NZBigC's PlayStation Plus Platinum Plateau

[NZBigC]

#18: Twisted Metal 2

Difficulty: 2/10
Enjoyment: 7/10 
Time to complete: 2 - 4 hours

Number of Playthroughs: 1 story + 11 final battles

Platinum-breaking bugs: 0

 

 

 

Twisted Metal World Tour is a PlayStation Classic vehicular combat game and sequel to Twisted Metal. It is a free for all destruction type-like game but with weapons and over-the-top characters and vehicles. There are a few modes here such as the Tournament, where you battle it out against numerous foes across 8 maps to be crowned Twisted Metal champion, and Challenge Match, where you can choose the level and amount of enemies to go up against. You can also play these modes with a friend in couch co-op mode which is nice to see. Do note that this game is rather hard thanks to the PlayStation 1 controls, as well as every enemy seemingly being able to use their special abilities at will, so if you are struggling to complete levels, there is a way to easily cheese this which I will mention soon. The majority of trophies will be earned through the Tournament mode, and on your way to the platinum trophy, you will be doing things such as driving on water, discovering the museum on the Paris level, and defeating an opponent with a remote bomb.

 

 

One of the many characters you can choose to take on the world

 

The Hardest Award:    Dark Flame: Complete level 8, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Krunch and defeat Dark Tooth.    

 

The Hardest Award goes to, Dark Flame: Complete level 8, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Krunch and defeat Dark Tooth. If playing legitimately, this will definitely be a tough battle as Dark Tooth is armed to the gills with so many attacks that it is hard to see what is going on half of the time he is on screen, and you will find yourself with no health in a matter of moments. Thankfully, there is a way to easily defeat him, and that is to activate the invincibility cheat so that you take no damage at all. However, if you keep the cheat on whilst defeating him, the trophy will not unlock, so you will have to input the cheat again to deactivate it. Do this when he has almost no health remaining and then intentionally lose one of your lives. Once you respawn back in, feel free to defeat him any way you want. After defeating Dark Tooth, you will then have to fight the flaming head of the truck, but this battle is much easier and faster to complete, even without using any cheats. Once you win the second battle, this trophy shall be yours.

 

 

 

The Most Satisfying Award:    They Call Me the Rock: Defeat an opponent with collision damage.
The Most Satisfying Award goes to, They Call Me the Rock: Defeat an opponent with collision damage. In all honestly, this one was a pain for me to unlock, because I was specifically going for it, and I just so happened to be using Road Kill and targeting the last enemy alive, Warthog. The problem with this is that Road Kill is pretty weak compared to Warthog, so I had to get him down to a slither of health left before I was able to defeat him with collision damage. Even with a tiny amount of health left, I still had to ram him a few times to finish him off finally. Axel, on the other hand, is a blast, pun intended, to use, as he is very strong and deals a lot of collision damage. I had a lot of fun ramming into and destroying many enemies on my way to beating levels, and as the award mentions, this was very satisfying to do. This one will be yours once you eliminate your first opponent via collision damage.

 

Axel, one of the easier characters to defeat an opponent with collision damage with

 

The Grindiest Award:    Collect The Final Prize: Collect your winning prize as WINNER.

The Grindiest Award goes to a selection of trophies, and they are for beating the game and collecting the winning prize for each character. You will need to complete the game, or at least the last level, with every character in the game to get their respective trophy. You can play through all 8 levels of tournament mode with each character, but if you are in a hurry or do not really feel like doing that, you are able to input a code at the menu that puts you up against the main boss of the game in the final level. As mentioned earlier, you are able to input the invincibility code to make this battle a breeze if you really feel the need to, and you might want to if you get bored by the third or fourth time you come across this fight. You do have to win this battle twelve times since there are twelve characters, so once you win your twelve and final battle, all of these trophies will be yours.

 

Each character has a different ending, but be careful what you wish for!

 

 So, should you go for the Twisted Metal 2 platinum trophy?

