Platinum #118 - Dead Island : Riptide

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 4/10

When I reviewed Dead Rising 2 : Off the Record not too long ago, I questioned which part of me felt like it was a good idea to go straight back in and play a game that felt exactly like the previous one I'd just played, and upon completing Dead Island : Riptide, successor to the Playstation 3 title, Dead Island, I'm here asking myself the same question again.

In defence of Dead Rising 2 : Off the Record, it didn't ever claim to be a true sequel, hence the remaining use of the number "2" with an extended tagline in the title, rather than actually calling itself Dead Rising 3. It was the same game with an alternative plot that ran in parallel to Dead Rising 2, so it at least made sense.

Despite being taglined, rather than numbered, Dead Island : Riptide is a direct plot continuation of the ending of Dead Island, which is good enough reason to consider it a sequel in my eyes. However, Dead Island 2 would subsequently be announced for the pipeline at a later date anyway, so who knows what the rules are?

My main point is, Dead Island : Riptide, doesn't feel like a sequel. It doesn't feel like a new game with fresh ideas or differences. If I began to list the changes that I felt were worth mentioning, I wouldn't even fill out this paragraph. Is that a criticism? Probably. I just felt like I was playing through Dead Island all over again though.

The combat is exactly the same melee-heavy, dull, clunky attack system present in Dead Island. Swinging and missing with no rhyme or reason is frustrating and the stamina system sucks the fun out of combat because once you get into the rare occasion of hacking zombies down with consistency and not being stifled by the inaccuracies of the combat system, you'll be forced to take a break for a few moments whilst your stamina bar regenerates itself anyway.

Quests are just a seemingly never-ending loop of fetch tasks, exploiting a painfully obvious lack of creativity, character dialogue is still delivered with a severe lack of quality and the "story" is garbage. The game is better in co-op, which you'll need to do as per the requirements of the trophy list, but the biggest gripes with this game will still exist - you'll just have a few people to discuss how bad they are with, as opposed to just telling yourself in your head.

Regardless, Dead Island : Riptide begins at the end of Dead Island, where your safe evacuation off the island of Banoi is promptly interrupted by an attempted arrest by Australian police forces on the getaway ship. After being sedated, you're awoken to the ship being run amock and all hell breaking loose, an outbreak presumably started by one of the survivors visibly biting a soldier during the arrest cutscene. The ship ends up washed ashore on the island of Palanai after crashing into a rock amidst the chaos, where the infection from Banoi island has already apparently spread into. All of a sudden, we're back at square one where you're taken on a journey to find your way off the island of Palanai.

The trophy list is medium in size, coming in at a reduced volume of 36 trophies, including the Platinum, down 13 trophies from Dead Island's 49. I think it's a slightly less creative list on the whole, with a touch of crossover to the original, but with a bigger emphasis on story progression, and lower emphasis on the Co-op elements of the game.

Across the game's roughly 6-8 hour Story, there are 11 trophies awarded for simply progressing through to the end of the main story arc and completing the main game. This equates to almost a third of the entire list - A big change in direction from Dead Island, whose progression trophies only went as far as beating specific acts within the game.

There isn't any requirement to play through the game on a specific difficulty level, and you're also given the option to import your character across, which will allow you to start from whichever level you reached at the end of your time with Dead Island  - A Level 50 Sam B in my case. This turns out to be an extremely useful headstart for a returning trophy.

The "Obtain Level 70" trophy, awarded for Obtaining level 70, requires the player to amass a gargantuan 23,396,500 experience points. The import character option does make an instant dent in this, which is where the feature comes in most useful. However, this will only get you so far, and you'll need to rely on other methods to achieve this trophy.

You'll earn experience points for fairly standard actions, including completing quests, defeating enemies and completing in-game challenges, but the total amount of experience required for this trophy means you're just not going to get through all this in a single playthrough of the game, even if you choose to import a fairly high level character like I did. Amongst the variation of quests you can complete, there are a series of ongoing side quests where you have to retrieve specific items for certain characters, of which you can infinitely turn these items in, in exchange for experience points.

These quests allow you to take advantage of a duplication glitch, whereby you can drop a series of items on the floor, kill yourself and before you load back into your last checkpoint, you can interrupt the process and reload in manually. This action will restore your inventory to it's previous state, but more importantly, allows you to still pick up the items you previously dropped. Rinse and repeat this process for the relevant item to turn as many in for quest experience as you need to. It's a great tactic that will spare you a full second playthrough of the game, which is something I really didn't want to have to do - This game was barely worth 30 hours of my time, let alone 60. Once I'd beaten everything the trophy list had required of me, I was still only level 62, and even though duplicating these items on repeat was a chore in itself, it was a much better alternative than facing the prospect of a second playthrough.

The "Dream Team" trophy, awarded for Completing all the main quests co-operatively with any number of partners, ensures the co-op element of this game becomes a mandatory part of the trophy list, and you'll need to beat all 28 main story quests with at least one other person.

There is some generous flexibility here. You don't need to use the same partner(s) throughout, it doesn't matter who the game host is, which allows you to freely jump into other players sessions if you find it difficult to get people to join yours, and the quests don't need to be completed in sequential order, which is handy for instances where the only players available are those at different chapters to you.

I had already completed 22/28 quests with a previous mate I originally played this game with, but it was tough to find other players at this point in the games cycle, and I had to accept in a few instances that I would have to jump backwards and beat some quests I'd already beaten to assist somebody else in reaching the same point in the story as me and continuing on through there, which meant a little bit of re-treading old ground on a couple of occasions, but something I had to resort to due to the baron nature of co-operative availability.

I also can't confirm this for sure, but it seems as though joining someone else's session whilst they're part way through a quest doesn't count for trophy progress either. I think you need multiple players present at the beginning of the quest for progress to count, which is a bit frustrating because the only way to make sure this doesn't occur is to have full control of the game as session host - However, it is easier to join onto other players and there's a strong chance they'll already be part way through a mission when you join them. In most of these challenging scenarios, it's just easier to set yourself back and play-through to the point you were at yourself and help somebody else progress.

Finally, the "Hoarder" trophy, awarded for Finding all collectibles, requires you to collect all 61 different items scattered throughout the game.

As far as collectibles go, this isn't actually one of the worst collectible journeys out there, however, it is prone to being glitched, whereby you'll finish on 60/61 collectibles and the game won't recognise that you have picked one of them up. This happened to me and cost me an extra 2-3 hours of gametime to figure out which collectible I was missing - An apt way to finish off an experience that was generally fairly underwhelming.

The most effective way to solve it is to start a New Game+ with a new character and choose to load in at Chapter 12, which will open up the entire map, but respawn everything, including the collectibles. The rest is just a trial and error task of re-collecting them until the solitary collectible you were missing pops the trophy. I already had the individual trophies for collecting all voice recordings and secret files, so I figured those weren't the issue, which narrowed the field slightly, but it was still a postcard that I was missing, and typically, was one of the last few remaining items I had to collect to trigger the trophy.

I managed to earn the Platinum trophy in just under 32 hours. This included a fully complete 29 hour save file, and an extra 2 and a half hours for a new game purely to go through the collectibles for the sole remaining glitched trophy.

The story is very short, clocking in at roughly 6-8 hours, and everything else fits around this as you go through the game. The majority of the rest of your time will be spent completing every single quest in the game for the "Achiever" trophy, which totals to 80, including the 28 main story quests. If you manage to make sure your intent is to play-through this game in Co-op from the very beginning, you'll avoid having to go through the story twice, providing that you also take advantage of the duplication glitch explained above in order to make sure you can reach level 70 in the same playthrough, and further negate the necessity to have to start a new game purely for the purpose of levelling up.

The game itself seldom poses a challenge, and the only consequences of death are losing a bit of money and restarting at a checkpoint that's never really any further than a few steps back from where you died. There are no difficulty sensitive trophies either, leaving you to play the game to whatever leisurely extent you wish. 

