Ah, trophy whoring. While I’ve never obsessed over the fake-but-totally-real little awards packed into games enough to hunt down a copy of the Hannah Montana movie tie-in, I’ll definitely go after platinum trophies if they’re reasonably attainable. A couple of weeks ago I got the platinum trophies for Assassin’s Creed II and Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, with the latter being the easiest of the five I’ve picked up.There are a few other games I own that I’m on the cusp of getting the platinum for but have given up on. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune only asks that I beat it on Crushing, but I couldn’t get halfway through without wanting to break something. For Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection, all I have to do is beat Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine. However, that would require me to get good at a game I hated as a kid and hate even more now. And as much as I love Red Dead Redemption, I don’t see myself putting another 20 or so hours into the multiplayer to reach the top rank.However, those are all games that I could one day buckle down and do something about should I ever feel the need to. The games that follow are relentless and will do nothing but mock even the most steel-willed trophy hunter.So if you plan on playing these games with the intention of getting that platinum, think again.
BioShock 2
This is the most recent game on this list, and also one that not many people played. It’s too bad, because it’s excellent. Not only that, but it hands out most of its trophies like candy. The single-player trophies just ask that you bunker down and beat the game on the hardest difficulty, and even the multiplayer trophies just require you to play all the maps and rank up.However, that’s where the problem lies: no one plays the multiplayer, and with good reason – it’s tacked on, and you can absolutely tell. No one I know who enjoyed the original game asked for it, but there it is for dozens of people to enjoy. Even when I tried out the multiplayer during the first week the game was out I had trouble finding a match, taking anywhere between 2-10 minutes to find a game.
Buy this game, but not for the multiplayer. Or just buy it at all. C’mon, people!I suppose you and a handful of really, really determined friends could try to reach rank 40, but the rest of us in the game community will just move right the hell on, if you don’t mind.
Guitar Hero: Metallica / Van Halen / Smash Hits
The Guitar Hero franchise was a bit saturated last year, to say the very least. On top of the (excellent) Guitar Hero 5, there were THREE other GH games released on consoles. There were two key differences between GH5 and these three offshoots: 1) the offshoots were based on the capable but unspectacular World Tour engine to varying success and 2) the platinum for GH5 is attainable, while the others were goddamn impossible.Obviously I won’t leave you without any proof, so here it is: GH: Metallica (my personal favorite because of my unabashed Metallica fanboyism, but it also had the highest production value) requires you to get insane scores for certain songs with a particular instrument. While no difficulty is specified, the only way you can play enough notes to reach said scores is by doing it on Expert (or Expert+ for the drums). I fancy myself pretty good at both the drums and guitar/bass, but I dare you to even pass Fight Fire with Fire on Expert bass, much less blow through the required 340,000 points for the trophy. And are you good enough to also score 1 million points as a band on Battery and 450K points for Dyers Eve on Expert+ drums? Didn’t think so.
As for Van Halen, they expect you to get 5 stars on guitar for “Little Guitars”, “Cathedral”, “Spanish Fly”, and “Eruption”, the four hardest songs in the game, to nab the “The Woodshed” trophy. Oh, and also every other Van Halen song in the game in career mode for “Guitar God”. Just … no. You are not Eddie.
Finally, Smash Hits required you to kick ass on “Raining Blood” on guitar AND drums for two different trophies.
You have fun with that. Just make sure to stretch your forearms and calves, and drink a lot of water. Don’t forget to call a shrink, crazy person.
Grand Theft Auto IV
Holy crap, do I love me some GTA IV. I beat the single-player three times, and plugged away over 50 hours shooting pigeons and finding jumps to finally reach 100%. In between, I spent many more hours simply dicking around online in free mode with friends, trophies be damned. After getting all of the single-player trophies, however, I figured I’d mop up the multiplayer trophies to get a damn satisfying platinum.Oh man, was I in for a treat.
As it turns out, each trophy has to be achieved in a single session. This is fine for the ones that can be had in a single match, but others can take literally hours. “Auf Wiedersehen Petrovic” requires you to win at basically everything – every race type on every course, every match on every map, all of it – and can take upwards of 10 nonstop hours to achieve. If you or anyone else disconnects during the session your ass is starting over.
To add insult to injury, this is only present in the PS3 version of the game, and has been since GTA IV came out in April 2008. Obviously at this point Rockstar isn’t patching a damn thing, which is a shame. This would easily have been my favorite platinum to have.
Ghostbusters
For a movie I’ve only seen a couple of times, I really do enjoy Ghostbusters. Understandably, fans were a little bit nervous when the game was announced, but everyone was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be as good as it was. Much like BioShock 2, the single-player trophies are also pretty standard fare.
Also like BioShock 2, however, the multiplayer is a ghost town. Maybe if you jumped straight into the MP when the game released – and really, who did? – you’d be able to get the “Overachiever” trophy ($2.5 million earned, 50 jobs, 30 post-job awards). But now, a year after the game released? Don’t hold your breath.
Street Fighter IV
At 23 years old, I’d say I’m still quite young. However, I’ve been playing games since I was about 5 or 6 on my brother’s SNES – just old enough to do some serious button mashing when SFII made its way out of arcades and into living rooms worldwide. So when SFIV came out, it fit me like a glove. Not that I was ever any good at the game to begin with, but it was great that Street Fighter had become accessible to the masses again.This thought process did not extend into the game’s trophy list. While Super SFIV’s trophies swayed back into the realm of human possibility, vanilla SFIV’s trophies were here to hand you your ass on a silver platter (how nice!). Beating the challenges on Hard was already enough to smash your TV over your head, but to get gold medals in all of them for the “Gold Standard”?
Damnation
I dare you to tolerate this ugly, broken dreck dressed as a game long enough to get more than a handful. The trophies are completely doable, but are you really so desperate for a platinum?
Don’t do it! I BELIEVE IN YOU!!!
WipEout HD
Of all of the game franchises with misplaced capital letters in the title, WipEout has to be my favorite. Why wouldn’t it be? The games are always pretty to look at, play at breakneck speeds, and have kickass soundtracks to match. This PSN release was no different.
The game is also totally enjoyable without focusing on trophies (like the good ol’ days of, um, 2007). Once you start trying for them, though, you’re in for a hell of a time. Not necessarily a good one, as the gold trophies require you to be Jesus in a hovercraft, but a time nonetheless. “Elite Campaign Legend” asks that you obtain gold medals in every cell in the campaign on Elite difficulty. “Beat Zico” has you trying to beat one of the developer’s ridiculous lap times.Believe you me, this game is much more fun if you just ignore the trophies and play it for what it is – badass future combat racing.
This obviously doesn’t list every impossible platinum in existence. If you can believe it, I’m just one man. What games have you given up hope for? Let us know in the comments below.