 

Even though the graphics and controls are pretty horrible, the gameplay is still as sweet as ever, and I had a blast playing through this, even though I got my ass handed to me when I first started playing it. The longer I played, the better I got at it, especially with handling, and that made the overall experience rather enjoyable. Even though it can be quite hard, there are a few cheats that you can use as well as being able to rewind any section that you fail at, meaning the difficulty to platinum this is very low. Also, because there are codes to use to put you into the final mission with each character, you are able to get through this game rather quickly, but of course, if you want to do it legitimately, then it will take much longer to do. For these reasons along with the sweet sweet hit of nostalgia, I think you should go for this platinum trophy.

 

 

 

 

My video review of the game:
 

 

Edited August 2, 2023 by NZBigC

[NZBigC]

#19: Moving Out

Difficulty: 3/10

Enjoyment: 8/10 
Time to complete: 15 hours

Number of Playthroughs: 1

Platinum-breaking bugs: 0

Should you go for the Moving Out Platinum Trophy?
 

Moving Out is a house-packing game. It may sound boring on paper, but this game is anything but. This is a silly but amazingly chill and exciting physics-based moving simulator with extremely cute graphics and gameplay. The aim of the game is to get x amount of items out of a house and into your truck in as little time as possible. Each level has 3 goals ranging from shooting three basketballs in a row to not getting any packages wet in a pool. The best part of this game is that there is couch co-op, meaning you can play with a loved one, big or small, as this game is suitable for all ages. If things do get too hard or frustrating, you can turn assist mode on, making this game a breeze to play through, even if played solo. With assist mode, you can adjust things such as having longer time limits, making objects disappear once in the truck, and making two-player items lighter so you can easily drag them with one player. On your way to the platinum trophy, you will be doing things such as not slapping any ghosts, sitting on every toilet in the game, and delivering over a thousand items.

 

 

Choose from a variety of normal and whacky-looking characters

 

The Grindiest Award:    111% Effort: Achieve 111% in the game.

 

The Grindiest award goes to, 111% Effort: Achieve 111% in the game. This trophy should by far take you the longest to get out of any of the others. Thankfully you will also be unlocking four other trophies along the way, which will be for getting gold medals on every level, completing all 90 objectives, and completing all arcade and memory levels. Each level has 3 objectives for you to do and a lot of them involve not breaking things such as glass windows and furniture, or only using or avoiding certain entry points. Getting gold in a level is entirely about speed, and you have to complete each level in a certain amount of time to get a gold or even platinum medal, although platinum medals are not needed for the trophy. Sadly though, you will not be able to get both a gold medal and all three objectives done in a single run in a lot of these levels, so you will more than likely be playing each level two or even three times to make sure you have done everything correctly. Be sure to look at the objectives and golden times at the start of each level, and then decide on the best course of action. Although this is not a hard trophy, it can be a rather frustrating one, so do take your time if you need to. Once you have beaten each of the 30 levels within the allotted time, along with completing all of the 90 objectives, as well as completing the many arcade and memory levels, this trophy will finally be yours.   

 

Packing up household items should be easy, right? Right?!

 

The Cutest Award:    Animal Lover: Deliver every pet.

The Cutest Award goes to, Animal Lover: Deliver Every Pet. There are animals on ten different levels, and you need to pack them all up on each level by placing them in the truck along with the furniture. You will come across a variety of animals such as a goose, a frog, chickens, and cows. Most of the levels will have you deliver one animal, but on the farm level, you will have to deliver four. This might not sound too bad, but the fact that they are animals means they do not sit still once placed in the truck, so you will have to box them in before moving back onto packing furniture. Heck, you even have to chase after most of them on every level, especially the chickens. Once you deliver all the animals on every level, this trophy will be yours.

 

 

The Most Annoying Award:    That's Not Landfill!: Deliver the hidden console from each story level

The Most Annoying Award goes to, That's Not Landfill! Deliver the hidden console from each story level. This one is annoying because this item is not needed in the truck to complete a level, meaning it does not pulsate like the items that are needed. Also, if you are playing in assist mode, this item does not disappear like the other items once it is in the truck. Every main level has a hidden console, and some levels have multiple consoles in different colours, so you need to make sure that you chuck in the correct one. Sadly there is no way to keep track of which ones you have placed in the game, so if this trophy does not unlock by the end of the game, you will more than likely have to play through each level until it unlocks. This happened to me, but thankfully I had a good idea of which console was not placed correctly, and that was on the Ahhh-tari office level where you have to place all of the items in an elevator rather than a truck. For some reason, the console got stuck on the ledge or rail inside the elevator, and as the elevator went down to complete the level, I saw that the console did not go down with it, but rather stayed on the rail inside the elevator. After not unlocking this trophy after completing the final level, I went back to this one, and lo and behold, the trophy popped once I completed it properly this time. If need be, keep a document of which levels you have done, and once you complete the 30th level, this trophy should hopefully be yours.