Notable Trophies -

Obtain Level 70 - Obtain Level 70
Dream Team - Complete all the main questions cooperatively with any number of partners
The Hoarder - Find all collectibles

Obtain Level 70                                                                                    Obtain Level 70

DLC #156 - Tom Clancy's The Division - Expansion I - Underground

It's been a few years since I played The Division, and the last time I re-visited this game, I spent a stint with it in order to unlock the Platinum trophy.

Having already completed the Last Stand DLC pack prior to this, it was a game I knew I'd only be able to play in limited spells.

Just to re-iterate what I wrote about The Division in my Platinum Difficulty review, I don't think The Division is a bad game, it's just one of those games that's better consumed in smaller doses. It's fairly average, and where the Last Stand DLC did give some much needed variety to the game with some PvP emphasis, the Underground goes back to the PvE formula that drives the main game, and the copy and paste execution of the Underground just feels like the ultimate form of content padding.

Upon purchase, the Underground opens up as a new section of the Base of Operations. Based on the concept of the New York Subway system, you're tasked with going deep within to clear enemies in a horde-mode style of gameplay where you need to make your way through various levels completing objectives and clearing waves of enemies as you go. You set these missions up yourself, with each mission built up of "phases", which are just individual segments with a specific objective designated to each one, and these can be linked together for up to 3 phases in any one mission.

The overall goal is to complete these missions and obtain experience points, upgraded loot and grab collectibles along the way. It's fairly unspectacular and has practically no novelty value - This is effectively just fighting your way through hordes of enemies, pushing through to completing fairly arbitrary objectives, which is exactly what you spend your entire time doing in the main game. Same enemies, same environments and the same loot. Infact, none of the loot I picked up was better than what I already had, which didn't really matter anyway because there isn't much of a challenge for higher levels, so better loot would have made this even more of a mundane exercise than it was already.

You can tackle these missions solo, or as part of a wider group of up to 4 players. It's at least a bit more interesting in a group, and you're going to be putting the hours in, so my recommendation would be to play with others wherever you can. 

The package contains just 5 trophies, and the recommendation to play in a group does extend as far as completing a 3 phase operation with 3 other players for 1 of these trophies, but the quest to full completion runs through 2 main trophies;

The Beast Below - Reach Underground Rank 40.
Gone Spelunking - Retrieve all 55 Audio Logs and 25 UrBex Diaries the Underground.

"The Beast Below" Trophy, awarded for Reaching Underground Rank 40, is ultimately the end goal of this package, and you'll be completing missions in order to accumulate enough experience to reach the highest level.

A total of 341,200 EXP is required for Rank 40, and this is accumulated in 3 primary ways. Completing phases is where the majority of experience points are handed out here, and the payout of experience points per mission will depend on a variety of factors. These include the difficulty level chosen, the number of phases included within the mission and any modifiers applied during the set-up process. Modifiers are referred to as "directives" and apply certain restrictions/conditions to the player that add certain elements of challenge to the mission, for example, removal of the mini-map or a shock charge that disables the player upon firing too many bullets at once. 

A 3 phase mission on challenging difficulty with the maximum amount of directives applied, will net somewhere within the region of 7,000 to 8,000 experience points per run, but it is important to note you don't have immediate access to the full range of options from the outset, and you'll need to gradually rank up in order to unlock the ability to set-up your own missions on higher difficulties with all directives available to choose from. You will be able to assist other players missions who have these options available, but you won't always be able to rely on this, so levelling progression may be staggered depending on these circumstances.

I ended up playing through 86 phases to reach Rank 40, and when you calculate a rough estimate of around 15-20 minutes per phase, this equates to around 21 hours of game time. There does need to be further consideration for failed phases, but this usually occurred when players left the game, and were seldom down to the difficulty of the mode, which is incredibly easy with a maxed out soldier with powerful gear. The phase needs to be finished for the experience points to count, so these would go down as lost time.

The other 2 primary methods for earning experience points are for killing individual enemies and you'll be granted experience points for every enemy killed within the mission to the tune of around 30-40 EXP per enemy. You'll also earn the experience points for any enemies your teammates kill, which is a massive relief. The final method for obtaining experience points is for picking up collectibles;

The "Gone Spelunking" Trophy, awarded for Retrieving all 55 Audio Logs and 25 UrBex Diaries in the Undergound, will award the player 300 EXP for every collectible gathered, which means 24,000 experience points are up for grabs through completing this task.

It is vitally important to realise that you need to ensure you're conscious to grabbing these collectibles as you go along completing missions. There are 80 in total, and I only needed to complete 86 phases to reach Rank 40, so this would become an unnecessary post-rank 40 task if you failed to tandem these trophies together.

Each phase contains 1 collectible to obtain somewhere. These are randomly generated, and will always be a unique collectible you have yet to obtain, so the you won't need to worry about duplication. Their spawn rate is guaranteed up to a certain point, so if you feel like you've missed one, make sure you expand the map and look back over where you've just come from. They can be well hidden, but it'll definitely be there somewhere, and will become missable once you advance into the next phase.

Once I'd collected all 55 Audio Logs, I had 3 Photographs to go, but this is where the collectibles cease to be guaranteed. For whatever reason, once you have the maximum number of collectibles for either the Audio Logs or Photographs, the remaining collectibles become completely random in their spawn rate, and I started playing through phases without finding any of the collectibles I still needed. This is apparently deliberate through design, and this is why I had to play an additional 6 phases. That isn't that many, and I only needed 3 Photographs once I'd hit 55 Audio Logs, but it's quirky and throws you off. An additional 6 phases isn't terrible, but spawn rate is completely random so I can't promise you wouldn't experience something completely different.

The Division isn't a good enough game to get away with releasing uninspiring DLC packs that are purely built to prolong the games life cycle, and this was eventually a bit of a struggle. Working towards Rank 40 along with grabbing collectibles as you move is a fairly natural route to full completion, and you'll get the other trophies along the way.

It clocks in somewhere between a 25-30 hour experience as per the calculation above, but this includes a fair chunk of waiting in-between mission set-ups and failed attempts. I didn't really enjoy it. It felt pointless and unnecessary, with enemies, environments and mission objectives you'll have seen and done before.

It oddly reminded me of the Mad Moxxi Underdome Riot DLC from Borderlands 1, which you can draw alot of parralels from. Fend off waves of the same pointless enemies, work towards unrewarding objectives and pick up redundant loot because you already have the best loot the game has to offer. That was boring, and so is this, and completion was a welcome relief.

Platinum #117 - Cuphead

 Platinum Difficulty Rating - 8/10

There's definitely a lack of representation of Indie games within my trophy collection, and although it's something I've never exactly vowed to fix, we are getting better at it.

Cuphead is a run-and-gun, side-scrolling game with a fairly basic narrative. You control protagonist of the same name, Cuphead, who makes an agreement to help the Devil in response to racking up too many debts at his casino (You can also choose to play as Mugman, though differences between the two are purely aesthetic).

The Devil offers Cuphead an out - Recover the souls from fellow debtors in order to pay off Cuphead's own debt, and spare himself from the Devil's fate.

This starts a sequence of continuous boss fights, which make up the majority of the game, though these are sometimes interspersed with run-and-gun, platforming levels that break up the pace of the game.

Just to explain the basic premise of how these boss fights work, given the fact they are practically the make-up of the entire game, each boss has multiple phases. When they take enough damage in any given phase, they'll transition into the next one, which usually evolves/changes the boss into a different form with a different set of attacks. This process repeats until you beat the final phase, and ultimately end the boss battle.

The concept is very simple, but executed brilliantly thanks to fast and frenetic gameplay, the ability to purchase new powers and supermoves through progression and an array of varied, interesting characters, all with their own personalities and unique fighting scripts.

