically earns the title of the longest online leveling grind I've ever completed.

The "FTW" trophy, awarded for Winning 100 Online races, is just as matter of fact as it sounds, and should be the foundation of your quest to reach level 250. Some racing games will count a podium finish as a win, but here you'll need to place in first position. It's not really as daunting as it sounds, purely by virtue of the fact the "I've stopped counting" trophy exists, and completely eclipses this trophy, but you'll need to be a reasonably good driver to notch up this amount of wins throughout the game.

You can use your own cars, purchased through the car shop, and also spend winnings on upgrading them and using them in races against other drivers, which will give you an edge as you get deeper into the online journey. This will help you out towards winning races, and of course, any experience, win or lose, will all go towards hitting that 250 milestone required on your way towards the Platinum trophy, so no losing effort ever feels like it's being done in vein.

However, this trophy is definitely the biggest skill related trophy in the game, and 100 wins is still 100 wins at the end of the day, so you'll need to brush up on every ounce of driving skill you have if you still want to achieve this trophy. After all, you could still, in theory, hit level 250 before you win 100 races, and you certainly won't want to be playing this game beyond reaching that milestone, so make sure the wins are ticking over nicely. I'd consider driving games one of my stronger genres, and I still had over 500 races finished by the time I got 100 wins, so be warned about the fierce competitiveness of this game online.

The "An icon in the pit lane" trophy, awarded for Advancing a car to level 99 in Online, requires you to max out the level for any purchased vehicle. Throughout the Online journey, and during competitive races, you'll be loaned a vehicle if you do not own the specific vehicle required for that particular race, but you can also acquire these vehicles for yourself. Racing owned vehicles will level them up and unlock performance upgrades for the car.

The benefit of this is the fact you can make them more powerful than a loaned vehicle, which will always remain at the minimum spec. Reaching level 99 will also take some time, and it was actually one of the final trophies I unlocked, even coming after I had reached level 250 collectively. This may have been down to the fact I never really focused on purchasing vehicles initially, until I realised I'd need to max one of them out for the purpose of this trophy, so it's important to get a headstart on this as soon as possible.

Racenet challenges will go some way to upgrading your vehicle significantly, but the events each week are always predetermined, so there's always a chance your cars don't become available for selection. However, if you buy as many as you can, and work on them on a simultaneous basis, you'll have enough in your rotation to level them up consistently enough to reach level 99 with at least one car sooner or later. The one thing you absolutely don't want to do is only own a couple of vehicles, so as long as you avoid this, you'll be OK.

The "Sofa, so good" trophy, awarded for Completing a Splitscreen race, is in here purely to reference the fact you'll need a second controller for this Platinum. Anything that requires you to own additional peripherals deserves to be called out, and there are actually a couple of other trophies within this list that can only be unlocked in local Co-op.

This is the most difficult racing game I've finished since Motorstorm : Pacific Rift, a whole 8 years ago. That was a 10/10 for a similarly grueling Multiplayer component, which had a unique regressive leveling system, and whilst GRID Autosport does not, the grind to level 250 is for the seriously dedicated. However, the Racenet challenges deny this being a 10/10 Platinum, purely because they take the intensity away from the grind. Don't underestimate this leveling journey, but the Racenet challenges, and the fact you don't have to play hours straight on end to achieve level 250, takes the edge off considerably.

If you'd prefer to hammer out races in public lobbies and accumulate the experience points at a faster rate, something you'll need to do to a lesser or greater extent anyway, due to the fact you'll need 100 wins, then you can take this approach, but completing the Racenet challenges each week will give you a much longer, but leisurely journey that just requires ample patience. It's good to have options, and you may find you want to combine both methods to maximise your progress.

When you add on top of this a Single Player Career mode, which is not only lengthy, but can also contain a strong challenge if you're that way inclined, then you have a big task on your hands. 

The collective timescale is easily 200+ hours, and that's even when taken as a very low end estimate. The fact you can play on a weekly cyclical basis through Racenet challenges will aid progression, but the 100 race wins redresses the balance to ensure this isn't just all about time, and that you'll need to display some strong driving skills to get this list over the finish line. It's the ultimate mix of long and hard, and very close to another 10/10 Platinum, stopping just short by virtue of the fact the Racenet challenges will throw most people a lifeline during the grind to the top.

It's a very high end 9/10 though, and it feels good to get a credible Platinum trophy back into the collection.

Notable Trophies -

I've got what Rick Scott's got - Win each disciplines most prestigious driver's championship for Ravenwest.
A True Legend - Win the GRID Legends Series.
I've stopped counting - Reach a total Online level of 250, all disciplines combined.
FTW - Win 100 Online races.
An icon in the pit lane - Advance a car to level 99 in Online.
Sofa so good - Complete a Splitscreen race.

Hardest Trophy - 

I've stopped counting
Reach a total Online level of 250, all disciplines combined.

DLC #123 - Uncharted 3 : Drake's Deception - Flashback Map Pack 2

Completing this final piece of DLC for Uncharted 3 prompted me to look back over this entire set, and actually made me realise how difficult this journey has been.

There are challenges around every single corner, varying from the outrageously lucky, to the highly skilled. Given the ease of difficulty expected from the main list (which is to still be completed), the DLC alone makse it a very impressive 100% completion to have in any collection.

The Flashback Map Pack 2 adds 4 new maps, which are all re-incarnated from Uncharted 2, spanning both Competitive and Co-operative game modes. As standard, there are 10 new trophies added, with a slew of new tasks, and whilst this contains the second half of our treasure related collectible journey previously discussed within the Fort Co-op Adventure pack, there is actually a little bit more to talk about here, still presenting a slightly heightened challenge, which has certainly been a recurring theme within this whole game.

All 3 silver trophies will give you some degree of challenge to tackle here, whilst the other 7 bronze trophies are all focused on in-game medal accumulation again, another recurring theme throughout. None of these medals will cause too much trouble, as they'll mostly be covered off through the large time investment you'll be expected to put into the Competitive and Co-operative modes throughout this journey.

Whilst there are no questions about the treasures being the main focus for this package again, there is a nice little collection of trophies that will give you some challenges here;

Invincible - Complete a Co-op Arena Map on Crushing Difficulty without losing a single life
Two by Two - Win 50 matches of Three Team Deathmatch
Collector - Complete the Antiquity Treasure Set

The "Invincible" trophy, is a directly influenced from the Flashback Map Pack 1 DLC, which offered the exact same requirements, only applicable to the Co-op Adventure mode.

The same challenges that were present there are also present here. Arena is a very different game mode to Adventure though, and I would personally argue it's more difficult to survive within Arena mode than it is with Adventure mode, making this trophy the tougher of the 2. Where you could deploy some solid tactics to help you through Adventure mode, such as hanging back in certain sections, and allowing your team-mates to clear the way, there is nowhere to hide in Arena mode, and you'll have to defend on the front foot and be aggressive against the hordes of enemies if you want to succeed here.

In order to complete an Arena Map, you'll need to clear all 10 rounds, and to do this without dying, especially at the latter rounds when Brutes, armored enemies and RPG units turn up, can prove to be tough, and potentially get ugly very quickly. It's also important to pick your 2 other team-mates wisely. You don't want to play with uncooperative partners who could potentially let you die when you need to be revived, which will blow your chances of the trophy, and given the fact you have to clear all 10 rounds on Crushing difficulty also means you'll need team-mates with a lot of skill to see you through to the end.

It's also important to pick good partners because you're limited to 15 lives per game, and if lives are disposed quickly by your team-mates, the game will prematurely end when nobody can respawn anymore, so there's a small handful of important considerations needed to unlock this trophy.

The "Two by Two" trophy is the standard game mode win accumulation offering for this package. I certainly believe Three Team Deathmatch is one of the more difficult game modes to accumulate wins in, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's 3 teams competing against each other, unlike most other modes in Uncharted 3, where 2 teams go head to head. That may seem like a statement of the obvious, but competing against 2 other teams, rather than just 1, naturally decreases your chances of winning.

It also seems to be a mode where you run into a lot of pairs who don't like playing bigger team based game modes where they're forced to mix with random players, meaning a greater concentration of better teams that naturally gravitate to Three Team Deathmatch. This could just have been a coincidence, but I ran into a lot of good pairs who seemed to be experienced in playing with each other, and therefore, naturally very good.

Out of all 5 trophies that required 50 wins for the various game modes amongst all of these DLC packs, this was the last one I unlocked, purely because I lost a lot of Three Team Deathmatch games, due to a mixture of the above combinations. I did eventually find a decent partner and managed to win games more frequently, but it was definitely the longest game mode that I reached 50 wins in.

The "Collector" trophy, awarded for Completing the Antiquity Treasure Set, is the second half of the previously reviewed "Hoarder" trophy, in the Fort Co-op Adventure pack, and for the sake of not wanting to tread over old ground, there isn't really much to be said that hasn't already been covered prior to this.

There are a few key differences. The Antiquity set has 16 total treasure sets, with a combined total of 42 treasures, which is 6 sets and 16 treasures shorter than the Artifact set. Whether this actually makes a difference for something that is completely random, I do not know, but in theory, the much smaller collection should be the one you complete first. I have read a lot of strong backing for a theory that suggests you are always left with 1 treasure from each set for full completion, which was also the case for myself, so this, at least from my own experience, seems to be true. I also unlocked the larger Artifact set in full first too, which further disproves the theory that the fact the set is smaller actually matters, but this could be different for the general consensus.

A more relevant difference is the fact that this set also contains a collection of adventure treasures, awarded throughout the Co-op adventure chapters, just like the Artifact set did. However, where the Artifact set only awarded these treasures under the condition that you played the levels on Hard/Crushing, the treasures within the Antiquity set will drop treasures if you play the levels on Easy/Normal, so this is naturally a smoother journey as a consequence.

Apart from those minor differences, all the trials and tribulations you can expect from this trophy are exactly as they were described in the Fort Co-op Adventure pack for the "Hoarder" trophy, they're just not merged and discussed as one because they come from different DLC packs.

And with this, completes another tough set of DLC trophies from a game which isn't usually known for it's difficulty. I am still yet to obtain the Platinum trophy from the main list, but don't anticipate this to be anywhere close to as challenging as this DLC adventure was. When I sit here and look back on all of it as a collective, I can see where both the challenge and hours would have been amassed from. There are an assortment of trophies here, ranging from high skill requirements, time-consumption and the outright absurd. It is a real grueling collection that only those who really want it enough will obtain full completion within. It's hard to look back over everything and determine an overall timescale. I started unlocking some of these DLC trophies as early as 2012, so you can hopefully appreciate how difficult it is to truly say how long this took me altogether, when my only real reference points are my previous reviews of other DLC packs, and a few loose time totals from the online leaderboards. It's easily a 200+ hour experience as a very minimum.

It's massively time-consuming and requires a certain level of mastery to finish everything within these DLC packs and if you manage to beat the clock before that early September deadline for server closure, then make sure you cherish this victory.

DLC #122 - Uncharted 3 : Drake's Deception - The Fort Co-op Adventure

It's been almost 2 and half years since my last completed DLC pack for Uncharted 3, so to suggest that this one is overdue is a bit of an understatement.

In reality, if it weren't for an announcement from Sony that the Uncharted 3 Multiplayer servers are due to close in early September 2019, then this would have more than likely continued. However, the suddenly limited opportunity to grab these trophies has prompted some immediate action to be taken regarding the completion of this DLC set. So, here we are.

Just like all Uncharted 3 DLC packs, this is more of a top-up than anything else. There are 3 new character skins added to be used in-game, and a Prelude co-operative level to complete called Fort.

The package also adds 10 new trophies, following a similar template to the rest of the Uncharted 3 content. All geared towards the game's Multiplayer, there is a nice mix of competitive wins required, acquisition of certain volumes of in-game medals and the crown jewel of the set, the collectible treasures from the Artifact treasure set.

The majority of the trophies within this DLC are simply in-game medal accumulation tasks, and will come naturally over time. In reality, the treasures are what this package ultimately comes down to. Not just for this specific set of DLC trophies, but also for those who aspire to full completion. That's not to say there aren't other challenges along the way, but get ready for a strong task at hand if you're looking to complete this package;

Team Player - Win 50 matches of Team Objective
Hoarder - Complete the Artifact Treasure Set

It would be easy to skim straight over everything else, and just charge head-first into why the treasure system in this game is such a big deal, but it is also worth mentioning another aspect of this set.

The "Team Player" trophy, awarded for winning 50 matches of Team Objective, is the obligatory win based objective for this list (every DLC pack requires you to win 50 games of something). Team Objective is one of the more exciting game modes within Uncharted 3, where a series of objectives will pop up on a rotational basis, and you have to win that objective to score a point for your team. This continues on a first to 3 basis, and the rotation includes modes such as King of the Hill, Turf War and Chain Reaction.

50 wins is a heavy demand, but games generally are nowhere near as long as Plunder can be, and these trophies lend themselves well to the slew of in-game medal trophies that accompany these DLC packs, so even when you lose matches along the way, which you inevitably will, it never feels like a waste of time. This will take you somewhere in the region 25-30 hours alone, accounting for possibility of defeats en route to 50 victories.

The "Hoarder" trophy, awarded for completing the Artifact Treasure Set, is where the challenge of this package spikes heavily.

The treasure sets were not a new addition to the game via this DLC offering. They already existed as part of the base game. So, it may well have been the case you had already made progress towards this trophy without even realising it. The Artifact Treasure Set is the larger of the 2 sets (with the Antiquity Treasure Set being the other), at 22 sets containing a cumulative total of 58 treasures. The achievement of these are all spread over the various components of Uncharted's Multiplayer, including Co-op adventure, Co-op Arena and Competitive Team Deathmatch/Objective and Plunder.

This trophy is the solitary reason for the 2 and a half year gap since the completion of the Co-op Shade Survival Mode pack back in February 2017. The acquisition of treasures is completely random, and there is absolutely no way this can be influenced by the player whatsoever. The sets are checklisted, and the game will tell you which component of the wider game you can obtain each treasure from within, but that's about as much help as you'll get.

Otherwise, it's merely a case of loading up said game modes and hoping you'll get the treasures you need from killing opponents/enemies in-game. The biggest barrier to completion here is the fact that treasure drops will constantly duplicate, which eventually turns this trophy into a needle in a haystack task once you get down to the final handful of treasures you still require. You'll need to absolutely plow the hours into this, and the level of dedication required to persevere with farming these treasures is extremely high. You'll also need to be mentally prepared to go through prolonged periods of time picking up duplicate treasures as your list gets smaller and you find yourself only needing the last few. It has a very, "so close yet so far" feel to it, and can be easily demotivating when you're not seeing any signs of progress.

The key is to just stick at it. That's really the only piece of advice you can give, for a trophy which is without question the most challenging luck based trophy I've ever unlocked. There are a few recommended methods which can prove to be formulas for success, but for me, exclusively playing Hunter Arena will net the majority of the treasures with higher success rates, especially the last listed treasure in each set, which is considered "rare". It is also important to note that, you'll also need to be prepared to play through the 5 adventure chapters on the grueling Hard/Crushing difficulty too, which is another challenge within itself, as 13 of the 58 treasures are exclusively granted from level bosses within these chapters when only playing on these 2 difficulty levels. Just in case you needed another degree of challenge here.

A timescale is hard to nail down, both from a personal perspective, and an overall perspective. When I eventually came back to tackle this trophy when the date for the server closure was announced, and assessed my situation properly, I actually only needed 23 treasures across both the Artifact and Antiquity Treasure sets, but even then, it took me a solid 2 and a half weeks of exclusively playing Uncharted 3 to obtain every treasure, and some days I was easily playing for as long as almost 10 hours a day, which is well over my normal average, not to mention extremely tedious at times. 

To add some level of perspective, my chosen method was to farm Hunter Arena, which on average will see you earn around 3/4 treasures per game, with each game lasting 24 minutes in total (4 rounds of 6 minutes each), with no guarantee you'll get any new treasures. It's also important to note that, you'll only be active for 2 rounds, as you'll share with your opponent who will also have their turn at farming treasures for the other 2 rounds, whilst you sit back and await your next turn. Along with whatever progress I managed to make prior to my lengthy break from this game, it wouldn't surprise me if the treasures alone took me around 60-70 hours, but even that would be a very loose bottom end estimate.

It's ultimately the fear of the unknown that gets to you. There's always that niggling doubt in the back of your mind that you'll be one of these people that spends 30+ hours on that final treasure, which is only ever a concern that's alleviated once you actually have it and if you can see this one through to the end, that final treasure is hugely satisfying. I certainly consider this DLC pack to be an excellent scalp to add to the collection. You can read up on the challenges the treasure sets have posed for other people, and some have even given up entirely. Whilst I never felt like I was ever at the point of quitting, I was absolutely glad it was over, and this package takes pride and place towards the top end of my collection.

DLC #121 - Battlefield 1 - In the Name of the Tsar

The final installment of Battlefield 1 DLC keeps up with the consistent theme set throughout this series.

In the Name of the Tsar adds a variety of new maps, weapons, gadgets and vehicles, forever topping up the Battlefield 1 armory, which is very extensive after 4 DLC packs that have done exactly the same thing.

The Supply Drop game mode is a new addition, which gets no love whatsoever from the Battlefield community, though 1 of the 5 trophies on offer requires you to win 5 games of it, which can prove challenging, and may require you to find custom lobbies where you can win a match by yourself with pre-round enabled.

Each DLC pack has also had a tendency to add a couple of new Operations, which is thankfully one of the more popular Battlefield 1 game modes, and another trophy separately requires you to complete a game on both of these new Operations added as part of this package, as well as another trophy awarded for completion of a round across each of the 5 newly added maps. There is a final map to make 6, but this was a pre-release and does not count towards the trophy.

However, for the final time, at least within Battlefield 1, there is another assignment based trophy to discuss;

Filled the Stockpile - Perform a kill with all "In the Name of the Tsar" weapon variants

There are 19 new weapons to unlock within this package, which is significantly more than any other DLC pack in Battlefield 1. The individual objectives within the assignments will require a total of 824 kills, which is by some distance the most amount of kills any of these assignment based trophies demands of the player in order to unlock these particular trophies throughout the set. This spans across a number of readily available guns, gadgets, equipment and vehicles, making it a very diverse task, along with some more standard actions such as healing, resupplies and spot assists. This total also includes the 19 kills needed in order to fulfill the focal task as required by the trophy description, and as before, you can also potentially explore the method of picking these weapons up off the battlefield from downed enemies, though I would personally not recommend this for this particular DLC pack, purely for the high volume of weapons you need to unlock.

This will take some time to get through, and makes this package the most time consuming of them all. Is it necessarily the most difficult? I wouldn't say so, due to the fact the Turning Tides DLC pack had some tough assignment objectives among it, but that doesn't mean to say there weren't a few of these particular challenges here too.

Part 2 of the SMG 08/18 Optical Assault Rifle assignment requires you to destroy 5 tanks with the Anti-Tank Mine, which, for me, was the first sticking point of this trophy. It isn't exactly difficult, nor is 5 too big of a target for this particular objective, but there is alot of circumstantial luck required when judging where to place Anti-Tank mines in order to predict the most likely course for a tank to travel through. Planting them near vehicle entry spawn locations is a sound tactic, but enemies usually get wise to this after the first death, and will look out for them for the rest of the round, and they can also be very easy to spot for drivers who are paying enough attention to the road in front of them, meaning they can also be avoided easily or blown up. I had to play through numerous rounds specifically lying in wait to plant Anti-Tank Mines down on popular routes and waiting for unsuspecting tanks to pass by, frequently playing out entire rounds without a kill. The trial and error aspect significantly slows down your progress here, and is something to certainly watch out for.

Futher to this, Part 2 of the Vetterli-Vitali M1870/87 Carbine Scout Rifle assignment requires you to destroy 1 vehicle with K bullets, which was the single assignment objective I ended up spending the most time on, which is strange, because 1 doesn't seem like a lot, until you actually realise there's a very good reason for the requirement only being 1.

K bullets, which are armour piercing ammunition, can be equipped through the Scout class, and are used to cause damage to the outer shell of heavy armour-based vehicles. They are also still effective on non-armoured vehicles, but still do the same amount of damage points per hit, which is usually 7 or 8. 

Due to this low amount of damage, it's highly unlikely you will have enough opportunity to progressively wear down a vehicle to the point where it will blow up, and the more likely scenario is that the enemy will eventually abandon the vehicle, or an infantry soldier with repair it from either within or outside the vehicle. K bullets are also single shot, and take ages to reload, which simply doesn't give you enough time to be able to fulfill the objective without any assistance.

The only strategy is to take advantage of the assistance of your team-mates, and focus on vehicles that are subject to being targeted and damaged by others, whether this is through Anti-Tank devices such as grenades, mines and dynamite, or through the use of other heavy vehicles. All of the above will do significant damage, and your best chance will be to time a shot in order to get the killing blow. You can use visual clues in order to assess how close a vehicle may be to being destroyed, which can determine the moment you choose to release a shot, but you're still ultimately playing a game of trial and error and that 7/8 damage needs to be placed into a tight window of success.

This is the only strategy I could pinpoint, and I lost count of how many rounds I had to play before I managed to complete this objective. There is some reasonable logic in this method. It makes sense to let the heavy duty weapons wear larger vehicles down and use the visual state of the enemy vehicle to determine when you should start taking shots, but there isn't a way to tell how much health an enemy has at any point, so you're always taking the shot blind and will need luck on your side. I didn't explore any strategies with weaker, non-armoured vehicles, because they're mostly used for transportation rather than combat, and are never the focal points of attack, and since this objective requires the reliance of others to do the work for you, this is why I believed in this strategy being the best option.

Just away from this trophy, it is important to mention that the completion of this package was further held up by the "Secured the Resources" trophy, awarded for Winning 5 games of Supply Drop. It was touched upon above, and this game mode is literally shown no love whatsoever, so to sit in lobbies and win 5 games was just a matter of waiting for the right opportunities to present themselves. You can play games on custom servers with pre-round enabled, meaning you can sit in there alone and win games without anybody else being present, which is a Godsend, because I don't think you'd ever get the minimum number of players available to even fulfill 1 win, let alone 5. It just means to have wait for map rotations to fall your way, which involve a lot of idle lobby-watching.

I still maintain that Turning Tides is the hardest of the 4 DLC packs, but this does come in at a close second. The levels of patience involved sometimes feel insurmountable, but I wouldn't necessarily  equate that to difficulty, because it isn't hard to sit there in a lobby waiting for Supply Drop to turn up in the map rotation again, nor is it difficult to plant mines down, sit at a safe distance and await the fate of an enemy tank. The amount of kills required in this package is way higher than anything else though, and the K bullet assignment objective was the most challenging individual objective across all 4 DLC packs.

Timescales fall somewhere within the region of 20-30 hours, though this is hugely flexible depending on the above.

DLC #120 - Resident Evil 6 - Siege

It's taken me almost a year to realise I hadn't actually finished up the Resident Evil 6 DLC sets, with Siege being the final outstanding installment of the series.

It's also the most challenging set of DLC trophies by some distance, eclipsing the previously reviewed Survivors pack with ease.

Siege mode adds 5 new trophies to the list, and is a team-based game, where one team is tasked with protecting a single BSAA agent from the other team, who are player-controlled creatures attempting to kill the agent as quickly as possible. The maximum number on each team is 3.

The defenders will win the round if the agent survives the onslaught by the end of 3 minutes, where the attackers will win the round if the BSAA agent is killed. You will get the chance to both defend and attack once per game, and in the event that both attacking rounds end with death of the BSAA agent, the team which kills the BSAA agent quickest will be the team that wins the game.

The premise of the game mode is very straight-forward, but this is something that does not translate across the trophies. You can knock out a couple of easy ones early though, for winning 10 games of Siege and defeating the BSAA as a creature without dying once (you can sit back and let your team do the work and still obtain credit for this trophy).

However, the challenges contained within this pack are big ones, and there is some serious graft required if you're looking to earn the trophies which contribute to this challenge;

Everybody Dies - Defeat 100 player-controlled agents and 100 player-controlled creatures
Civilian Casualties - Defeat the BSAA 100 times

The "Everybody Dies" trophy, is split into 2 parts, but only half of this trophy requirement is where the real challenge derives from. Defeating 100 player-controller creatures is the easy bit. This can be any attacking zombie whilst you're on the defending side as a human agent protecting the BSAA agent, and isn't actually just limited to player-controlled creatures. Human players will be accompanied by hordes of computer-controlled creatures, which will also contribute to the kill count, so you can rack this number up at rampant speed.

Defeating 100 player-controlled agents is where the challenge lies, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, player-controlled agents are equipped to make light work of player-controlled creatures, stacked with weapons and explosives which make them undeniably tougher to kill. Even melee attacks from player-controlled agents are strong enough to take out creatures in a couple of hits, so you will find yourself on a the back foot often and respawning a lot when attempting this half of the trophy.

Secondly, player-controlled creatures don't really deal a terrible amount of damage on their own due to some very basic attacks, meaning it can take a while to down a player-controlled agent. This isn't really ideal when you're fighting against 3 minute rounds either, and trying to accumulate what is ultimately a pretty steep number in 100 kills. Well drilled teams of player-controlled agents will seldom struggle here, but against less coordinated groups, you could rack up a couple of kills per game, just don't expect this to often be a quick accumulation exercise for the reasons mentioned above.

The game mode is deliberately designed to be "few against the many", so it makes sense to offset the overwhelming numbers of creatures by making player-controlled agents stronger and more powerful. It just makes it a touch frustrating that there doesn't seem to be any common sense applied when making the kill requirements the exact same number of kills for both parts of this trophy. This half should be a lower total, but alas, it is not.

There are a few tactics which can work in the favour of player-controller creatures. The hordes of creatures that will also accompany players will create a notable distraction, creating openings of vulnerability towards player-controlled agents. This will allow for greater opportunity to achieve kills whilst player-controlled agents are busy focusing on other computer-controlled creatures. Maps also have BOW's dotted across them, larger or more aggressive zombies, which can be released into the fight, and will also cause problems for player-controlled agents, and allow for further openings for player-controlled creatures to accumulate kills.

The "Civilian Causalities" trophy, is actually the more difficult of the two trophies mentioned here, purely for the reason that, in order to "defeat the BSAA", you have to deal the killing blow to the BSAA agent yourself, and teammates contributions will not count towards this trophy. This can be a real challenge when you consider the fact that you're suddenly put into a situation where you're competing with your team-mates to deal the killing blow, and the realisation you have to do this on 100 separate occasions to fulfill the requirements of the trophy is daunting.

With the "Everybody Dies" trophy, there are multiple opportunities per game to accumulate kills, because of the respawn factor. However, no such thing exists here because the death of the BSAA agent triggers the end of the round, so you'll only be able to achieve a maximum of 1 kill per game of Siege, which puts into perspective how grindy this trophy will become. This is especially true when you also further consider the fact that, if you're playing Siege with a team, there is also the added possibility that your team-mates may kill the BSAA agent, rather than you, which is a wasted opportunity.

This is the single most grindy trophy in the entire DLC collection. The amount of times I went through games drawing a blank because my team-mates killed the BSAA agent instead was practically countless, and this trophy alone makes it the most challenging DLC package in the set. The only saving grace is that games of Siege can be played at a relatively fast pace, because they naturally last for only a few minutes, but some regularly prolonged dry spells effectively negated this, so you need to be prepared to be in it for the long haul.

It's tough to put a timescale on the package. According to the statistics screen, I spent 24 hours playing Siege, which is 8 hours longer than I invested in the Survivors DLC, and the "Take 'Em All Down" trophy, which, by my own admission felt like a long slog. It turns out I plugged an extra 8 hours into this package, so there's the added context for you. Both time and skill-wise, it's the most challenging DLC package out of the bunch.

DLC #119 - Battlefield 1 - Turning Tides

With what turns out to be the most challenging out of the Battlefield 1 DLC packs, Turning Tides comes with a recurring theme of sea-based combat, adding a series of naval based weapons, gadgets and vehicles, as well as a handful of new water-themed maps which allow for extensive off-land combat.

The package also adds the new Conquest Assault game mode (which is effectively the standard Conquest game with a few tweaks on the methods of victory), and also the new "Gallipoli" Operation, which has 1 of the trophies in this set attached to it, and earned via completion of the operation.

You'll also be required to perform a roadkill with a sea vehicle, which effectively means you'll have to kill a swimming enemy whilst in a boat, and the package also requires you to amass 15 kills with the new L-Class destroyer, a heavy duty warship loaded with health and big enough to make very light work of enemies, meaning 15 kills is a breeze.

The new slew of weapons also comes with the standard assignment based trophy, and the hardest group of weapon challenges in these DLC sets;

Naval Weapons Collection
Perform a kill with all the "Turning Tides" weapon variants

Same rules apply as before. There are 9 new weapons to unlock via a series of assignments, with a total accumulation of 264 kills required in order to trigger this trophy. This is a much smaller  total than the previous DLC packs, but quickly evened out by some frustrating assignment objectives.

Again, there's potentially alot of crossover from some of the objectives within these assignments that may have already been fulfilled within the main game or other DLC packs, and you can attempt the secondary method of scavenging the weapons individually off the battlefield from downed enemies. If you could pick up melee weapons, I would most certainly recommend this for what's to come.

What makes this DLC package the hardest out of all 4 are the requirements to unlock the Naval Cutlass melee weapon. Most of the challenges within the various assignments across all packs were relatively trouble-free right up until this point, with both assignments required to unlock the Naval Cutlass presenting their own challenges.

Part 1 of the assignment requires you to Capture 20 flags whilst in a boat, which might not seem terribly difficult, but alot of the sea vehicles you'll use across the water-based maps leave you horribly exposed to enemies whilst you're capturing control points, particularly to snipers/other land-based infantry (since you're never actually contained inside the boat when you're using it), and air bombers, which make light work of sea-based vehicles in general with their powerful air attacks. This can make capturing flags very challenging, and you'll die often trying to achieve 20 captures. It's always best to park up within the capture zone, and then man a mounted weapon in order to defend yourself and the boat, but this also can present it's own issues with squad members spawning in the drivers seat and potentially maneuvering the boat outside of the capture zone, so there are multiple challenges to contest with here.

Part 2 of this assignment requires you to kill 15 enemies whilst they're swimming, which is the more challenging aspect of this assignment, but only by virtue of the fact you'll need alot of patience in order to accumulate this many kills for the required task. You don't need to be swimming yourself, which limits you to only being able to use a handgun, meaning you can stand over bodies of water on land and wait patiently for enemies to appear, picking them off with longer range weapons, which is definitely the best approach. This can be a very long waiting game at times though, and enemies have a general tendency to use boats to transport themselves across bodies of water, rather than swim, which naturally makes sense. Enemies can also submerge themselves underwater for large periods of time, in order to avoid detection, which makes it even harder to spot out swimming enemies who you may not even realise are there at times. Add in the fact there's also alot of circumstantial luck, and it really slows down progression towards full completion, and combined with Part 1 above, it eclipses any other assignment within these sets of DLC, especially for time and tedium.

Despite having the least amount of required kills than any package before it, it's something that is quickly made up for by the Naval Cutlass assignment, which could arguably add at least 4/5 hours onto the package. It can also be very frustrating having to wait for the map rotation to cycle through into a water-themed map too, which is something else to bear in mind. You can't  make any progress towards unlocking the Naval Cutlass unless you're playing on a water-based map, after all.

Total completion time lies somewhere in the region of 10-15 houts, though this has the scope to be way more open ended thanks to both parts of the Naval Cutlass assignment. Most challenging Battlefield 1 pack thus far.

DLC #118 - Battlefield 1 - They Shall Not Pass

Containing the least amount of trophies out of the 4 Battlefield 1 DLC packs, They Shall Not Pass is also subsequently the easiest of the 4 too.

The package adds the standard for Battlefield add-ons. New maps, weapons, gadgets and vehicles are all accounted for, as well as the new attack vs defence Frontlines game mode, which requires to progressively capture points and advance up a battlefield towards the final portion in sector, with all sectors to be claimed in order to achieve victory.

The 4 additional trophies don't actually shift much focus onto the core aspects added into the game along with this package.

The new St Chamond Heavy Tank gets some love, in which you'll need to accumulate 25 kills with, but the other 2 trophies within the package are awarded for merely spending 30 minutes playing on the side of the French Republic as a Medic and obtaining 4 kills with the Trench Raider Elite Class, which is a special kit pick up randomly located on any of the 5 new maps contained with this package.

However, the constant within the Battlefield 1 packages are the Gold trophies, which focus on the completion of weapon assignments to unlock the weapons contained within the DLC;

Maitre d'Armes - Perform one kill with each of the 5 primary Weapon Assignments weapons

In exactly the same way in which the Apocalypse DLC required kills with each of the new weapon variants bought into the game via the DLC package, this trophy requires exactly the same thing.

There are 8 weapon variants, awarded through the fulfillment of assignments required to unlock them (the reason the trophy lists them as 5, rather than 8, is because 3 of these weapons come with 2 modification variants, making it 5 unique weapons).

Similar to the Apocalypse DLC, you can either unlock the weapon variants by conventional means of completing the specific assignments tied to them, or you can find them on the battlefield acquired from downed enemies. I will maintain throughout the entire assessment of this DLC set that the former is always the favorable option, purely because you cannot specify how long it would take you to find each weapon variant through trial and error.

One thing that's important to note is the fact that, having already completed the Apocalypse DLC, this naturally created a certain degree of crossover where partial amounts of the assignments for this trophy had already been fulfilled. With that said, you'll still need a collective total of 318 kills, which, despite being over 100 kills shorter than the Apocalypse DLC, will still take a degree of time dedication.

Due to the fact the weapons come as part of the package, these were untouched and the accumulation of kills began from zero. The aforementioned crossover comes from other requirements which can be fulfilled from the main game, such as obtaining 75 resupplies and 50 revives. This naturally cuts down the completion time, but with a hefty amount of kills still required, this will take somewhere in the region of 8/10 hours alone.

There aren't really many assignments that are that challenging. They're mostly accumulation activities using a variety of weapons and gadgets, and as mentioned, this makes it the least challenging out of the 4 DLC packs to date. If you've previously dabbled within the Multiplayer portion of the game, you will have made progress towards some of these assignments already, which will of course help, and even though there is a little bit of specific focus on the other trophies within the package, they are also accumulation based and shouldn't take much more longer than everything else.

Platinum #90 - Dishonored

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 5/10

In the current easy run of Platinum trophies, Dishonored seems to fit in quite well. Despite having some challenges along the way, (mostly stemming from an incredibly convoluted trophy list), this is a game which can be completed at a pace dictated by the player, though you will have to be prepared to run-through the game at least a few times, possibly even more, in order to achieve the Platinum trophy.

You take control of Corvo, a protectorate for the Empress, who is framed for her murder and abduction of her daughter Emily. Whilst imprisoned and soon to be executed, you're broken out by a group of Loyalists who know you're innocent, and assist you on a mission to find Emily but also to seek revenge against those who framed you in the first instance.

You'll progress through levels, using varying game mechanics in order to complete the objectives within via different methods, which is heavily interwoven into the entire trophy list, and will require you to explore most options if you want to unlock this Platinum trophy.

This list contains everything. Trophies awarded for completing the game under certain conditions, killing assassination targets in specific ways, completing other actions within levels in certain ways, collectibles, missables. Alot is accounted for, and whilst it's true that the story is only about 8-10 hours in length, you'll most definitely have to complete it more than once, and depending how well you track the rest of the list, this could also extend into more than twice.

The "Resolution" trophy, awarded for completing the game, is where you'll start. The list contains a healthy portion of progression-based trophies, and these are awarded at regular intervals during the story, except in the instance where the trophy is awarded for performing a certain action when you reach a specific point in the story. This also technically makes them missable if you choose to take a different approach which goes against the fulfillment requirements of the trophy. For example, there is a trophy for simply assassinating the Lord Regent, Hiriam Burrows, but then also a trophy awarded for neutralising him by broadcasting his crimes instead. Both trophies require you to take different measures in order to advance the story, which cannot be achieved at the same time, and this crops up multiple times within this list. I counted 15 progression-based trophies, with a small collection of these which have to be achieved across multiple runs.

This also extends to the "Dunwall in Chaos" and "Just Dark Enough" trophies, which require you to complete the game in high chaos, and complete the game in low chaos respectively. Nothing of note, other than to evidence the point that you cannot fulfil the requirements of these trophies simultaneously, leading to another run of the game in order to grab the other one you missed first time round.

The "Clean Hands" trophy, awarded for completing the game without killing anyone, adds yet another endgame trophy which has conditional completion requirements attached to it, and whilst you can tandem alot of these trophies into 1 run of the game and unlock them all together at the conclusion of the story, you end up having to constantly assess where you are with this list and what you need to do to achieve what you have left. It's really distracting, and is probably the biggest element of challenge within the entire game. 

Incidentally, I think this is also the hardest trophy in the whole list. You'll have to neutralise every assassination target, which requires more creativity than direct assassination, and you'll also have to move through every level either undetected or exclusively using the chokehold maneuver to neutralise enemies. You can also fail this trophy under very minor technicalities, including accidentally dumping unconscious bodies into water, causing them to drown, or leaving them on the floor to be eaten by a plague of rats. Pay attention to the statistics screen at the end of each level, and you'll see a counter for deaths. If this has a tally, you'll have to restart the mission, and these mysterious deaths occurred for me more than once, which is frustrating. The ability to be able to just restart a mission or reload a save is a good safety net to have for this trophy, but the cautious method is the slowest way to beat this game regardless.

The "Ghost" trophy, awarded for completing all missions after the prologue, without alerting or killing no one but key targets, is also another playthrough to consider. This is effectively the "Clean Hands" trophy, adding the point that you cannot alert any enemies, which means you'll have to be extra cautious when getting through each level. Naturally, you would combine these 2 trophies in one run, but you could very easily complete the game without killing anybody, but alerting an enemy accidently along the way. This would still allow you to achieve the Clean Hands trophy, but would in turn, negate this one. It's just another example that emphasises the explanation as to how things can easily get messy when it comes to picking apart a methodology for how to attack this list in the best way.

In reality, you don't have to beat the game 3/4 times, and a tandem approach is the best way to go about this list, but if you're not prepared with a solid plan of attack, you will be playing through this game a small handful of times. One redeeming feature of this list is that fact that, despite having 4 difficulty settings ranging from casual to hard, you're never required to beat the game on any specific difficulty levels, and when you play this game on casual, it is very easy to bypass large sections of certain missions and complete levels extremely quickly, which is a Godsend given how many times you may have to revisit certain parts of this game.

Finally, the "Art Dealer" trophy, awarded for collecting all the Sokolov Paintings, is a standard, but highly missable, collectible trophy, and is the sole reason why I had to play through this game one final time, taking my total number of playthroughs to 4.

There are only 11 Sokolov paintings, and they're dotted around in certain missions where you simply have to grab them from their designated locations. The complication here comes from the final painting, available in mission 7 of the game. It is directly tied into 2 other trophies on this list, which, just like the High/Low chaos trophies mentioned at the top of the review, are branched into a choice where you can only unlock one or the other depending on which character you side with. These 2 characters are called Granny Rags and Slackjaw, and you have to complete 2 side missions for them prior to mission 7, where you encounter them both in a situation where you have to side with one over the other, which ultimately leads to the death of the character you choose to oppose.

This occurs in a room where the final Sokolov painting is seen, and is only available if you complete the missions for both characters and trigger the final decision. Due to the fact you can you only earn 1 of the 2 available trophies for siding with 1 character, I ended up trying to unlock the Slackjaw trophy on it's own, in the same playthrough as trying to obtain the Sokolov paintings, which meant I ignored the Granny Rags questline, and did not reach the final decision, which in turn, meant I could not obtain the painting in the final room. I had to go back over the game one last time, complete ALL side missions for BOTH characters, and then reach the final room in mission 7 to grab the painting.

Admittedly, this could have been prevented by better planning on my own part, though it is also important to note that I followed a guide which pointed out you didn't need to satisfy the requirements of both characters in order to reach the final Sokolov painting, so I won't take full responsibility here. It does also serve as the cherry on top to evidence a trophy list that pulls the player in every direction, and is ultimately difficult to dissect without resorting to the fact you might as well play the game 3/4 times just to be extra sure you can earn every trophy without having to worry about missing something accidentally.

For certain parts of this list which, on the flipside, are made a bit more user-friendly, you can use chapter select to go back through the game again and obtain trophies which are specific to certain chapters, rather than play through the game again and having to watch out for those specific segments of the story. With everything else out to catch you out, this is a welcome repreive when polishing off the list.

I will maintain the notion that the game itself isn't really that challenging. The absence of difficulty sensitive trophies means you can play through the game at whichever leisurely pace you choose to, and this is definitely something to take advantage of if you start to hit the third or fourth playthrough and just want it to be over quickly like I did. Even in scenarios where you have to be more creative, the game does a lenient job of guiding the player through the game, using a lot of visual clues and a hinting system to make sure you're never really stuck. 

Even when you think you've planned well, there is always something that seems to trip you up, and the need for multiple playthroughs caused me a few issues. You also have to constantly be aware that you don't breach conditions of trophies when trying to complete the game in numerously different ways which could cost you. This isn't a hard game, but the trophy requirements add a new dimension to the whole package, which splits it straight down the middle.

Notable Trophies - 

Resolution - You completed the game
Clean Hands - You completed the game without killing anyone
Ghost - You completed all missions after the prologue, alerting or killing no one but key targets
Art Dealer - You collected all the Sokolov paintings

Hardest Trophy -

Clean Hands
You completed the game without killing anyone

DLC #117 - Battlefield 1 - Apocalypse

Battlefield games are always strong contenders for DLC with trophies, and Battlefield 1 continues that trend with 4 sets of DLC attached to the main game.

Apocalypse adds what seems to be the norm in terms of an overall Battlefield DLC package, with a series of new maps, weapons, gadgets, vehicles and 5 additional trophies bought to the games core.

The Air Assault game mode is also added, which is covered off by the "Flyswatter" trophy, awarded for destroying 5 airplanes while in the Behemoth Airship L30.

It's a familiar looking list, with the format very akin to that of the set of Battlefield 4 DLC. Within most of those packages, were trophies awarded for smaller tasks, but also a trophy for completing the newly added batch of assignments to each package (This wasn't the case for all 5 DLC packs, but was present in most of them).

Obtaining a kill with the Livens Projector and the Broken Bottle will cover off a further 2 trophies (though the latter will require a prerequisite to be unlocked for use), and you'll also need to perform a melee kill on a Flametrooper Elite, which is incidentally the easiest way to take them down. Regarding the new weapons added to the package, they actually have to be unlocked for use, which is where the final trophy comes in;

Weapons of the Apocalypse - Perform a kill with all "Apocalypse" weapon variants.

Where Battlefield 4 would award a trophy for completing all assignments in the package, this is effectively the same thing, just dressed up a little differently. There are 10 new weapons included within Apocalypse, and each one has to be unlocked for use via completing certain assignments, so the weapon is effectively the reward. Across these 10 new weapons, there are 14 assignments in total, and this trophy is replicated for all 4 Battlefield 1 DLC packs.

There aren't many assignments that actually stand out as challenging. Most of them just simply require you to obtain a specific number of kills with an existing weapon, though the total number of kills you'll need to rack up is 440, which includes all kills as per the assignment objective and subsequent kills required with the actual weapon variant. Don't forget that last part. It is the key trigger for the trophy after all.

This naturally makes it a fairly time consuming venture, with this trophy responsible for around 15-20 hours of gameplay alone. In order to unlock the Broken Bottle melee weapon, you'll need 5 kills with the wine bottle, which is dotted around in certain parts of the new maps within this package. The catch with the wine bottle melee weapon is that, once it's been collected from it's spawn point on the map, it won't respawn until you begin a new game, so your chances for kills will be limited, and due to the fact it's a melee weapon, it can be frustrating to get close enough to opponents in order to acquire kills, but this is really the only assignment I would specifically pick out from this group which presents any sort of skill-based challenge. Most of the other assignments are based around accumulation of kills and/or support functions such as healing and resupply points, which are easy to focus on.

One final detail that's important to point out, and this goes for every assignment-based trophy contained within this batch of DLC, is the fact that you can actually unlock this trophy by just picking up the weapon variant from killed enemies on the battlefield and this will count towards the trophy. I never once had the inclination to do it this way myself, and whether it's a more time efficient method than unlocking them progressively will purely depend on how lucky you are in finding the required weapons. It will cut down a series of challenges per weapon you find and obtain a kill with, but whether you find them all is another story. Some of these weapons aren't that commonly used, so it's probably better to just work on unlocking them yourself. It's also a better challenge.

If you go for the more conventional method of unlocking the weaponry yourself, the package comes in at around 20-25 hours of gameplay. The specific objectives for the weapons in this set aren't as challenging in comparison to some of them in the other sets of DLC available, but they will take a solid level of time commitment at the very least.

Platinum #89 - DiRT Rally

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 7/10

Out of 3 previously reviewed DiRT titles (DiRT 2, DiRT 3 and Showdown), there has never been a game that has breached past a 7/10 for difficulty rating, and DiRT Rally doesn't quite get there either.

Where these previous titles have had an emphasis on a variety of Motorsport activities, this is the first title since the original Colin McRae Rally games, last seen on the Playstation 2, which has contained a heavy focus on the concept of Rally.

The list is split very evenly across a range of different aspects to this game, including the Career mode, Online events, Online PvP and other various adhoc tasks.

The meat of the game, as always, is based around the Career mode, but has a slightly different take on progression in comparison to previous DiRT titles.

Before, you would progress through the career via a series of events, and winning these events would subsequently unlock further events to compete in until you reached the final tier. It was a very linear model which was carried through the series across all of the previous titles prior to this one. DiRT Rally follows a league format, where you compete in events which are made up of a specific number of stages, and the quicker you are across these stages, the higher you'll finish within an event. The closer you are to the top spot after each event, the more points you'll earn towards the overall league table. The top 3 drivers are promoted to the next league, and the bottom 3 drivers are relegated back down to the previous league, and this format is followed across the game's 3 disciplines of racing (Rally, RallyCross and Hillclimb).

The difficulty of the Career mode is determined based on which league you're in. You'll start at Open level and end at Masters level, with a total of 5 different leagues to climb through, with each level becoming progressively more challenging.

The "Born to Run" trophy, awarded for Becoming Champion at Masters level in Championships, is the most difficult trophy on the list, but strangely enough, is also where the game loses a few possible extra marks for difficulty at the same time. Just to make this clear from the off, the game can be unforgivably challenging, but this also depends on which discipline you're playing. The requirements of the trophy only task you with becoming a Champion at Masters level in just 1 of the 3 previously mentioned disciplines, so you have some very lenient flexibility to work with here. Rally is tough to the point where I genuinely don't think I'd ever win at Masters level, whereas Hillclimb, which was the discipline I ended up unlocking this trophy for, is still tough, but makes the trophy much more realistically achievable.

For a game that has previously prided it's trophy lists on maximum completion, to effectively allow the player to be able to bypass the majority of it's Career mode options is definitely a change of direction.

However, there are also a small collection of trophies on offer which will which require you to win a Championship using a variety of cars from different Rally classes, so even if you choose to avoid the Rally discipline for the purposes of the trophy above, you won't be able to escape it entirely if you want to unlock the Platinum trophy. The most efficient way to achieve this is to win a Championship at Open level, promoting you to Clubman level, and then retire events until you're relegated back down to Open, repeating this process for the 5 trophies you'll need to unlock which require you to explore 5 different vehicle classes. This also keeps the game as simple as possible, and means you won't have to reach the upper tiers of Rally Championships to attempt to unlock these trophies, which should keep things manageable. Be warned though, Rally is still challenging, even at Open level, so this will give you a few problems if your skills aren't up to scratch.

Away from the Career mode, there is also a fairly big emphasis on Online Events, which are a series of challenges pitting you against others to finish as high as possible on a leaderboard based on event completion time. There are 5 further trophies which require you to finish within the top tier of these events, which occur daily on a random rotational basis, and span across different disciplines and tracks. The top 33% times logged by the end of the day will qualify for the top tier, and there are 2 things that are important to note about these trophies.

The first important note is that fact that, naturally, almost 4 years on, there aren't that many people playing this game anymore, so the window for opportunity to actually place within the top tier is much smaller. If you were going for these trophies at the beginning of the game's life cycle, where you were seeing thousands of people log event times each day, it would have been much easier to reach that top tier. This sort of leads onto the second important note, which is the fact only the hardcore DiRT fans are still really playing this game, and are inevitably finding their way into the top of the leaderboards consistently, such is the age of the game, subsequently reducing the availability of qualifying spots to fulfill the requirements of the trophy for others.

Ultimately, if you're good enough, you'll get in, but you're competing against real players, and only the best will achieve that top tier. The major positive is the fact the events are run daily, so you'll have ample opportunities to keep coming back to try again, even if it does mean going back to the Single Player portions of the game to perfect your skills.

The "Dependable" trophy, awarded for Completing a Monthly Event, requires you to just finish a single monthly event, though this does also come with it's own challenges. A monthly event is composed of 24 stages, so damage management is critical to completing the event. Your car will depreciate over time, and this is alot of stages to get through, so you'll need to ensure maximum care, and disregard the element of time, given the fact you merely need to finish the event for the trophy. Too much damage to your car means you won't be able to keep up with the adequate levels of repairs to make it through to the end, and if your car is retired due to excessive damage, you'll be unable to complete the event until next month.

Another issue to watch out for, and another reason why you should disregard time and take care navigating through stages, is the fact that, crashing your car off course in certain stages will retire you automatically. It seems strange, because driving too far off track will reset you with a time penalty, which is fine, but driving off a mountainous ledge, or over a wall, will end your event, and you'll have to wait to compete in next month's instead. I experienced both separate instances of irreparable damage and driving off stage, so I had to wait out 3 months to achieve this trophy, so it's definitely worth mentioning. The event will also take somewhere around 2-3 hours to complete too.

The "Maximum Attack" trophy, awarded for winning every stage on a 12 stage event with all assists off, is easily the most challenging of the adhoc trophies remaining in the list. This replicates the real life simulation of driving a vehicle, where there are no handling assists, disabled HUD and the event is completed within the cockpit from first person perspective. It's very difficult to get the hang of if you're used to the default settings of driver assists and being able to see the HUD and vehicle from an outer perspective. You also need to win every single stage, so if you don't finish top of a particular stage, you'll need to restart it until you do, which means it can also become a very time consuming venture. If you can't master handling the car without any assists, you'll lose control and won't top the stage, so a certain degree of mastery is required here which could take some practice. It was easily the one adhoc trophy I spent the most time on.

Despite the watered down requirements for completion of the Career mode compared to previous DiRT games, DiRT Rally still presents a solid enough challenge to keep things interesting. It also still maintains a pretty decent longevity factor too, clocking in at somewhere between the 50-70 hour mark for full completion. Winning numerous Rally events with different vehicle classes, reaching and winning at Masters level for 1 discipline in Career mode and a generous portion of trophies spread across competitive Multiplayer game modes keep the hours ticking over nicely.

The game also does not have any preset difficulty levels, and is dictated simply by the league level at which you're competing in Career mode and how strong your times are against other players online, both of which will offer a reasonable challenges as a result. It doesn't quite set a new standard based on previous difficulty ratings for other DiRT games, but it's still competing in the upper echelons. Somewhere around Professional to Elite league level, you could say.

Notable Trophies -

Born to Run - Become Champion at Masters level in Championships
Dependable - Complete a Monthly Event
Maximum Attack - Win every stage on a 12 stage event with all assists off

Hardest Trophy -




Born to Run
Become Champion at Masters level in Championships