 

 

Travel from house to house completing jobs in Packmore, the local town

So, should you go for the Moving Out platinum trophy?

 

This game is ridiculously cute and very fun, and I had a lot of fun playing it with my young children with many laughs had with the quirky gameplay and mechanics. Even when I played it by myself, I had a ball playing it. With assist mode on, it was relatively easy for the most part, and there were no real hard things to do other than a couple of things at the end of the game. Similarly, with assist mode on, this should take you around 15 hours to complete, or a lot longer without it, or if you are playing with a buddy or child mucking around in the levels. Because of these reasons, I think you should go for the platinum trophy.

 

 

 

 

 

My video review of the game:

 

 

[NZBigC]

#20: Sniper Elite 5

Difficulty: 5/10

Enjoyment: 8/10 
Time to complete: 25 hours

Number of Playthroughs: 1 to 2

Platinum-breaking bugs: 0

 

 

Should you go for the Sniper Elite 5 Platinum Trophy?
 
Sniper Elite 5 is a third-person tactical shooter set in World War 2 France nearing the end of the war. As the title suggests, you play as an elite sniper, Karl Fairburne, as you try to take down as many German enemies across some eerily breathtaking French landscapes as you can. The best thing about this game, and what also makes it unique to games, aside from Mortal Kombat, is that it has this amazing enhanced kill cam that shows you exactly what you have hit with your sniper, be it the heart, the lungs, or, as I cross my legs as I type this, the good ol family jewels (insert family jewels). There are a total of 9 maps or levels in the main story of the game, as well as some DLC ones, and there are also a few multiplayer modes here too, sadly which you will need to play all of in order to achieve the platinum. One of these unique modes is called Axis Invasion, where you can join someone’s story mode, or have someone join yours, either as an ally or an enemy sniper. You are able to turn this mode off when you first start the game, and I suggest you do so that randoms don’t join you midway through a game, finishing you off time and time again. There are 54 trophies in the base game, and on your way to the platinum trophy, you will be doing things such as reaching rank 40, completing the entire campaign on Authentic difficulty, and hitting every organ at least once with a rifle

 

 

Make sure to take cover and admire the beauty of your surroundings

 

The Hardest Award:  Best of the Best: Complete the entire campaign on Authentic difficulty

 

The Hardest Award goes to, Best of the Best: Complete the entire campaign on Authentic difficulty. The authentic difficulty is the hardest difficulty, with your hud completely disappearing so that you do not have a mini-map or see how many bullets you have in your gun. Enemies are harder to take down, they seem to act more randomly, and there seems to be way more of them when you get spotted or an alarm goes off. Another big thing is that there is bullet drop, meaning it is much harder to line up a shot compared to easier difficulties. Ultimately, though, this is not very hard to complete as you are able to save at any stage of the game and reload it when the going gets tough. Even with being able to reload at will, I would suggest you go in stealth as much as you can and enjoy the experience on this run and only reload when you do get overwhelmed. In saying that, do save as much as you can. I read somewhere that you only have x amount of saves in authentic mode, but that wasn’t the case for me. I did play the game on easy first so that I could unlock all the guns and collectables easily and have them at my disposal come Authentic mode, but I think you would not have a problem getting the collectables in authentic mode, and would probably have a more fun time doing so on authentic mode as you have to go out of your way to get some rather than just focusing on getting to the end. Also, obviously, playing on Authentic mode from the jump will reduce the number of hours needed to get the platinum trophy too. Once you complete every level on Authentic Difficulty, this trophy will be yours.