Cuphead will punish you, but in addictive fashion. Some of these fights will require mastery of patterns and strategic thought, understanding the best loadouts to beat certain bosses, as well as reliance on cold, hard motor skills. Reaction time, quick-thinking and adaptability are required in abundance in order to make sure you outlast your opponent and progress towards the end of the game. Coupled with beautifully rendered rubber hose style graphics, it's a truly unique offering that will test your abilities to their highest level.

The trophy list is medium in size, coming in at 29 trophies, spanning across the entire Story-based journey as you venture through the Inkwell Isles - A map broken down into 4 different areas. The first 2 isles contain 5 bosses each and the third isle contains 7, as well as 2 run-and-gun levels in each. The fourth and final area is slightly different, but will ultimately lead you to the game's conclusion.

The "Beat The Devil At His Own Game" trophy, awarded for Completing the game on Expert, is the ultimate goal of this entire list. The path to full completion runs solely through this trophy - You'll firstly need to beat every single boss in the game on Normal difficulty. This is because you'll need to pass this requirement in order to unlock the Expert version of that particular boss, so there are 2 full Play-throughs required as a minimum. However, this is not applicable to the 6 total run-and-gun levels - There is a different trophy for that which we'll go into soon.

On the initial Normal difficulty run, this acts as a good way to get accustomed to the game. The bosses, generally, don't seem to scale in terms of difficulty as you progress deeper into the game, and I've seen different opinions on the challenge of some bosses compared to others, so I would conclude the standout challenges are all down to individual experiences.

You'll unlock the majority of the trophies you need within this Normal difficulty run, including a handful of trophies for beating each boss, as well as obtaining an A-Rank for each individual isle. Achieving an A-Rank might seem like a challenge in itself, but it's easy enough to clean this up when you've played each boss on Normal and have a better understanding of their phases and attack patterns. An A-Rank will require you to beat the boss within a certain time limit, finish the fight with a certain number of lives remaining, parry at least 3 objects and use your Supermove - They're fairly standard actions that you'll perform in most fights anyway and I generally found that, as long as you beat any given boss within the time limit, the rest would follow.

Further to this, the ranking system is split down to include + and - rankings for each letter, so obtaining an A-Rank can also include A-, meaning you will have a slight margin for error, and won't need to fulfil every objective on the board to it's maximum requirement. The highest ranking you can earn for a level is S, which you'll only need to achieve for 1 level for an individual trophy elsewhere.

Being able to beat the game on Normal difficulty, as well as achieve an A-Rank for each boss, allows for ideal preparation to finally take the game on in Expert difficulty - And the game does take a noticeable notch up from Normal to Expert. Bosses attack patterns are less predictable and more frequent, they carry more health and additional enemies will fill the screen.

The biggest challenge is adapting. The elements that change from Normal to Expert require a step up in turn from the player. Quicker reaction times, better situational awareness and a necessity to learn different attack patterns. These demands can also be quite steep from boss to boss and you get into situations that just simply boil down to continual practice with a lot of trial and error in order to get past them.

If it isn't an enemy you just simply don't see that gets you, it'll be something else. An attack pattern that looked different to the last time you ran it, a phase in play that requires extremely intricate movement or even simply a lapse in concentration. The game can be extremely unforgiving and whilst it's true everyone will face different challenges, the struggles remain the same and this is a genuinely tough challenge from start to end.

The game includes a death counter, which is always an ominous sign of expectations. Mine clocked it at 1281 deaths by the time I'd achieved the Platinum trophy, and whilst I don't really know how that benchmarks against the norm, the journey was as rough as a 4-figure death count sounds. The game punishes error and lack of focus, and you'll need to have reached an excellent standard of mastery on this game to beat it on Expert difficulty.

Once I'd beaten the game through on Expert, I only had 2 trophies remaining, supporting the point that this game is a very straight-forward journey, from a road-map perspective at least.

The "Pacifist" trophy, awarded for Completing all levels without killing an enemy, specifically refers to the 6 run-and-gun levels which have been briefly mentioned above.

These levels are where you can collect coins in order to purchase abilites and Superpowers from Porkrind's shop, which are essential to progression throughout the game as you figure out the best methods on how to beat certain bosses, but for the purpose of this trophy, you have to beat all 6 levels without killing an enemy.

This is tricky because these levels are designed to be run-and-gun, so having to navigate them without firing a bullet flips the challenge on it's head. You have to navigate levels in a side-scrolling fashion, and reach the end goal without losing all your lives, and clearing enemies by dodging them, as opposed to killing them. It helps to equip the Twin Heart charm, allowing you to start with 2 additional hit points, which you'll definitely need for this exercise.

Most of these stages also contain mini-bosses, which you can only bypass by activating your Superpower. Invincibility will allow you to get past these bosses without having to kill them, so it's also essential that this is equipped and you'll need to also make sure you earn enough parries along the way in order to fill your super-meter and activate your Superpower when required to do so.

The first few levels allow you to ease yourself in, but they do become more chaotic, and my progress slowed down fairly quickly, with the trophy taking around 5 hours in the end, which is a modest amount of time to complete just 6 levels. There's alot of trial and error involved and the majority of this time was spent on the final 2 levels, which definitely escalate in difficulty as you get further down the line and reach the end.

It's nowhere near as tough as beating the main story on Expert mode, but it gives you a different kind of challenge on top.

Cuphead is a unique game. A simple concept that creates challenge through simple ways. It's frustrating, angering and tough in equal measure, but I never really felt turned off by it, no matter how bad things may have seemed. Some of these bosses felt unbeatable on Expert mode as my dedication towards beating them exceeded hours, but I will always be of the belief that perseverance always prevails in games like this - Games that contain a death counter for reasons purely to measure the level of sacrifice you've put in, in order to achieve success. It might require a bit of good fortune along the way, such is the nature of how this game pans out with its highly volatile randomness, but you always need a bit of luck when trial and error is a key ingredient to progression.

The game will prepare you well to tackle it on Expert mode by making sure you clear every boss under Normal difficulty first, and seeing the rest of the list unlock along the way is a good motivator as you consistently see tangible progress towards the overall goal.

I'm not sure on a time estimation, as I played this game over multiple spells, and the amount of time you'll spend per boss will vary extremely. I'd like to think breaching well over the 1000 death mark is a sign of a solid, committed effort, and when you divide the total deaths of 1281 by the number of boss fights - 38 with 19 bosses in total across 2 playthroughs of the game - then you get an average of 37 deaths per boss.

This is an unrelenting fist-fight from start to finish. Prepare to go in head first and never look back. It's a rollercoaster experience with a solid reward awaiting those with enough guts to persevere to the very end.

Notable Trophies -

Beat The Devil At His Own Game - Complete the game on Expert.
Pacifist - Complete all levels without killing an enemy.

Hardest Trophy -

Beat The Devil At His Own Game                                                      Complete the game on Expert

Platinum #116 - Metro 2033 Redux

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 3/10

Most of my gaming purchases have a certain basis of judgement to them. I don't tend to stray too far from what I know well, and the Metro collection was a new venture for me.

I never knew it was based off a popular novel going by the same name. I never knew the term "Redux" effectively meant "Remaster" and I never knew my Latin needed some work either.

The Metro Redux package includes the first 2 Metro games bundled into a single box, originally available on the Playstation 3, and Remastered for the Playstation 4.

Metro 2033 is the first of these two games, a First-Person shooter which sees you take control of Artyom, a soldier attempting to save the fate of the Moscow Metro, where survivors of a Nuclear war have taken refuge. The aftermath of the war has made the surface uninhabitable for humans due to high radiation levels and low atmosphere, mutated creatures and warring factions fighting for whatever spoils they can find. Arytom's goal is to rid Moscow of these dangers and restore it to safety for it's civilians.

The gameplay is fairly standard FPS. You go through linear levels, mostly within the Metro system itself, though you will sometimes venture to the surface for a change of pace. This isn't exactly an even split though, and I would say around 80% of the game is spent navigating the Metro system, usually at populated stations or via underground tunnels/sewers that connect them to one another. The game needed a more even split. The Metro environments are way too similar and lack identity, as are the segments exploring tunnels and passages in-between. The lack of variety within the environments you transverse make the game dull and less engaging.

I actually harbour the same feelings towards the other core elements of the game. The spread of weapons on offer lack creativity and aren't really that fun to use and the combat is hampered by bad AI and mundane execution that make it lack excitement. There are some more interesting gameplay mechanics. You'll need to collect air filters for your gas mask when you're exploring anywhere above the surface so you don't run out of oxygen and darker portions of the game require the use of night vision goggles, which require you to charge a battery in order to use them at full functionality. It is cool having to play certain segments out from a different perspective via night vision, and having to always be conscious of your air filter time whilst above the surface adds a strong element of survival, but it's not really enough to make the game stand out, and you get a finished product which leads to a very average FPS game.

Metro 2033 is purely a Single Player experience, with all 50 trophies distributed across various tasks within the main Story. There is a minimum requirement of 2 Play-throughs of the game, courtesy of having to play on both "modes", which is not to be confused with difficulty level.

The game needs to be beaten in both Survivor and Spartan mode. Survivor Mode is more focused on stealth gameplay, where resources are less abundant and the player may have to be more savvy with how they progress, whereas Spartan Mode has a much greater emphasis on combat where fighting is encouraged more often, with a higher distribution of resources, but more enemies to kill.

If you want a challenge, then the game will give it to you, and once you've chosen which mode you want to play the game in, you'll then be offered the difficulty level. These rank as Normal, Hardcore, Ranger and Ranger Hardcore, however, the trophies don't make you beat the game within a specific difficulty level, so for the purpose of unlocking the Platinum trophy, you have the freedom of choice, which is the reason the Survivor and Spartan mode trophies won't get a notable mention in this game.

I chose Normal difficulty on both occasions, and the game is rarely a challenge, regardless of whether I was playing through Survivor or Spartan mode. Most enemies are easy enough to put down and the checkpoint system is about as generous as any I've played in any game, never putting you too far back from the position you may have died in, so the consequences of death lend themselves to a much more care-free style of play.

I personally don't think the game is good enough to warrant 2 play-throughs, but it is at least only an 8-10 hour Story, so the overall experience fits into the "could have been worse" category.

The "Enlightened" trophy, awarded for finding the truth, is definitely the trophy to watch out for in this list, because it's doused in mystery and there are things you'll need to know about how you progress through this game in order to unlock it.

It's never made obvious to the player, and perhaps that's intentional game design, but Metro 2033 works off a moral system hidden away in the background, where certain actions you perform throughout the game will either grant or deduct moral points to or from you. This is never introduced, nor explained, relevant actions that lead directly to positive/negative consequences are never indicated when fulfilled and the amount of moral points required to achieve access to the correct ending are not measurable or visibly quantifiable. You just have to go through the game under the assumption that you've earned enough positive moral points, through mostly positive actions, in order to be able to choose the correct ending.

These actions range from the fairly obvious, such as donating currency to homeless people when prompted to do so or saving people from hostage situations, to the less obvious, such as finding hidden areas or interacting with enemies during nightmare sequences. You'll need to use a guide though, purely for how good the game is in keeping the moral system under wraps, and to also avoid the situations where you can potentially earn some negative moral points without realising it.

The theory behind this trophy is, the game ultimately comes down to a solitary decision that you make as the very final action. The "Dark Ones", seemingly an apparition of Artyom's nightmares that appear at frequent points throughout this game, are actually attempting to make contact to Artyom as a signal of peace, and protect him throughout various dangerous plot points in the game in an attempt to communicate this message. This is what the trophy description refers to as "finding the truth" - The realisation that the Dark Ones are a force for good and have helped Artyom reach the conclusion of the story.

The strategy for eliminating the threats now plaguing Moscow is to reach D6, obtain some vital documents on where to find nuclear explosives and plant these on the Tower ready for detonation. If the player has collected enough positive moral points, the final decision the player will make is whether or not to kill the Dark One that attempts to sabotage the detonation. To finalise the requirements of the "Enlightened" trophy, you need to shoot the detonator and NOT the Dark One that attempts to destroy it.

If the game has deemed that you have not collected enough moral points, you won't have this decision to make and will be awarded with the default ending, where Artyom shoots the Dark One and successfully triggers the detonation. Incidentally, if you do manage to accumulate enough moral points, but choose to shoot the Dark One anyway, you will also miss out on the trophy. Finally, if the game deems you to have not accumulated enough positive moral points, you will also miss the trophy and receive the same outcome. All of these scenarios will trigger the "If it's hostile, you kill it" trophy, awarded for becoming a true Ranger, which is effectively just any ending where you allow the detonation to commence.

It makes sense to marry both ending trophies up with the respective Play-throughs of Survival and Spartan Modes, dedicating one to each, but you'll need to follow a guide closely to make sure you get more than enough moral points throughout the game so you don't miss out on the chance to trigger the true ending. The opposite ending is much easier to achieve, as emphasised above through the multiple scenarios in which you can receive it - The fact the game doesn't give you any guidance regarding the moral system makes guidance essential. I made sure I carried out every positive moral action I could, and left nothing to chance, just purely because the game never makes it clear how many of these actions is enough to trigger the correct ending scenario. I'd like to think it's fairly lenient, but you're going to be best off just leaving nothing to chance.

Outside of the trophies determined by how the game ends, there isn't really much else that stands out here. The game opts out of Progression-Based trophies, which is unusual for Story-Driven games, and, as mentioned above, also excludes any difficulty-based trophies.

Instead, there is a very heavy focus on kill accumulation trophies, requiring the player to fulfil a multitude of different tasks tied to obtaining a specific number of kills with the games variety of weapons, as well as killing enemies in certain ways. Trophies that fall into this category, by my reckoning, account for around half of the entire list, which is alot to keep track of.

However, the game comes in clutch with it's checkpoint system, allowing you to farm these trophies extremely easily via the ability to just restart at the previous checkpoint and still count the kills obtained in doing so. You can exploit this really easily by replaying segments with loads of enemies until you've achieved the necessary amount of kills for a specific weapon or situation, and being able to reload each time will not only allow you to quickly move onto the next trophy, but also make your previous actions consequence-free, which is great for making sure killing too many people doesn't impact your moral points at the same time.

At one point during my second Play-through, I farmed 7 of these trophies within a matter of 30 minutes by just playing out a heavily populated segment of the game and reloading back to a prior checkpoint to constantly clear out enemies and continue my kill accumulation progress. It's a lifesaving, trophy-hunter friendly feature and given that some of these trophies require to reach up to 100 kills in some instances, it becomes extremely useful and definitely something everyone should take advantage of on their way towards the Platinum trophy.

It is perhaps important to note that, these trophies cannot be earned across multiple Play-throughs though, and progress will reset to zero if you begin a new game. However, this is where Chapter Select comes in to save the day. Any outstanding trophies post-game can be obtained within Chapter Select, which also includes the small handful of chapter-specific trophies the list offers out. You can also use this feature to go back through and obtain any of the 51 collectible diary entries you may have missed for the "Blogger" trophy, progress for which would also reset upon starting a new game, so it's imperative to highlight the importance of the Chapter Select feature and how it makes the clean-up process very easy for the player. This is typically how most games with the ability to replay individual chapters works anyway, but it's a great alternate option to the checkpoint farming method should you need/prefer it.

Overall, the breakdown of Metro 2033 is very simple. Play through the game twice on both available game modes, and match up both endings accordingly. There's no pressure to play the game to a certain difficulty level and everything you miss can be obtained through a generous checkpoint system that retains your progress no matter how many times you go need to go back. When you add in Chapter Select, it's a trophy list gifted to any trophy-hunter on a plate. Both runs should also only take you a combined total playtime of around 20 hours too.

The lack of explanation around the Moral system is probably the only aspect of the game that makes you figure anything out for yourself, and even that isn't really too difficult to understand when you've got a guide that points out the positive moral points you'll need to fulfil as you go through the game. There are a couple of missable trophies that cannot be achieved via Chapter Select to watch out for, but even these are still slightly forgiving and can be picked up at multiple points throughout the game. You would need to devote an entire Play-through to these in worst case scenario, but this is a minimum 2 runs anyway, so even that shouldn't be an problem.

Notable Trophies -

Enlightened - Find the truth.

Hardest Trophy -

Enlightened                                                                                                    Find the truth

Platinum #115 - Dead Rising 2 : Off the Record

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 6/10

I'm not entirely sure what possessed me to believe that it was a good idea to go straight back in for another serving of Dead Rising 2, having played the original game right through to it's bitter end.

I think I may have had my arm twisted by a friend at some point, who would have convinced me to give the Co-op element a go. Naively believing that it probably wouldn't be that bad to put myself through a second helping, here we go again.

In fairness, Dead Rising 2 : Off the Record isn't actually that bad, but it is aided by a handful of gameplay changes that make this experience much more bearable in comparison to Dead Rising 2.

I didn't exactly dislike Dead Rising 2, but it was hard work, and the route through to the Platinum trophy was a big grindy chore I vowed I'd never get myself into ever again, but somehow, here we are.

This game takes place as an alternative plot to the same story of Dead Rising 2,but this time you view the events of Fortune City from the perspective of Dead Rising 1 Protagonist, Frank West, as opposed to Chuck Greene in Dead Rising 2.

The previously well-covered zombie outbreak from Dead Rising 2 is in full-swing, and Frank West's aim is to take advantage of the unfortunate events and use them to "get back in the game", by uncovering the ulterior motive underlaying the outbreak, spill the truth behind the incident and become a relevant journalist again.

The game, for the most part, still plays in the exact same way. The combat, movement and the core gameplay elements present in Dead Rising 2 still exist here. Combine items to craft overly powerful weapons that make a mockery of the games difficulty? Check. Horrendous survivor AI that will make you want to bludgeon them yourself? Check. Spend large periods of the game waiting for time to pass because the game insists that you play by it's rules? Check.

So, there is alot of crossover worth mentioning here, and in the interest of balance, the game is clear what it's about. It doesn't masquerade as a sequel. It retains the "2" for it's title and does feel like more of the same. A 2.5, if you will. There are some crucial additions/tweaks that come up big though, especially when it comes to speaking from a trophy hunting perspective, which we'll touch up as and when relevant, and one of these changes could include the trophy list, which, despite having sprinklings of  unwanted crossover, is fairly refreshed. Some of the things that made me dislike certain parts of Dead Rising 2 stemmed directly from the trophies and these have been mostly addressed here.

This is a big list that comes in at a total of 51 trophies, giving the player the option to complete them in either Single Player or Co-op experiences. A handful of these trophies do have to be obtained specifically in Co-op though, so you're going to need to rely on someone else to a lesser or greater extent.

How you tackle this list is exactly the same as you would with Dead Rising 2, going through the game and working through the case files in order to complete the main story on time to ensure that your game doesn't finish prematurely, whilst trying to fit whatever else you can in-between. The refreshed trophy list has stripped back alot of trophies that previously existed in Dead Rising 2 that would require you to dedicate entire Play-throughs to them, which has reduced the amount of time and runs required for the Platinum trophy.

I always felt that the biggest challenge behind Dead Rising 2 was the fact that it limited the player's flexibility in how they tackled the trophy list. The game has a pre-determined time limit to when it starts and ends, so you had to dedicate an entire run of the game towards getting 72,000 kills with little room for others. Then you'd have to dedicate an entire run of the game towards rescuing 50 survivors, which, again, would leave you little room for other trophies in-between. There are other examples of this, but you get the picture, and it quickly amounted to 5/6 entire runs of the game to achieve the Platinum. It was the list that wanted you to play the game to death and Dead Rising 2 : Off the Record is not that game, and I only had to actually go through this story again twice in order to achieve the Platinum.

You still earn loads of progression-based trophies, as you so commonly do with Story-driven games, but knowing I wasn't exposing myself to spoilers, I could research this list properly and understand exactly what would be required of me and waste little time in working on it as effectively as possible.

There are still trophies attributed to collecting combo cards in order to craft weapons, but you already know what most of these are and how to get them, because most of the combo weapons have been carried over from Dead Rising 2, with only a small handful of truly new additions.

The re-introduction of Frank West also opens up opportunity on the list for trophies related to taking photos using Frank's camera, which was heavily focused in the achievement list for Dead Rising 1. I counted 12 trophies here that make use of Frank's camera, which is over a fifth of the whole list, so the photography gameplay element is a big part of the refresh on this list too.

The "Purewal Memorial Cup" trophy, awarded for not consuming any meat, dairy or alcohol until the military arrives was where I started in terms of marrying up trophies with beating the story. It may seem like this selection of food groups severely limits your options, and in reality, it does, but as long as you're always conscious to being stocked up on orange juice, then you're rolling. Not only is it not any of the above, it also gives you great return on your health. You just have to make sure you always have surplus, because you don't want to be in situations where you fight certain bosses and desperately need health, but the items within your environment would infringe the requirements of the trophy, so always double check your inventory.

With Dead Rising 2, I'd have to jump straight back into a New Game and work out which trophies to get next, but I could now do that without starting over, and this was courtesy of the games biggest addition. Sandbox Mode.

Sandbox Mode just throws you into the Fortune City map and lets you do as you please without having to work against the games deadlines or time constraints, which are hugely distracting when it comes to focusing on other trophies you're trying to achieve.

The "Six Digits?!?" trophy, awarded for Killing 100,00 zombies is a great testament to this. In Dead Rising 2, it was 72,000, which you had to do within one Play-through of the game. No margin for error and no way to really catch-up if you were running behind, or off the pace for whatever reason. Of course, it'll take you longer to kill 100,000 zombies, but in Sandbox Mode, where I can just stop for a bit when I'm feeling bored or mix it up with other trophies to break up the monotony of the task, it's a much better fit for when they still insist on grindy, massacre-based trophies.

In regards to the trophy itself, 100,000 is still a heck of a lot, and will take you around 10-12 hours to reach this milestone. The methodology is still the same. Grab the Sports Car on the Silver Strip and race repeatedly up and down mowing zombies over on mass until the car wears out and you can jump into another area, before jumping back in and respawning everything. It is still just as tedious as it was first time round (or should that be around a third more tedious than last time?), but Sandbox Mode alleviates the pressure of having to get it done within harsh time constraints and it's important to not underestimate that. I actually still consider this to be the toughest trophy in the game. Despite Sandbox mode taking the pressure off, 10-12 hours is a long time to be doing such a boring and monotonous task, and they increased the requirement by 28,000 kills compared to Dead Rising 2.

The "Even More Help From My Friends" trophy, awarded for getting a gold medal on all Co-op challenges, is another addition to Sandbox Mode. Challenges are also a new element to the game and a refreshed aspect of this list that did not exist in Dead Rising 2, requiring you to complete 30 Co-op specific challenges to a Gold medal. Co-op challenges aren't integrated into the main Story mode, and have to be played in Sandbox mode exclusively.

The challenges range anywhere between easy to medium in difficulty, but the latter goes by the assumption you've got a good partner with whom you can communicate effectively. My initial attempts bought me to jumping into random Sandbox sessions with other players who either were more interested in ploughing through zombies with a lawnmower motor strapped to their head or just didn't understand the most effective ways to beat these challenges.

For example, in the challenge where you have to drink as much alcohol as you can in 3 minutes, the amount of units required for Gold is 30. You'll start being sick after 2 drinks, which massively slows you down to the point where you probably won't make it. So the twist to these challenges is to find ways to beat them using very specific methods. In this case, you'd both need to grab a sports fan outfit that makes you immune to being sick from alcoholic items. They're not all this intricate, but random players who aren't specifically in this for the Gold medals won't know this, so finding a like minded partner is essential. The Co-op challenges are an exact copy and paste of the Single Player challenges, but they just double the medal requirements to account for 2 people tackling them as opposed to just the 1. The Single Player challenges are a good way to cut your teeth so you know exactly what to expect as you move into the Co-op equivalents. 

The "Alpha v Omega" trophy, awarded for having Denyce attack and damage Sgt Boykin, seemed to be one of the toughest challenges in this list. I'd probably already awarded this one the "hardest trophy" accolade in my head. In reality, it wasn't actually that bad. Denyce is the very first survivor you encounter in the game, and she has to remain in your party without being transported to the safehouse right up to case 7-2, where you fight Sergeant Boykin. This is really just a matter of keeping Denyce safe from harm, and saving often to make sure you don't have to go too far back if disaster strikes.

There are a couple of genuine threats to this trophy though. Some Psychopaths deal hefty damage to survivors, so it is possible for her to die pretty quickly if she ends up the primary focus of any Psychopath fight. This is where being a high level really helps because you can take Psychopaths out fairly quickly, though even with this, there were a couple of times she took some big hits because I couldn't interfere fast enough. This is the primary reason I would tackle this trophy near the end of the list, so you can go through it in New Game+ with your maxed out character that makes light work of Psychopaths.

Also, prior to starting case 6-1, where you fight the Helicopter that TK attempts to escape in, if you try to take Denyce into this fight with you, she'll be automatically transported to the safehouse and won't make it to act 7-2 with you. This is a nasty little scenario that will end the run, so you need to be aware of it, and leave her behind in a safe spot where you can come back for her after you exit the fight. As with all survivors that get left behind in another part of the map, her health will begin to deplete gradually for as long as you're engaged in the Helicopter boss fight, so you need to also make sure you defeat it quick enough to get back to Denyce alive.

One final thing to mention, which was touched upon briefly above, the horrendous NPC AI will do it's best to work against you here. Dencye (and this is a common issue with any survivor) will just randomly stop following you from time to time, and it will require you to physically tell her where to go with a command prompt until you reach a new area whereby the glitch will magically fix itself, only to happen again at a random point later on. Even if you give her a gun to defend herself, which is highly recommended (the gun will never run out of bullets if a survivor is using it), she'll still need you to come back and help her whenever she gets grabbed by a zombie, which is something that I'm convinced purely exists to waste your time and annoy you. 

As long as you're aware of all of the above, there is a fairly painless route through to this trophy, but I would definitely recommend doing it once you've reached a certain level and your character can make light work of any enemy, especially psychopaths. The game gets incredibly easy to deal with enemies when you're of a higher level, so take advantage of that.

Just one final thing about the game in general. When going after certain trophies, especially towards the end of the list when you don't have much left to do, there is alot of dead time in this game. Just waiting for time for pass is still, unfortunately, a staple feature of this game. Whether that's to just simply progress the story, wait for opportunities to recruit survivors that only appear from certain points onwards, or get to a certain stage in the game for a trophy you can only achieve at that specific point. This was one of the things I didn't like about Dead Rising 2 and this is still prominent here. The trophies will make you reach certain points in the completion journey when all you can do is sit there and watch time pass, and that's just not a great experience.

There's no doubt that this a more palatable list than Dead Rising 2. When I challenged my own judgement about going through this game again, that was purely based on my experience with Dead Rising 2 - A game with a trophy list that felt laborious and exposed some bad gameplay mechanics that didn't lend themselves well to the trophy list they were paired up with.

On the whole, this has been addressed well in Dead Rising 2 : Off the Record and the same challenges simply don't exist here because, Sandbox mode, and the fact the game just simply doesn't shove loads of time-consuming trophies at you that require you to use up the full 7-8 hours per Playthrough just to unlock a couple of trophies at a time.

I only had to beat the game in it's entirety twice this time round, and I reckon I easily halved the completion time compared to Dead Rising 2's estimate of 80-100 hours, though it is admittedly difficult to give a true approximate of the overall completion time as the game tracks your progress absolutely nowhere. Whilst there is still a bit of overlap here and there, the addition of Co-op challenges and some new trophies with different requirements is enough to keep me fairly regret-free because I actually still kind of enjoyed it a bit. I can't even say I'd do it again with convinction anyway because Dead Rising 3 went back to being an Xbox exclusive and was never released for the Playstation.

Notable Trophies -

Purewal Memorial Cup - Don't consume any meat, dairy or alcohol until the military arrives.
Six Digits?!? - Kill 100,000 zombies. [Host Only].
Even More Help From My Friends - Get a gold medal on all co-op challenges.
Alpha Vs. Omega - Have Denyce attack and damage Sgt Boykin.

Hardest Trophy - 

Six Digits?!?!                                                                                                 Kill 100,000 zombies. [Host Only].

DLC #155 - Resident Evil 2 - Another Survivor

Having recently started tackling the Resident Evil 2 reboot for the Playstation 4, I did notice an extra bit of DLC containing a single trophy with a very vague description.

For not wanting to potentially expose myself to spoilers, I didn't read up anything about it and left my imagination to ponder what the solitary "Chasing Jill" trophy actually entailed.

The description just simply briefs you to read a letter left behind by Jill.

It turns out to be less cryptic, and much more literal. Whilst playing through Leon's campaign in the main story, there's a moment just after you escape the Police Station, and right before you enter the Sewers where you stumble upon a fairly obviously placed note addressed to Kendo from Jill Valentine.

You have to move through Kendo's Gun Shop whilst transitioning across to the Sewers via the Police Station, so it's not even as if the document is well hidden. It's actually just sitting there on a counter inside the store and all you need to do is pick it up and read it.

A very accidental completion. They don't come much easier than that.

Platinum #114 - South Park : The Fractured But Whole

 Platinum Difficulty Rating - 3/10

The "Franchise Prequel", that's actually a sequel. Following on from the Stick of Truth, the Fractured But Whole is a direct continuation from the endgame of it's predecessor.

Dropping the Humans vs Elves craze in favour of Super-Hero Alter-Egos, Cartman has an idea to launch a new Super-Hero movie franchise, but after yet another disagreement amongst the group around how to make enough money to get the plan off the ground, we're suddenly presented with the perfect plot for some more South Park cartoony warfare. Coon and Friends vs The Freedom Pals will take you to all corners of South Park, torn between both parties in order to make it to the big screen.

The gameplay formula remains mostly the same in it's concept. Combat is still turn-based, though is much more expansive than before, with the ability to move freely across tiles on the battlefield being the most notable change, which adds layers of dynamism to combat strategy.

The RPG elements have also been retained, but hugely improved upon too. Characters have different move-sets, which can be mixed and matched to produce tons of variety in battle/squad combinations, which is a crucial element to progression. Moves, Summons and the ability to craft battle items using consumables also add to the variety of options within the players arsenal, and being able to collect DNA Strands and Artefacts, placing them in various character slots that become more available as you level up your character, all heavily contribute to the RPG feel. The vast array of options and character customisation really make it look like they've levelled-up the RPG experience.

It's a solid sequel that improves upon the original game in practically every element, which is also reflected in the 36 trophy-strong list.

I know you can technically beat the Stick of Truth in 1 Play-through, using some save-game trickery to reload at certain points and make alternative choices where multiple trophies are earned, but I played through that game twice anyway. I wanted to enjoy the story and had also missed a couple of trophies that I wasn't aware were missable until it was too late.

So, the big improvement on the trophy list for the Fractured But Whole is the fact that none of that exists anymore. Nothing is missable that can potentially force a second Play-through of the entire game, there aren't any split decisions to make during the Story which will block out certain trophies that make them unachievable if you make the opposite choice and everything you do miss can still be mopped up at the end once you've beaten the main story arc.

In fact, after a completely casual run focusing purely on beating the main story, just shy of 30 hours, I'd already unlocked 30 out of the 34 trophies required to achieve the Platinum trophy. This is a bit of trophy list anomaly, especially within story driven games. It's rare to unlock so many trophies through relatively natural progression and it was a bit of a surprise to reach the end and realise how far into the trophy list I'd gotten. When things come across this straight forward, it makes analysis somewhat challenging, but there are still a few main things to look out for;

"The Token Experience" trophy, awarded for Creating a Black character and completing the game on Mastermind Difficulty, will ensure you have to make the right decision at the very beginning of the game during character creation, and if you're to avoid a second Play-through. When you select the darkest skin tone, the indication is that you'll automatically play the game on the toughest difficulty, though it becomes quickly apparent that this is purely for comedic value and you actually choose the real difficulty at some point a little bit later. This is where you have to ensure you select Mastermind difficulty, so there are a couple of things to pay attention to here. I don't technically count this trophy as missable, as it's a decision that's made before the game even begins, and can be easily pre-empted as long as you do your research.

Mastermind difficulty isn't the highest difficulty setting in the game. It sits just below Diabolical. However, you may expect a tougher challenge than what you get in reality. There are a few challenging fights that will keep you on your toes, but finding the correct battle strategy was never more than a few tries away and once you discover artefacts and start to level your characters "might", these battles start to become a matter of going through the motions as you progress towards the end of the game.

Even after clocking the main story at around the 30 hour mark, which did include a little bit of digression here and there, the 4 trophies I had remaining only took me a further 4 hours to grab. To fit in with the aforementioned point around the lack of digression away from the main story, these included discovering and mastering every toilet in the game, collecting all 40 Yaoi posters for Clyde's Dad, unlocking all combat TimeFarts and finally, defeating Morgan Freeman.

Speaking of which, the "Farts Over Freckles" trophy, awarded for Picking a fight with Morgan Freeman and defeating him, is the best example of one of the rare times this game will seldom challenge you. He has 9999HP and some devastating wide-spread, one-hit moves which can take out your entire team if your positioning/strategy is caught wanting. He also has multiple battle phases you'll need to contend with, where he'll clone himself as a "Young" Morgan Freeman, as well as another phase where he'll use the "Soothing Voice" move to Charm a member of your team.

Before quickly touching upon the fight itself, it's important to note that, Morgan Freeman won't fight you if your character is still black, which is more than likely to be the case if you've been following the requirements of the trophy list as per "The Token Experience". Thankfully, you can change your skin colour via PC Principal, located at Crunchy's Microbrewery, and this will all your to initiate the conflict.

You should be fairly well-prepared by this point, but I made sure I bought alot of healing/revive items into the fight, which were definitely needed. His vast amount of HP means this is a long fight anyway, but they become longer when you get closer to the end and one attack takes out the whole team, so it's important to have healing items to hand. It's also important to chain together status effects which deal damage per turn. Anything that causes bleeding, shock or gross out will do, and it's also important to make sure these are consistent throughout the fight in order to continually whittle that HP down. The Morgan Freeman clone phase isn't too bad to deal with, but the second phase when he starts to use the "Soothing Voice" ability to charm your team is where I lost the majority of my attempts. Not only will this take a turn away from you per round, but the damage inflicted against your team is something you can't really afford with how powerful Morgan Freeman already is.

He's the real end boss for good reason, and the majority of the time dedicated towards trophy clean-up was specifically on trying to beat him. I spent around 3 hours attempting to do this, and when you consider the overall completion time of around 35 hours total, this ends up being almost where 10% of my time was spent.

Before I knew it though, that was it. The full trophy list clocked in a single 34 hour Play-through. No need to run around gathering tons of collectibles or worrying about what you might have missed along the way during the story, a stark contrast from the Stick of Truth, and certainly a welcome change of pace. I've always believed it's completely unnecessary to overload trophy lists with tons of missables, and some games are still guilty of that, so the change in direction for the sequel is refreshing to see. A much more traditional trophy list with clarity and no frills.

Looking back at my previous rating of the Stick of Truth has put me a tricky spot. I've perhaps slightly under-rated the Stick of Truth in hindsight, and there's no doubt the Fractured But Whole is a much simpler experience designed to make life easier for Trophy hunters in comparison to it's predecessor. My gut reaction was to give this a 4/10 too but can I really give them both the same score when I've already made the point that this is definitely a more casual experience? Probably not, though the Stick of Truth was rated without anything to relatively compare it to. I will nudge this down to a 3/10 though, as I believe that's the fairest reflection on both games. This is an easier trophy hunting experience and the scores of both games should reflect that as fairly as possible.

You can simply enjoy The Fractured But Whole journey as if trophies don't even exist and the progress you make throughout will be rewarded as you go along. Collectibles are hugely watered down compared to the original game too and everything can be polished off in a single play-through. Wins all round.

Notable Trophies -

The Token Experience - Create a Black character and complete the game on Mastermind Difficulty.
Farts over Freckles - Pick a fight with Morgan Freeman and defeat him.

Hardest Trophy -

Farts over Freckles                                                                                             Pick a fight with Morgan Freeman and defeat him                                                                                                                                    

Platinum #113 - Overwatch and DLC #155 Additional Characters 1 and DLC #156 - Additional Characters 2

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 10/10

I appreciate this is late, but there are legitimate reasons behind such lack of urgency, mainly around much uncertainty surrounding the future of Overwatch, and more specifically, what exactly Overwatch 2 would look like from a trophy list perspective.

It turns out, Overwatch 2 never got a brand new list after all, and the trophies for Overwatch 2 were a mere DLC continuation of this list, with tweaks made to the existing Overwatch trophy requirements for it's heroes - which has been symbolic of this game's life cycle.

Overwatch has been an interesting game to tackle and I'm going to review the Platinum trophy as well as the accompanying DLC packs that came with it all in one go, which is fitting for a game which has been somewhat unique in it's journey towards full completion.

Most of the challenges within the Overwatch trophy list don't necessarily stem from the trophies themselves, but are more to do with the infrastructure of the game and how this has evolved over time throughout it's lifespan.

This isn't a game I intended to finish this suddenly, but building up to the release of Overwatch 2, there was alot of speculation over how Blizzard was going to handle the trophy list of Overwatch 1, and after numerous flings with this game over the years, I felt the best course of action was to just dive in and grab the outstanding trophies, leaving nothing to chance.

For full disclosure, the main reason I'm rating this trophy list the maximum score possible is because I've done something I've never done before - Openly boost portions of the trophy list in organised boosting events.

I've always been a big advocate of giving games an honest shot, regardless of their difficulty, and I did do this with Overwatch. I managed to unlock the majority of trophies just naturally playing through the game and fulfilling their requirements in organic fashion, but there are alot of trophies that I feel are way beyond realistic expectations of most players in their requirements, and some of the changes Blizzard made to the design of this game became big barriers for trophy hunters, which I will elaborate on throughout this piece.

The notable trophies in this instance will simply be the ones I had to boost, and whilst these are by no coincidence also some of the hardest trophies in the list anyway, being bound by both time constraints and some awkward game design features, I felt this was the best way forward in the interest of full completion.

The main reason I'm bundling the DLC packs into this piece is purely because everything that can be said about the Platinum trophy is fully applicable to the DLC packs, which are just hero specific trophies for the batch of new characters that were added to the game post-release. They suffer the same challenges as everything else in the main list, so we can easily group them all together.

Overwatch is a Multi-Player only, First Person Shooter (actually referred to as a "Hero Shooter") with over 30 different playable characters, each with their own unique set of weapons, tactics and special moves. Game modes vary from escorting a Payload from point A to B and capturing specific zones on the map, all surrounded by fast and frenetic, run and gun gameplay.

The cast of characters is vast and adds tons of personality to the game, and each and every one of them brings something different to the table that keeps the game fresh and full of variety. Along with a unique graphics style, it all combines to make Overwatch an excellent title.

The main trophy list is large in size and contains 60 trophies, including the Platinum Trophy. Both DLC packs add a combined total of 22 additional trophies, with 12 and 10 respectively for each new pack, so this is a huge list all in all.

Of these 82 trophies, a massive 64 of these are dedicated to the 32 playable heroes in the game, with each hero having 2 hero-specific trophies in this list. The rest of the trophies are for random feats that can mostly be earned naturally through just playing out games, and these aren't really the main talking point here.

Before I go on to discuss the game design, previously mentioned for being the biggest challenge in regards to this trophy list, it is important to note that these hero-specific trophies themselves lie across an incredibly broad spectrum in their difficulty scale. Some of them are very achievable and some of them are incredibly tough and you can definitely make a strong argument for the Platinum difficulty rating being high enough without further consideration to anything else purely due to the requirements of some of these trophies in the main list. Some of the DLC trophies are even worse, and actually border impossible. 

Time constraints aside, I could have sat here forever and not achieved some of these trophies, such are the unrealistic expectations of their requirements, and I would actually go as far to suggest they somewhat ruin the game, especially if you're of a trophy hunting disposition.

However, that's just the tip of the iceberg here, and as previously eluded to, Overwatch is a game that has changed alot over time, and not necessarily for the better in context of trophy hunting.

For starters, some of the trophy requirements have been altered over time. This hasn't happened with all of them, and in all honesty, I don't know the level of regularity this has occurred across the entire list, but I do know the conditions for these trophies have been tweaked in accordance with ongoing game updates to the characters in the game, and thus, it makes true analysis somewhat implausible. 

If you'd already achieved the trophy under a previous condition, then this wouldn't have any impact, though just to add some extra confusion, the trophy description would still change and reflect it's most recent form, but I have no idea if some of these requirements made these trophies more difficult compared to their previous iterations or not.

Purely going by their achievement rate, some of these trophies I unlocked legitimately seem to be fairly rare, but did they become more rare because there was an adjustment that made them more challenging to accomplish? Or were they always a challenging trophy straight out of the box? I'm sure I could put together some very detailed analysis on this and draw some conclusions if I really wanted to, but the complexity of that punctuates this point nicely when it comes to reviewing trophy lists.

Secondly, one of the big changes Overwatch made to it's game design was the Hero queuing system.

When the game was first released, players had a freedom of choice amongst the entire character cast to choose whoever they wanted to use without restriction. This would sometimes create balance issues if the majority of players on the team decided to choose a certain class of character, of which there are 3 (Tank, Damage and Support).

They eventually changed this and made it a mandatory requirement to split teams of 6 into 2 of each role, and as a direct consequence of this, introduced a queueing system. If you want to play as a Tank or Support class, it's roughly a 2 minute wait, however, if you want to play as a Damage class, the wait times would be within the 15-20 minute time period.

I understand why they had to change this. If nobody wanted to choose a healing character, for example, the balance of the team suffers and you'd more than likely play out alot of uncompetitive games, but from a trophy hunting perspective, it's an absolute nightmare to have to queue for potentially 20 minutes, just to be able to choose a character you needed trophies for, and then to also face the possibility of not achieving the trophy you needed within that game. The game also does not have any lobby continuation, so after every game, you're thrown back to the main menu and have to join into the queue again, repeating this process.

This was a big driver for exploring boosting options. I didn't have the time to waste sitting in queues just to be able to attempt the trophies I needed for damage characters knowing that every time I was unsuccessful, I'd have to burn another 20 minutes in a queue waiting for another go at it. 

Finally, in another game feature that was changed further down the line, each hero is restricted to a single presence per game, so if you need trophies for a particular hero, but someone else chooses that hero and doesn't change, you don't have any options other than to hope they switch, which can also feel like you're wasting your time. Imagine queuing for 20 minutes, getting into a game and then someone else chooses the character you wanted to obtain the trophies for.

This is another deal-breaker for trophy hunters, and there was a time when players could choose to be the same character. Again, I understand why these changes had to be made, and developers only ever have the best interest of the overall gaming experience at heart, but it still doesn't make these points any less valid speaking from a trophy hunters point of view.

These all combine to make for a series of fairly challenging obstacles to overcome as a trophy hunter, and it is really difficult to assess this list speaking individually about certain trophies when these game design issues are the true barriers to completion.

Is this a difficult list anyway? I would say so. It has some extremely challenging trophies I don't think I would have realistically achieved irrespective of spending half my entire time with this game sitting in queues wating to actually play it, and that does still count for something here amongst all of this, so it's important to not lose sight of that.

It's difficult to nail down an overall completion time because the varied spectrum of difficulty and luck-based circumstances you need to find yourself in, in order to unlock some of the trophies within this list, is vast. Not to mention the amount of time you will accumulate waiting in queues to get into games along the way. Even if it wasn't for the time constraints working against a game whose fate was unsure ahead of the release of Overwatch 2, I still believe boosting would be a necessary evil to get this game finished within reason, otherwise you could potentially be here for a very long time.

This is a great game purely as a gaming experience, but it isn't trophy hunter friendly at all, and the wide spectrum of difficulty between some of these trophies creates a wild sense of imbalance. When you factor the above game design choices, that work against you as a completionist, then you are massively up against it here, and I'm defaulting this to the maximum score because of my conclusion that the most effective way to get this game finished was through boosting, which is something I've never done before for any game.

NOTE: The trophy descriptions for the Notable trophies may have changed throughout the course of the game's lifespan and could also still be further subject to future change.

NOTE 2: The Additional Characters 1 DLC pack has an Overwatch 2 trophy attached to it, which would technically make it incomplete, but due to confidence in this being a development error, this has not been considered and the pack has been treated as completed.

Notable Trophies - Overwatch Main list -

Rapid Discord - Get 4 kills or assists with Zenyatta's Orb of Discord within 6 seconds in Quick or Competitive play.
The Floor Is Lava - Get 3 killing blows while wall riding as Lucio without dying in Quick or Competitive play.
It's High Noon - Get 4 killing blows with a single use of McCree's Deadeye in Quick or Competitive play.
Slice and Dice - Kill 4 enemies with a single use of Genji's Dragonblade in Quick or Competitive play.
Hog Wild - Knock 2 enemies to their deaths with one use of Roadhog's Whole Hog in Quick or Competitive play.

Notable Trophies - Additional Characters 1 DLC -

Halt State - Pull enemies into 1000 damage with a single use of Orisa's Halt! in Quick or Competitive Play.
Overclocked - Amplify 900 damage with a single use of Orisa's Supercharger in Quick or Competitive Play.
Cratered - Hit 6 enemies with a single use of Doomfist's Meteor Strike in Quick or Competitive play.
Antipode - Hit 7 targets simultaneously with Moira's Coalescence in Quick or Competitive play. 

  

Notable Trophies - Additional Characters 2 DLC -

Served Up - Get a killing blow as Ashe on an enemy knocked into the air by B.O.B in Quick or Competitive play.
Window of Opportunity - Amplify 2500 combined damage and healing without dying as Baptise in Quick or Competitive play.
Event Horizon - Get 3 killing blows with a single use of Sigma's Gravitic Flux in Quick or Competitive play.
Focused - Earn 2 killing blows with a single use of Echo's Focusing Beam in Quick or Competitive play.

Hardest Trophy - 

Rapid Discord                                                                                                            Get 4 kills or assists with Zenyatta's Orb of Discord within 6 seconds in Quick or Competitive play.