 

Take your time playing on Authentic Difficulty

 

 

 

The Most Annoying Award:  Shoot for the Moon: Complete three Survival missions

 
The Most Annoying Award, at least for me, goes to, Shoot for the Moon: Complete three Survival missions. This isn’t a very annoying trophy to get, but more the fact that I had an annoying time with this mode, and I will tell you why in a moment. For this trophy, you need to play three survival missions which is the game’s wave survival game similar to Call of Duty Zombies. You need to survive 12 waves with each wave getting bigger and harder to defeat. I joined somebody’s game at the first wave and had gotten all the way to the twelve wave. With around 6 enemies remaining, the host decided to be a stand-up guy and boot me from the match, meaning I did not complete the mission. Each mission takes between 20 to 30 minutes to complete, so that was a lot of time wasted for that. I later found out that you can start your own missions on the easiest difficulty, so I decided to do that for the three missions needed for this trophy, and I also did not be a dick and kick any random who joined. Upon completing the third mission, this trophy popped.

 

 

The Grindiest Award:  Master-at-arms: Become the Master of each weapon

The Grindiest award goes to, Master-at-arms: Become the Master of each weapon. Mastery of a weapon means a certain amount of kills. For pistols, which you need to master 6 of, this will be 50 ghost kills. A ghost kill is when the shot is not heard or the body is not discovered. For secondaries, you will need to get 150 kills for 6 different weapons, and for rifles, you will need to get 50 headshots over 100 metres for 6 different guns. That is quite a lot of kills, and you will more than likely not have this trophy by the end of your campaign, especially if you only play through on Authentic mode right away. However, there are many good things about this game that make getting this trophy a breeze, and one of them is that you are able to save and reload at any time of the game. Another good thing is that you are able to knock enemies, meaning you are able to knock out a ton of enemies at once, cluster them all together in an area, eliminate them all with a certain gun, reload your save file, and do it all over again. Kills also carry over even when you do reload, meaning you are able to master a gun in a matter of minutes depending on how many bodies you have stacked up. This is definitely the way to go with the secondary and pistol medals. With the rifle … load up Spy Academy, and a few seconds into the level, you will be at a great spot to snipe enemies from 100 metres away. Save at this spot, eliminate as many people as you can, reload your save file, and go again until you master a gun. Back out of the level, choose another rife, and repeat the process. Once you have mastered 18 weapons across the three types, this trophy will be yours. 

 

There are a number of guns to choose from and you will need to get a lot of kills with each one

 

 

So, should you go for the Sniper Elite 5 platinum trophy?

 

This game is stunning, both graphics and landscape wise despite being set in a horrible time in history, and I did not come across any game-breaking bugs or issues. The majority of the trophies are simple to get, and if you use the reload and repeat method to get the trophies mentioned above, you will also knock out many other trophies such as reaching rank 40 and the miscellaneous x amount of kills trophies. If you play the game on two playthroughs, this will probably take you around 30 hours to complete, but if you dive straight into authentic difficulty, it should shave off a bit of time given you go for the collectables on this run too. On top of all of this, I had a blast, pun intended, playing through this. I hadn’t played a Sniper game before, so it was quite thrilling to witness the kill cams in all of its bloody glory. For all of these reasons, I think you should definitely go for this platinum trophy.
 

 

 

My video review of the game:

 

[NZBigC]

 

#21: Moving Out 2

Difficulty: 2/10

Enjoyment: 8/10 
Time to complete: 10 hours

Number of Playthroughs: 1

Platinum-breaking bugs or missables: 0

 

Moving Out 2 is a sequel to, you guessed it, Moving Out, a glorious house-packing and unpacking game. A house packing game you say? You might not think anything of that, but this game is seriously addicting and fun to play, especially with a friend or family member, with up to 4 players being able to play on one console. If you haven’t played the first one or seen anything about this one, let me give you a short rundown of what to expect. This is a chaotic yet chill, physics-based moving simulator with some pretty amazing graphics. The idea of it is to move a set amount of objects to a moving truck, or from a moving truck and into a set position in a building depending on the level you are playing. Each level has 5 goals to achieve, and I will be delving into that a little later on. If playing by yourself, you will have a good time, but if playing with others, it will be pure madness. To make things a little easier, by yourself or with others, you should turn on the assist mode. Assist Mode heavily reduces the difficulty of getting the platinum, as you are able to turn things on such as having longer time limits, reducing the difficulty, making two-player items lighter, and having objects disappear on delivery so you do not have to reshuffle things around, chewing up time. Thankfully there are no online trophies for this, despite being able to play online with friends, something the first one did not have. This game has a total of 29 trophies, and on your way to the platinum trophy, you will be doing things such as completing each dimension, finding all arcade carts, and smashing a ton of statues.

 

Moving Out is back with even more zany and chaotic levels

 

 

The Collectabalist Award:   Max F.A.R.T: Achieve max F.A.R.T rating

 

The Collectabalist Award goes to, Max F.A.R.T: Achieve max F.A.R.T rating. To get a Max F.A.R.T rating, you need to collect 200 stars out of a possible 266 stars in the game. This is much easier compared to the first Moving Out game as you need to collect every star possible. Each level usually has 5 stars. You can get up to two of these stars by completing the level in x amount of time, and the other three relate to things you need to do in the level. These objectives can be anything such as bouncing a number of items off umbrellas to keeping items unbroken to high-fiving a robot sitting on a toilet. You are not able to see these objectives when you first play a level, so I heavily suggest looking up a guide to see what you need to do so that you do not have to replay each level once the objectives are revealed. There are also some levels where it is impossible to get every objective done as one contradicts another, such as smashing all objects in a level to not smashing any. This is totally fine though as you are able to miss up to 66 stars on your way to the platinum, so if you get 3 to 4 stars on each level, you should definitely be close to getting this trophy by the end of the game. Once you do collect 200 stars, this one will be yours. 

 

 

The Most Satisfying Award:   Smashing Good Time: Smash 404 items while driving the truck

 

The Most Satisfying Award goes to, Smashing Good Time: Smash 404 items while driving the truck. Whenever you are driving your truck around any of the worlds, you are able to smash through several items such as fences, letter boxes, and street lamps. You should start going for this as soon as you can, smashing everything in sight once you load up the game. Once you complete a level or find a hidden item, everything will be reset, meaning you can return to your glorious smashing. It is quite therapeutic doing it too, and you might even find yourself smashing through a ton of fences well after you have gotten this trophy. Also, do not forget to hit the soccer ball into one of the goals for another easy trophy. Once you have smashed your way through 404 items, this trophy will be yours. 

 

Welcome back to Packmore. Don't forget to smash those fences!

 

 

The Cutest Award:   Style for Days!/Getting the Gang Back Together: Find all style crates/Find all the crates

 

The Cutest Award goes to two trophies, and they are, Style for days!: Find all style crates, and Getting the Gang Back Together: Find all the crates. The reason I am putting these two together is that they are pretty much one and the same. There are 19 crates and 13 style crates scattered throughout the worlds and levels, and finding a crate will unlock a new mover to use, whereas a style crate unlocks a few more skins for those movers. If you have played the first one, you will definitely see a few familiar faces the more crates you unlock. A lot of these are very easy to find, often sitting out in the open of a level, however, there are a number of them that are well hidden or difficult to find, and you will not know that there is a crate in that level until it is too late. Thankfully, at the end of a level, it will tell you if there is a crate, so if you do miss one, you are able to go right back in and search for it. Of course, you are able to use a guide from the go and know exactly where they are, so if you do want to cut down on the time needed to platinum this, read a text guide online while you play through the levels so that you don’t miss any of these. Once you have found the 19th and 13th crates, these trophies will be yours.

 

 

Collect those crates to unlock a bunch of new movers to control!

 

So, should you go for the Moving Out 2 platinum trophy?

 

Just like the first one, this game is a ton of fun to play, and it is very easy to pick up and play too. My 4 and 6-year-old kids were able to understand what to do from the start, so if you have a young one, definitely try it out with them or even the whole family. The humour is also a great touch and really adds a lot of personality to the game. There are no hard trophies to get in this game, and it is even easier than the first as you do not have to perfect every level. I managed to platinum this in under 10 hours, but it might take you a few hours more if you do not use a guide to see what the objectives are first before you play a level, and possibly even longer if you choose not to use assist mode too. For all of these reasons, I think you should go for the platinum trophy, ya big F.A.R.T!

 

 

Here is my video review: