Month 8 - It's been 2 long

All right Back in action! Been away attending to life issues, sorry for being gone for so long! Finals in school, and now I'm back and trying out for The Tester season 3! I have received an unmentionable amount of support that it blows my mind! I've been working real hard to make connections with other people, videos, and making sure I'm on top of my supporting votes. I have been able to game a bit in between the time, and felt it was best to save the 2 games for 1 blog entry. This month I have another 2 games I have beat and platinumed for ya! I went back to finish the sly series, and I have to say thank the lord! Not because the game was bad it's just because I needed something new to refresh the pallet. 2 month straight on Sly was rather brain frying you would say! For my next game to be cleared off the backlog if you were wondering is Batman: Arkham Asylum. With the second one around the corner I need to beat this, and I already feel bad for waiting this long to do it. Enough of that lets get onto the reviews!

Sly 2 Band of Thieves Review:
Sly 2 was Sucker Punches sequel to Sly Cooper & the Thievieus Raccoonus, and I will say right off the bat what an improvement! Wow... I was amazed it was the same IP like no joke. It went from very narrow and forced you down a certain way to a very open game. Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus was a platformer with a thief story to it... without the thievery. Sly 2 changed that completely by allowing you to sneak up to guards and pick pocket. There are so many more upgrades that Sucker Punch made to this wonderful game that you really have to just find out for yourself by playing it.

Sound: Not much better than the first one. A lot of the same music sounds seem to have made a return, and with a small addition of some other music. The voice acting took a giant leap forward. I was amazed with how much of a drastic change was given to the sound! Carmelita Fox accent was atrocious though hard to listen to and killed the vibe of her background story of where she originated

Gameplay: A Huge jump in gameplay compared to the first one. The first Sly was very linear in a forced way. In Sly 2 they made it so all missions were done in the open roam of the original location. That's right no more hopping through worm holes to get to your next level everything is done in one zone which give the gameplay and feel so much more realism (other than animals being the main characters), but I'm sure you know what I mean by realism. On your new adventure your riding with your pals Bentley and Murray, but this time they don't take the backseat to the game! Each character is playable, and Sly shares the screen time with his faithful sidekicks! A bunch more gadgets/moves to learn and this time it's all currency based and not based off of collecting all the bottles. With an arsenal of moves that each character can specialize your wondering how can they be easy to use. Last game you had to cycle through with triangle? Remember how I said they should have had some more use with the D-Pad or shoulder button? Well they allowed you to map the moves to the shoulder button making moves easy to equip and use on the fly! With an all around improvement in the game the flow of gameplay has to be the biggest part! I take my hat off to Sucker Punch for such an amazing feat! They have come an extremely long way.

Story: Story similar to last game a bunch of bad guys got a hold of some stuff they shouldn't have and now you have to take it away from them. Okay there is a little more to it then that, but you get the general idea :P No?!?!? Okay, so you killed Clockwork and now bad guys are using clockwork parts to do make bad things with them, printing money with his feathers, using lungs to make illegal tea/drug, and etc. Then you have Arpeggio who really has nothing to do with these people, but an arms dealer gets a hold of the clockwork parts and sells them to Arpeggio who is a mean old bitter small parrot because he's well... small. He basically wants these parts to make himself invincible. Decently well thought up story for it's time, basic idea but the best part about the story is the dialogue you had with your friends and foe. other than JRPG's this game seemed to be a head of it's time when it came to dialogue, but I have now found out that Dialogue might be Sucker Punches best aspect of their company. In other words dialogue in this game a lone makes the story worth running through!

Replayability: Again like the first sly something they need to work on. No other difficulties, no challenge mode or nothing. Just straight up story, but you can always go back and repeat the levels you just played. Gain more coins and work on getting 100% by buying all the moves and such. Unfortunately the games trophies lack a 100% so for trophy hunters it lacks the sense of a full completion.

Graphics: Not a drastic step up from the first Sly game, but there was some improvement definitely, but again not something you can expect a game that has been out for that long to withstand the test of time in that category.

Controls: Very basic layout made it easy to navigate and to accomplish attacks, pick pocketing, and sneakery. Like I said earlier I'm glad they found more of a use for the shoulder buttons, it seemed to be pointless for a game to use half the amount of buttons on a controller. Some issue with responsiveness, but not overly bad, mainly the circle button which is your thief moves (spire jump, swinging, balance, etc). a lot of times it wouldn't react when I pushed the circle button around the task. Swinging on hooks he would completely ignore the hook in front of him and either fall to the ground or attach back to the one I launched off of.

Overall it was a great game! I'm glad I took my time playing it, and I was excited to see how many changes the game really went through. The story was nice, the dialogue was amazing, and the new free roam topped the cake. Definitely a must try series I'll play it again down the road no doubt!

Sly 2 Band of Thieves Trophy Guide
Just like the first one not really much to say here. The trophies are very linear complete all the missions, loot as much as you can, find every clue bottle, and purchase all the required moves. one trophy worth noting is Loot where you after to collect 1,500 coins. Best thing to do is not purchase until this trophy is achieved. After beating each level make sure you take advantage of stealing all the big ticket items around the map as well this can help with the Loot trophy as well as buying new and needed moves!

Alright moving onto the next game of choice...

Sly 3 Honor Among Thieves Review
Just when you thought Sucker Punch out did themselves, there next game shows another huge success in a game. They changed voice actors for Carmelita, and although it's still not that great of an accent it beats the other voice actor by a mile. This one is at least bearable, but that's not all the changes!

Sound: The sound was less noticeable in this game, and I don't mean that in a bad way. I think it just had more variety to it so it didn't sound like it was on a 3-minute loop, and allowing you to get more into the game. Again they brought back all the cartoon sounds, the bonk, bam, tiptoe, and anything else you can think of that you would find in an episode of the Looney Toons. Voice acting again when up a huge notch, not only was Carmelita better, but the dialogue flowed from character to character way better. They didn't sound like robots or someone who was talking to a wall. This gives me high hopes for Sucker Punches Sly 4 when it hits, because they've had plenty of time to work out all the kinks and seeing their dialogue grow and become what Infamous is today I have no doubt that Sly 4 will have a great cast of characters and dialogue for their story! I'm so pumped!

Gameplay: Not much difference here from the second Sly game, and needless to say that wasn't broken so there was no need to fix it. The pickpocket and currency system came back for another round. You also got to play as Bentley and Murray again, except this time around you recruited even more people to your team (some of these characters you might remember from the past games :P) and you got to play them as well! They brought new moves and play styles to the game to give it an needed uplift (again not in a bad way, if you have the same game over and over again it gets boring *Cough* Call Of Duty *Cough* Guitar Hero *Cough*). They had new mini-games and ideas that were put into this game to make it lot more interesting! The pirate level you got to commander a ship and have battles on the open seas, and got to go to land and treasure hunt! One thing that was very disappointing was that they removed the clue bottles from this game! I know! how can you play Sly without clue bottles?!?!? it was nice in the sense that I didn't have to go searching for them, but hindsight is 50/50 and now I felt that the game didn't fill that empty void of clue bottle hunting :(

Story: Does the story stand out in this one as much as the second one... It all depends on the person I guess. I enjoyed it and it was different then the other first games. You weren't chasing thieves who stole something from you or preventing thieves from re-building your family’s life long enemy. This was a story about Coopers family vault that was in danger of being looted by his father's former team member, who happened to be the brains of the outfit like Bentley is to Sly. Sadly enough Sly dad wasn't about friendship as much as Sly was, and Dr. M (the partner of Sly's father) was upset about it and wanted their loot because of it. Kind of a lackluster storyline, but it brought freshness in and somewhat made it more intriguing to play in a sense. Basically your team tries to stop him by breaking into the cooper vault and to do that you have to recruit an lovely cast of teammates (again that you will remember some from the past games). The dialogue in this story brings out the greatness again in this game. Not only do Bentley, Murray, and Sly all have great dialogue that they bring to the table, their whole supporting cast does an excellent job making each character very memorable. You don't get this a lot in games anymore, and it's good to see Sucker Punch has kept it as a strong suit and have made it better over the years.

Replayability: One thing Sucker Punch needed to work on and they brought it to the table in this game! Not something I would say will add a lot more to the game, but it gives people a little extra if they feel that they need more Cooper Gang action! Challenges take missions throughout the game and pin you up against a clock or other hard tasks such as giving you half-life to beat a boss that can kill you in 2 hits. Brings an extra difficulty to the game. Not only that they have challenges that will a lot you to set high scores for your friends or yourself to beat. Adds a nice set of competition to the table! That's not it either Sucker Punch added a 2 player mode as well, giving it another sense of replayability with your friends! I think Sucker Punch has done a great job with this IP in touching all looked at corners of the gaming world!

Graphics: I wish I could say a lot about graphics, but like I've said over and over again, You can't compare this to today’s graphics it wouldn't do the game justice. I'm sure back in the day this was top notch, but I'm not going to bash this game because sly does have enough curvature to his limbs (they look to square) I will say that can see improvement through the games, so you know they pushed their limits in these games as much as they could.

Controls: Again if it's not broken don't fix it! I was really happy with their improvement in controls in Sly 2, and I'm glad they didn't ruin that. Sticking with Sly 2 controls were very simple. Unfortunately I had more problems with the spire jump, and the cane swing, rope walks, in this game than I did in Sly 2, Which made it a little more disappointing in my eyes, but again not something that happened so much it broke the game it was still very much playable and enjoyable!

Overall I'm glad I got this collection making all these games great memories of our past, and getting me super excited for Sly 4! Great series to pick up, even just to show you how much Sucker Punch was able to grow as a game developer was a beautiful site. Unforgettable characters, great gameplay, decent story, and classic fill bring it all together to make 1 great IP. Get this! laugh, cry, play, and enjoy your way through the ends of each game!

Sly 3 Honor Among Thieves Trophy Guide
I wish I could say something different then the other 2 games, but they are almost exactly alike. 90% of them are story related easy to pick up just by beating the game. Another one like in the last game you need to watch out for is loot, make sure before you buy any moves that you save up 2,500 coins. This will be harder than the last game due to Sucker Punch removing the expensive loot items from around the map, so this will mean you'll be doing a lot more pick pocketing. Another thing is you have to get 100% in this game unlike the last ones. To do that you must complete all the challenges as well as the story. They are a little bit harder than the game, but easily doable with a little time and patience.

Alright so If you've been following me you know that I have been waiting for my next chance at becoming a cast member of Sony's The Tester. That opportunity is finally here, and only the top 100 will make it to round 2. I'm currently in an awesome position, but a slip up for a couple of days will completely ruin your chance. For the people who are just starting out, or nowhere close to the top 100! It isn't over for you yet. A lot of things can happen in 11 1/2 days! My advice is to don't give up and promote yourself in whatever way you can! any social networks (facebook, twitter) and around locally (I have a store that is completely behind me and helping me spread the word to their customers). That's how I have accomplished my vote count.

Another thing is I don't care for the people who are tying to call other people cheaters or starting unnecessary banter between each other trying to get each other kicked off. I think your all hurting yourselves more than your helping, yes you might still be high in the vote count, but I'm guessing (especially after what happen to Fazzek last year) that Sony doesn't want to deal with people who point fingers at each other and showing their lack of people skills. I know everyone cant get along with everyone some people mix like oil and water, but you can still be pleasant and tolerable around each other.

I have a new video coming up soon I have to finish it, and I'm hoping it gets posted soon enough to use as my new audition video. This video is going to be my ticket into Sony I believe. I hope they see where I'm going with this video. It will have everything that I believe is needed as a Sony Tester, and I hope they believe so to. It displays my talents and experience that I have gained throughout my life. If you feel like I should be you next Playstation tester please go to this page and vote for me everyday! I really appreciate your guys’ time to read my blog on what I have been playing for the past month. I'm inching closer and closer to the goal! Not sure if I'll make it, but I do know that I need to crackdown on this a lot harder than I have been.

I would to sound out all my thanks to the people who have been voting for me and spreading the word. Some names off the top of my head get a huge shout, @Sengeki, @nocandefense, @KOtv_Delusion (you can vote for him here too!), @Speedbrkr, @va1weezie, @dvntsvnt, @NicholleSoft, @TheShaunSays, @Dark_Sakura, @Grayfox814, @ Doc_Gamer, my local comic store "I Like Comics", My dad (Michael Jay Voght, not the same as mine. Mine is Michael Joseph Voght), My bother (Erich Voght), My fiancée and the friends who have been reposting my link on their facebook (Jordan Timmons), and My good friend weasil13 All these people have been Retweeting my posts, and reposting my link on facebook! A huge thanks goes out to these people for showing support to me. I still appreciate all the people who have voted for me there is just to many, and impossible to tell who has. All those people with @ by there name you should follow on twitter now! They're very cool down to earth people. Also for my good friends I want to shout out there everything nerdy pod cast that they have started up it is called The Talky Show (@TheTalkyShow) it is hosted by my 2 very good friends @Sengeki and @Nocandefense also has a Tester season one host fame girl or @Nichollesoft. Follow them listen, laugh, and cry! Thank you all again for your time and I hope you all have a wonderful Sunday!

Week 30 - Two Platinums Sucker Punch'd

It has been a whole 5 weeks without an update! I have moved into my new place, but I'm still living out of boxes currently. Birthday week has passed, and we went out of town for 3 or so days and nothing has been able to stop me from grinding out 2 more platinum trophies! I know I said 4, but give me a break, I've been busy! This week I'll be giving you a full review for Infamous 2 and Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, and that's not all! I told you all I've been busy, so I have trophy guides for both games as well! Unfortunately due to the moving I won't have any videos up for the next few posts, but hopefully soon!

Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus Review
All right we will start off with Sly Cooper review and trophy guide, and we will save the best for last. Sly Cooper was an old PS2 game that was created about 10 or so years ago. Like Most games back then Sly Cooper was a plat former, but it brought something new to the table, which was stealth. Although the game didn't capitalize on the stealth aspect as much as they should have it was still a decent plat former for it's time. Sony now fixed it up slapped some HD to it and resold all 3 of its games and put them into 1 collection. Does it withstand the test of time?

Sound: Were talking about an old game here nothing to fantastical about it. Simple tunes followed the theme very well, such as dark haunting music when in the swamp, and bouncy Asian themed music when in China. They also added the classic tiptoe noise from the old Looney tunes shows, which again brought up some great memories. In all honesty if you’re playing this game for the sound track (other that sentimental reasons) there is something wrong with you.

Gameplay: Was a very entertaining game for the most part, a lot of plat forming and such. Very little tutorials and that makes the game harder to enjoy as sometimes I was left at the point of... um okay what do I do now. A lot of different kinds of abilities and upgrades for Sly the further you precede through the game. The plat forming and stealth was a huge difference maker in this game. At the time this came out there were 3 or so famous plat formers currently being made. Sucker Punch made this game unique and different with it's stealth feel to it. The stealth would add features such as trying to drop onto platforms without stepping on lasers/alarms or being spotted by guards/spotlights, and it added a whole different feel to this game then any of the other plat formers. No choice in difficulty made the gameplay seem to easy at times, a lot of levels would have been more interesting if the difficulty was able to be spiked or what not.

Story: story was interesting but the horrible voice acting took away from a lot of the experience. You are a thief known as Sly Cooper and you are being hunted by a police officer that happens to be a fox (nice pun props for sucker punch) that Sly has a crush on, but she's determined to put him in jail. Well Sly has bigger plans and that is getting his ancestors combined work back together again. When Sly was a child his father had a book in his possession that held the secrets of all the coopers past secrets. His father was killed by the fiendish five (cliché I know) and they stole the book and split it up between each other. Now Sly is on a quest to find and kill the five to get his family's book back. Not much of an in depth story, but again the games back during this time were way more looked at for their gameplay then story. Other than that it is a very plausible story (for video games sake) and sometimes classic games, simple and to the point style, is a nice change of pace.

Replayability: One playthrough is all you really need to experience this game full potential, sad because it's only about 10 hours long if you go through each level and collect every clue. No difficulty change choices, so basically this game has zero replayability other than it is a collection with multiple games, but as Sly Cooper 1 goes absolutely no replay value.

Graphics: Really do I need to go over this? Back then I don't think you could get much better than this game, and comparing it today’s graphics would be unjustifiable.

Controls: Seems that Sucker Punch has not taking full advantage of the controller. To use your binoculars you would press L1 and R1, and you would have 8 or 10 special moves that was mapped to the triangle button. You would use L2 and R2 to change your ability on triangle, so you think that using L1 and R1 for the triangle moves would make more sense instead of the binoculars, which could be mapped to triangle or select. Switching through multiple moves was rather annoying especially when you had to change for a specific situation and forget to switch back and end up messing up resulting in death.

Overall for when the game was made it is really good, it brought back the old memories of growing up during the years of Crash Bandicoot and Spyro. I was excited to hear they were putting all 3 of these games into one collection with trophies! The story was decent the gameplay was a blast, and just a few annoying features to the game. Overall great experience and I can't wait to start the next Sly Cooper.

Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus Trophy Guide
Sadly there not much to say here. It literally is one of the easiest games to platinum. 36 trophies that all relate to story progression and collecting all the clue to open the vault in each level. Do that for all possible levels and you have a platinum trophy, and the best part is you don't have to play through a harder difficulty. That's it for Sly Cooper review and trophy guide, so let's move onto the next game that is also by the great minds of Sucker Punch!

Infamous 2 Review
Another great game from Sucker Punch. Infamous 1 was just a blast, and I was excited to hear that number 2 was in production, but like most of you I wasn't sure about the new look for Cole. Cole looked completely different and it didn't feel like you were playing the same guy, but shortly after due to the fans (Wow fans do change developers minds) they went back to the drawing board to give him a classic new feel. unfortunately I wasn't fond of the classic new look that was in store for our heroine. Especially after playing I was disappointed that they toned down the intensity of how you looked when full good/bad karma. That's not a game breaker though and shouldn't be for anyone else. Taking place immediately after the first one Cole has all his powers at the start from when he left off. After a while Infamous 2 has taken some of what Infamous 1 was and improved. New moves, new environment, new mission types, and a little cherry on top with the user generated levels.

Sound: The sound really brought this game together. Sucker Punch added a great soundtrack to give this game a great Mardi gras feel to it. The game takes place in New Marais, which is based off New Orleans in Louisiana. The soundtrack takes the New Orleans feel and twists it to make it special and unique to Infamous 2. Traveling between islands and hopping onto the shores you get a unique feel and sound to this game alone, which in turn does a great job of making you feel like your there. On the other hand a lot of the original sound bites have been brought over from the first game. This can be good and bad at the same time. It was nice to hear the classic sounds of Cole grinding on telephone or electric rails, but this also led to a dampening effect making it less tolerable. It also took away from fresh a new sounds such as the enemies, The militia sounded exactly like the enemies at the beginning of the first Infamous, and the frost conduits sounded just like the ghost conduits in the first game. This felt that each enemy you faced was meshed together and had no uniqueness to them.

Gameplay: For gameplay it kept the general idea of the first game and enhanced it with some new features. In the first game it was somewhat like a plat former with a sandbox style, which is a great combination when looking for something fun to play that you won't beat in a few hours. The new added features were awesome and needed, such as the vertical launch poles that are generally found near the bases of the buildings. These poles are filled with electricity and when Cole jumps on them it will launch you vertically up the building allowing you to scale to the top of buildings in mere seconds rather than minutes. New moves and distribution of moves were created. You have good, neutral, and bad moves, and most of those moves have upgrades to do as well as stunts to unlock them. This gives you the chance to use each move and determine which suits you best as a player, and not one particular move outshines the other they all have uses and prefence of play style. On top of this we were given new mission types as well, as well as some classics such as picking a photo off a dead body to find a package of blast shards hidden somewhere around you. With these new mission types we were given User Generated Content (UGC) allowing the players to create their own mission and share like Little Big Planet adding a whole new level to replayability to this game.

Story: *Spoiler Alert* Leaves off directly after the first one when Kessler told you the Beast is coming. Your about to leave with agent Kuo to go to New Marais to meet up with a scientist who has been working on a device that is like a ray sphere, but an inhibitor instead. Your whole game is going to be based on you finding blast cores to enhance your abilities to charge this Ray Field Inhibitor (RFI) to take down the beast. Along your way you find out due to you unleashing the Ray Sphere at the end of the first game a plague has made it way down to New Marais and it effecting it's people, but luckily there is a rumor that the RFI will fix that problem as well. The beast finally makes it to New Marais and that’s when you have to decide to side with the beast to save the conduits or side with you friend to save his life by sacrificing yours and killing the conduits.

*End Spoiler*

All around this game didn't disappoint with its story, the dead drops added story starting back before this game and even previously of when the first game started. The dead drops even had specialized messages that changed all depending whether you decided to go hero or villain. The dialogue and character building in this game was just as phenomenal as Uncharted 2. Zeke your best friend who betrayed you in the first Infamous by attempting to use the Ray Sphere and become a conduit like you is back. You will literally fall in love with his character and think of him as a best friend by the end of the game. There is one cut scene that was just insanely good. Very little dialogue, but from when you watch it you feel a huge friendship between Cole and Zeke and it's nice to see knowing that the whole game Zeke has been trying to gain Cole's trust back and this scene shows Zeke finally did it.



Video courtesy of ExceedEdge

That's not all you have few more characters that you get a lot of dialogue and some sense of connection with whether you roll good or bad. Play the game and you'll know what I mean!

Replayability: I've already touched some basis on this, but first off this has been one of the longest single player games I've played in a while (minus ME2 because that game is ridiculously long). A game like this usually runs 7-10 hours long maybe, but it took me almost twice that to fully beat the game. I'm talking every side mission, collecting every dead drop, and every blast shard, and every possible move for my Karma choice. Now you could play again and get the different ending by switching your karma choices, and that could net you another 15 hours of gameplay if you decide to do every side mission again. Also the UGC that I mentioned before adds more replayability to the game after you've already finished beating the single player. You can create your own missions and share them or you can search through the filters to find levels that you enjoy. You are also given the opportunity to rate and tag your favorite to play again later or to have a friend try it when he comes over. The game can add plenty of hours even after beating the game. The game is worth a buy just on how much time you can spend playing it.

Graphics: Not much of an upgrade from the first Infamous, and I couldn't say for certain if their even was work done on upgrading the original. I believe Cole might have been rendered a little bit better to look smoother as he is your main character, but environment and cut scenes were similar to the first Infamous. There was still some issue with melting into buildings or the ground but nothing that caused you to get stuck or freeze. Not much to mention here other than if you played the first one that's what you should expect when playing the second one.

Controls: One thing that I had problems with in the first Infamous was the lack of use with the D-Pad. Well they finally put a use to it in this game. It was used as a quick link to menu's in your start menu. you could push right on the D-Pad to get into your moves menu for a quick link to buy or upgrade new moves when they became available. The left button of the D-Pad allowed you to switch between your unlocked moves on the fly. Everything else stayed the same, making the controls for this game near perfect. The only issue that I have with the controlling of your character isn't controller based. It's the lack of the movement through the environment. I found Cole getting stuck on curbs and random objects, and on top of that building scaling and jumping. there were times I would jump right at a vertical launch pole and it would by-pass it to grab a hold of ledge. A lot of issue with just scaling the buildings/structures seem to be annoying at times, but easy to look past and forgive for how great and fun this game is.

Overall this game has improved in some areas, but on the other hand have completely ignored issues that should have been fixed from its last installment. The good news is again the games story, dialogue, character develop and gameplay outweighs its issues by the butt loads. I would recommend this game to anybody who loves to play in depth story games, and don't mind the heavy gameplay aspect of a sandbox game. If you want to platinum this game... well good news for you I've done the work and can give you the best route to obtain this awesome platinum trophy to show off to your friends!

Infamous 2 Trophy walkthrough
Playthrough 1: In this playthrough you will want to start off deciding which difficulty and which karma route you want to go with. I chose Easy/Bad and Hard/Good and the reason why is because bad karma tends to base itself around AoE damage and gaining electricity/buffs through bio leech. Great and all, but very situational and almost to situational for a Hard difficulty. The Good side is based on damaging one enemy at a time, but every successful basic bolt shot will refill your electricity. Not only that when you gain electricity it heals you from damage, so when you have a fight with enemies and your getting hit shooting them back will prolong your death allowing you to get more shots or escaping to safety. This is ideal to me for hard difficulty.

I chose the easiest difficulty first along with good karma so I could play through the game and enjoy the game for what it is, and I usually do that anyways. It also makes it easier to complete all the side missions, and allowed me to get through the game faster.

Good Karma: If your playing on good karma this is what you need to pay attention for. There are new event missions throughout New Marais that involve saving civilians from bad situations such as a robbery or kidnapping and such. When ever you see one of these pop up give it some attention as you will need 80 of these before you finish the your first playthrough (you can do this on your hard playthrough, but only the good deed missions count for this trophy. Doing good missions will lower you bad karma.) Make sure that you complete all good karma side and main missions. The end is very tricky and you must pay attention. Once you get to the end you will have to decide between Kuo who is normally good karma selection will be a bad karma choice and Nix who is normally bad karma is the good karma choice.

Bad Karma: If you’re playing on bad karma this is what you need to pay attention for. Look for a street performer whether it's a statue or someone playing an instrument and attack him, these will show up as side events that can be done during the game. Also work on killing 100 civilians for another trophy, pretty simple to do on either playthrough, but it's recommended to do it on the evil playthrough. Also make sure you do the evil side and main missions rather than the good ones.

Depending on which choice you have made you will obtain all story related trophies and the chosen karma related trophies. Keep an eye out for obtaining the following trophies as well...

Just One More - pick up ALL blast shard in New Marais: This will take some time to accomplish, but once you have completed every side mission a new ability will unlock that when ever you use your electric pulse (finds shards and electrical sources) will automatically show at least 1 on the edge of the map no matter how far you are.

With Great Power Comes Greater Power - Unlock and purchase all powers: This only needs to be on one side of the Karma. If your going for the good karma then you can obtain this by purchasing all neutral abilities as well as good karma abilities. This includes upgrades as well, you must the upgraded versions. You most likely won't have enough XP until the end of the game for this.

Well inFORMED - Collect all dead drops: There are 29 around New Marais whenever you come across one shoot it out of the sky and pick it up.

Back to the Bayou - Return to the swamp blockade: Once you get the static thruster upgrades head back to the Northwest corner of the first island you were on. This is where you entered New Marais now you must go back to obtain this trophy.

Mountaineer - Climb to the top of the 3 tallest building in New Marais: You must climb up the Cathedral that is found on the Main Island, Clock tower that is also found on the Main Island, and the Ice Tower and that is found in Gas Works. Once you reach the top of all 3 the trophy is yours.

Extreme Makeover - Destroy 30 verandas or other large objects: Verandas are the walkways that branch off the buildings in the Main Island. I would suggest to wait until Gas Works where you can throw a grenade at the fuel towers and destroy them. You know your working towards this when you get the "big destruction" xp bonus.

Watch That First Step - Defeat an enemy by destroying the object they stand on: This should be done right when you get to New Marais, shortly after you have to follow Kuo and there are enemies standing on the Verandas walkways branching off of the buildings. If you shoot all the legs then enemy will eventually fall to his death.

Finish What You Started - Perform 100 finishers or ultra melee combo: Once you gain the ability to purchase melee combat moves you will be able to purchase finishers and ultra melee combos. To do one hit an enemy 2-3 times and then press triangle when prompted to.

Knockout in the Blackout - Defeat 50 enemies in powered down areas while no missions are active: I did this very early to make sure I didn't miss my chance, because eventually you will run out of powered down areas. After finishing a mission before going to another mission go to a powered down area and kill enough enemies until this pops.

Go Long - Hurl 50 objects using Kinetic Pulse ability: Once you gain the ability to pick things up with R2 and throw with x or R1 then you will be able to obtain this trophy. I would keep this on mind I ignored it for the first half thinking it would come naturally, but truthfully you won't find yourself naturally picking up cars and such to throw at enemies.

Nothing Can Bring Me Down - Stay off the ground for 130 meters: Once you obtain the upgraded static thrusters climb the cathedral all the way to the highest point. Jump and then L1 + x all the way until you land on the ground (try to land on the ground rather then a roof or an object this will increase your distance.

Return to Sender - Send a Helicopter's rockets back at it using and blast ability: Simple while standing and rockets are being shot at you push L1 + x to send them back to the helicopter. I would recommend you do this to any rockets while playing it will increase your chances of living :D

Vehicular Manslaughter - Defeat 25 enemies by throwing cars at them: Try to do this trophy while working on go long. You will know if you’re doing this right when you see the "Special Delivery" xp bonus.

Take Them For A Spin - Shit at least 6 cars in a single Ionic Vortex: This might be obtain on accident, but if you want you can do this by going a main road with a lot of cars parked or stand in the middle of the road so cars pile up in a line and push down on the D-Pad (when available) to do the Ionic Vortex this should easily take out 6 cars.

Shock and Awe - Thunder drop into a group of 5 or more enemies: This can be easy to miss, but if your like me you love to thunder drop into large groups of people, if so this is cake. If not just make sure to keep an eye out for lots of enemies grouped up and to thunder drop hold square when in the air above the group.

Thunder Flop - Thunder drop from the highest place in New Marais: Once you get to Gas Works make your way to the giant Ice tower, you'll need to climb this anyways whether it's for a main mission or for the trophy, Mountaineer. Once you’re to the very top (yes even on this dinky looking metal pieces) then jump off and hold square :D

Head Hunter - Use the precision ability to rack up three head shots in rapid succession: When you get the precision ability (up on d-pad and it will scope in and slow down time) just aim at a group of people and try to get a 3 in 1 blow xp bonus using the precision ability.

I'm As Shocked As You Are - Defeat an enemy or civilian by stepping in water: Easiest to obtain in flood town... since it's flooded. All you do is step in water with an enemy/civilian and they will die.

Express Elevator - Ascend 50 vertical launch poles: Use these whenever you see one, they are awesome! These are just orangish poles on that can be mainly found on the bases of buildings.

Level Up - Create a new mission using the UGC level editor: Simple once you’re given the option to create your own level then go into it. Create an empty mission or a mission from a template, and once you’re in the editor then you can just exit and save your level.

UGC Veteran - Play 25 user-generated missions: Simple play 25 UGC missions, for a quick trophy just find a mission that takes a few seconds to beat and replay it over and over again.

Trail Blazer - Play 5 user-generated missions under the newest filter: just go into the filter options and choose newest then complete 5 of those and this trophy is yours!

If you don't complete all these don't worry you gain control of Cole after the game is complete and you can do whatever you missed with the exception of Knockout in the Blackout.

Playthrough 2: All you should have left is to beat the game on the hardest difficulty and the opposite karma mission trophies. Right from the beginning of the game when your able to control Cole hit pause and turn the game to it's hardest difficulty. You don't have to worry about neutral side missions, but make sure you do the karma side missions of your karma choice.

Alright! Exhausted and glad this blog is done. 5 weeks without a blog is not good, especially when you platinum 2 games in that time. While on this topic I think I have decided to knock this blog down from 4 times a month to a bi-monthly blog. This is mainly because I hardly get things complete in one week, and have nothing to talk about for the week. Hopefully this will time it better and I will be able to consistently put up content for you guys rather than you guys guessing if I will post a new blog this week or not. Thank you all for your eyes and your time, I'm sorry if your eyes are bleeding I have a friend currently working on some eye candy for my blog to ease the reading a bit. I know it can be hard to read walls of text. Again thanks and hope to see you guys back here in a couple of weeks!

Month 6 - 8 Platinums Down 7 to Go!

Welcome back once again! Another huge month for me as I obtain my 24th and 25th platinum trophy! As promised I conquered the Socom 4 platinum trophy as well as the Brink platinum trophy. This is also the half way mark, and yes I'm as pumped as ever! 6 months ago when I started this goal I had plans for it, and the blog was just the start of it. I wanted to make gameplay videos to help people obtain the greatest feat being to finish a game on it's hardest difficulty. I wanted to review each and every game I played from start to finish. It amazes me how far I have come and how much this blog has improved and I hope all of you have been enjoying it. This week as usual when I platinum a game you get the trophy guide, so with out further ado let's get that rolling for you guys!

In Socom 4 you have to go through at least 2 playthroughs as well as some on-line games. First thing I would do is play on the easiest difficulty and work on getting all the weapons, Intel, and Torocco's. Also do the following on each level listed.

Mission 01 -
"Destroy Gorman's Car" - Right at the beginning of the level after you exit the first building. Turn to your left.
"Government Spending" - When prompted to target with L1 for a bomb strike. take 10 shots and the trophy is yours. If you don't get this here there will be more opportunities later on
Mission 02 -
"Crowd Control" - Right after sneaking past the beginning and killing the one guard you arrive to a valley with 3 guards talking. Chuck a grenade in the middle of them.
"Expert Tactician" - restart this mission if you did the previous trophy. Don't fire a single shot the whole way through. use the left and right directional button to have your team target the enemy.
Mission 03 -
"Unseen Strike" - Sneak up as many enemies as possible when close enough you will be prompted to stealth kill. Get 10 kills this way.
"Covert Ops" - Sneak through a whole mission without being spotted. If you get spotted just restart from last checkpoint.
Mission 05 -
"Death From Above" - On the beach you get the opportunity to use the missile strikes. A lot of enemies on the beach just find the best spot that is highly saturated with enemies.
"Repo Man" - After destroying all the tanks/vehicles on the beach restart checkpoint and repeat for another 3-4 times.
Mission 08 -
"Double Down" - Chicken's all over the place toss a grenade where there are two chickens (I believe right at the beginning after killing the guy on the bridge and the 2 patrolling.
"10-Piece Meal" - Kill 10 chickens throughout this whole mission. There is at least 10 scattered.
"Destroy Razad's Car" - Right after taking out the tank. Before going to the building look to the left.
Mission 14 -
"Destroy Gorman's Car" - This is in the car garage when heading upstairs.

If you destroy Gorman's car in level one don't worry about it in mission 14. When going through your first play through try and get as many headshots as possible, becuase your team will be doing most of the work through the Elite difficulty. Also use your grenades when enemies are bunch up this will help with your grenadier trophy. After you get the Elite 45th (45 stealth kills using 4forty-five) trophy in the stealth missions with forty-five instead of stealth killing go prone and knife people instead. This will guarantee knife kills for vorpal instead of stealth kills. When you get a mod 5 on a weapon make sure to switch to a different type of weapon this will allow you to get a mod 5 in every weapon type for your "shiny" trophy. At the final mission choose to shoot or not shoot the guy, and on your next playthrough you will do the opposite. After this playthrough you should only need to do the online trophies, 1000 kills, 25 team revives (easiest to get in elite), either Peace keeper or executioner, and elite difficulty.

Next step would be to go through Elite difficulty. Use cover and your team to take out enemies, and it will make it easier on you. I would also determine whats the best position for your team and then you to have to keep them safe. This difficulty isn't hard if you are patient and use your team instead of yourself to get kills. You can shoot enemies when possible, but don't put yourself in danger. You will die more than one time don't be discouraged learn from your mistakes. You should be able to pick up all the missing trophies but the online ones.

After Elite difficulty go and make a single player custom mission and choose the lowest settings on everything, the not objective. Play this on each level to receive Extra Credit and overachiever. Then play one on online, doesn't matter if you joined mid-way. This will give you combined assault. Then you want to play each multiplayer mode (Suppression, Last Defense, Uplink, and Bomb Squad) this will give you the last two trophies you need. I did classic setting this might have longer matches but the matches were faster to start due to only needing 10 instead of 20 people. Follow this and you'll have yourself an easy to obtain Platinum in Socom 4, so let's move onto the Brink platinum now!

This is an easy and faster platinum to obtain if done the right way. I will do my best to help you obtain it as so. The first thing you want to go for is beating all levels of the challenges. This will give you weapons, experience for your character, and knowledge in the game. Once done with that start another character (the weapons and such will transfer over). Continue on to the next step to know what to aim for.

This can require a minimum of 1 playthrough or can be done in many. "Tough as Nails" is the trophy you want to aim for when playing this game. Everything is automatic on the way or you have to go for specifically. I suggest going through each story on-line, to set it up go to campaign > choose misson > make sure your set to "versus" and not "co-op" and set rank to "my level". Play the game all the way through, but you don't have to play the "what if" missions just yet. This will allow people to join your matches if they are the same rank or lower. For an easier time after you level go back to the main menu and select abilities to get rid of a point then press triangle to respec. This will bring you down 1 level, so wash, rinse, and repeat until level 0 again and this will make the computer and real life enemies easier opponents. After done with one side start doing the missions on the other side.

Once done you should have tough as nails (one of the hardest trophies to obtain in the game), and are ready to finish up the story trophies. Beat the What if missions next. Now you should only have a handful of trophies left, and this will require a certain level to obtain. If you used the downgrade level strategy then switch back to the character you completed the challenges with. This will give you somewhat of a head start. If you didn't down level your guy then you have a head start to rank 5.

On your way leveling up you should be looking to do the following if you haven't already...
Use the wheel, earn more XP - simple but confusing. You need to select a side mission and complete it with your character. getting a command post is the easiest way to obtain.
I think I know a shortcut - You have to be an engineer and select the side mission in day 4 on the security team or as an operative on day 6 mission for the resistance.
Cut'em off the pass - easiest way is the first what-if mission on the resistance. run to where the crane is and there are 2 doors that you can close up as a engineer.
Oh I'm sorry was that yours - easy... capture a command post.
That's how you win a match - simple... kill an enemy trying to complete an primary objective.
Not over til the fat lady sings - When the enemy melees you, you will fall to the ground just kill an enemy before getting back up.
Not so sneaky now are you - second hardest trophy to get. As an operative (with homing beacon makes it a little easier). target an enemy operative who has just changed disguise or is going under disguise until they turn red then kill them.
Great shot kid - Shoot a grenade and kill an enemy by doing so. Must have the shoot grenade ability. I got this just from shooting an enemy who threw a grenade and I somehow shot it and it blew up in his face.
You shall not pass - Prevent the enemy from getting past the first objective.
They never knew what hit them - easiest way to get this is
Main menu> freeplay> Private match and set too, Game Mode: Stopwatch, Play Mode: Solo, Visibility: Solo, Map: Any, Match Settings: Match Duration: 30 Minutes Difficultly: Whichever (Easy, Normal or Hard)Min/Max Team Size: 0 (Zero)Everything else, leave the same. Start mission and complete under 10 min
Was it the red or blue wire - disarm an HE bomb that a soldier set (usually for main objective) must be an engineer.
You can place another mine now - kill an enemy with a mine. Just use a engineer and place them in high traffic areas. seems that placing them in front of objective helps.
Pump up the volume - Engineer ability available at rank 3. Go to a command post that is yours and hold square you will see a green bar in the middle.
Smart decisions wins battles - simple be a medic and revive a teammate who has the right class for the objective.
Tis better to receive - Rank 2 medic ability that when you have 1 supply bar (white bars above your HUD) select the supply ability and give it to a teammate.
I live again... - You will get this before you get self rez. when downed and a medic gives you a revive syringe just use it.
That mine you found? Disarmed - easiest done with a friend. pick an operative and your friend pick an Engineer. Spot the mine and have you friend disarm it. Good luck getting the AI to do it for you :P
Brinksmanship - Easiest way to do this is the following... Go to Private match on the reactor map, Difficulty: Easy, Team Size: 1 max, Switch teams: Yes make sure your on the resistance team when you start the match also choose operative. Hack the vent is the first mission... get it to about 90% and wait for the enemy to come stop you. kill him and disguise, then go back and hack the last 10% this will net you the trophy.
A bit of a headache - Rank 4 ability for operatives. when you die you have the option to wait for medic, respawn or now blow yourself up. wait for an enemy to walk buy and blow yourself up.
Boom! - complete an objective with a soldier class where you have to blow up a door.
No I insist, you take it - should get this when you use the tis better to give than receive.
It's a trap! - rank 5 ability for soldier. set up 2 or 3 satchel charges near an objective and blow it when an enemy goes for it.
That was educational - collecting each log can take some patience, fastest way to obtain is play online. for mission specific ones go here.
Time to start a new character - reach rank 5 or 20. play online until you unlock heavy, caltrop grenades, and Chinzor MG. choose the operative and go to mission Day 8 mission as a security. prevent the opposing team from hacking and every dead guy you see you want to disguise and remove right away (push the fire button to remove). Use the Caltrops to know when an enemy is in the other room going for the objective. Here is the awesome videos I used by MakasGuides


After all that you should have a platinum trophy with no problem!

Thank you all for joining me this week, and I hope you all are enjoying my quest to epicness! I've started Infamous 2, haven't played much but at least I started it. Hoping to platinum that game as well as all 3 Sly Coopers, but I'm not sure how well that going to go. Moving this month, plus School is kicking my ass this quarter, and my birthday is also this month so I will be out of town for a few weeks. My future looks grim for this month, but hopefully I'll be able to get this done. I have started up my comic book and movie/TV review blog if you love either one I suggest you follow it Urban Geek Hunter. Take care and hope you join me next time!



Trophy Counter:
Trophies: 1452/2012 Platinum trophies: 25/32

Half Way There Update

Just wanted to hop on and give you guys an update on how well I'm going along here. I also want to go over again what I'm doing with this blog for all my new followers, friends, and viewers :D

First off I started this challenge 6 months ago. I vowed that I would attempt to obtain my 2,012th trophy by the end of the year (2012), and while doing this I would make sure to obtain at least 15 platinum trophies so I wasn't just playing games for the easy trophies. Thus making the challenge an actual challenge. Some may ask why I am doing this. Ultimately I want to gain more cred in the gaming world, and I want more cred in the gaming world so Sony would recognize me as a suitable contender for their reality competition game show The Tester.

This blog has grown to be more than what I expected... it is my first blog, and I'm learning as I go. I have been thinking of new ideas to add, and little by little this is becoming an awesome experience for me. I have turned something that was just supposed to be about trophy's into a personal opinion/reviews on the games that I play and walkthroughs on the hardest difficulty.

If you're just joining or joined late during my blog here is what you can expect in my posts and how it works. First I play a game (usually on it's lowest difficulty) to obtain story and have a feel on the casual gameplay. After beating it once I will blog my thoughts or a "review" on the game, so if anyone is interested in picking it up just for the gameplay aspect. I talk about whats expected in games now, sound, story, graphics, multiplayer, replayability, are the controls easy to learn. After that I will beat it on the hardest difficulty, if this is known to be a tough task I will record my gameplay and commentate to help people through it. My strategies may not work for everyone, but you'll get the general idea. Once I platinum the game I try my best to inform you of the best routes to take to obtain the platinum the easiest and fastest way. At the end of my blog, I usually post my Trophy counter, which is where I'm at in my goals. This way you can keep up with my progress if interested and if I will be able to complete it or not. Lets talk more about my goal, and discuss if my goal is still in sight!

I started with 1,000+ (like 1,040) trophies, and now I'm at 1,450 trophies. I have obtained somewhere close 410 trophies over 6 months, and 8 platinum trophies. I am 562 trophies away from my goal, and this means I'm behind in the amount of trophies. I am 152 trophies behind to be exact, and it hurts me to look at it this way. This just means that I need to put more effort into obtaining normal trophies than just platinum trophies, but honestly to me the platinum trophies mean more to me than regular trophies. I do have a plan, though. I have 2 games that I plan on beating the month of July that should net me 168 trophies including 4 platinums O.o I know that's what you were thinking... How the heck is that possible? This month I plan to rock Infamous 2, which is 52 trophies and 1 of them being platinum. The other 106 trophies are coming from The Sly Collection, a classic that I grew up playing. They have 3 games in the collection each has a 36 trophies and a platinum in each one. There are also some Move mini games that net another, which brings the total to 168 trophies and 4 of them being platinums :D

That's all for this Mid-Week update, and I hope you guys continue to read my blog. I will have an update this upcoming Sunday, and just to give you guys a spoiler on what's coming up. Looking to get some graphics into my entries, so you're not just staring at words and paragraphs. I'm also hoping to have more video commentary for Mass Effect 2, but no promises as I have been to busy to start on them. I will also be sharing my strategies on how to platinum 2 games (due to receiving platinum trophies in them), so make sure you don't miss it! Catch you all Sunday!

Week 25 - Back to our Regular Broadcast

First off I want to apologize for not writing an entry for the past 3 weeks. Truthfully, though, I have a good reason. Finals were coming up and I had to study for the last 3 weeks so I didn't have a chance to sit down and put some time and effort into my posts. Luckily for you, I have 2 game reviews to share with you. Since I've been away for so long, I have put some time into my gaming and am working on 2 more platinum trophies for this month. I completed Brink about a week ago (both storylines) and completed Socom 4 on Monday! I have about another week to platinum both. Brink is almost complete just a couple more hours of online game-play and I should be good to go, and for Socom 4 I will need to finish my Elite play-through! That's not all I have for you this week... I will also be posting up another mission from my Mass Effect 2 Insanity run! Without further ado lets get started with my Socom 4 review, which I must say is a little iffy... the game not the review :D

Socom 4 Review
For a game I was on the fence about, it hasn't left me with much of an impression. First off I was excited that Slant Sux... I mean Six have given the title back to the original creators Zipper Interactive. Now I'm going to be honest, and say I've never played Slant Six's Socom: Confrontation, but I can tell you I've heard enough about it to know this game is already better. My whole play-through, I encountered only 1 minor bug, which was being spotted (on a stealth mission) pausing and resetting checkpoint to be in the middle of gunfire. A second quick reset checkpoint fixed that with no problem.

When playing this game I was looking for something that set it apart from other shooters, and seeing how this has been one of the only 3rd person shooters left in the market there's not much to compare it to. I can say, though, it didn't leave an impression that made me think, "Wow, I want to play more of this." The stealth missions felt like they were only tacked on to give the game a longer play value..but I can't complain much as it was interacting with the story/following missions.

What got me interested in this game was the Co-Op missions. Sadly, when I tried to play local/couch Co-Op, there was none. I could hop online to play a Co-Op game, but decided not to at the moment. One thing I don't understand is why game companies are getting away with no local Co-Op? Not everyone wants or can play on-line, so why force them to? What if I just want my brother in-law to head over to play some games with me or friends that are getting together for a party? If your gonna allow Co-Op don't take out one or the other, allow both!

Sounds: First off I want to say no Surround sound... My Turtle Beach 5.1 Dolby Digital did not work on this game... WTF?!?!? Are we in the early 2000's? Outdated much? Not a game breaker, but definitely a mark... and not a good one. Music was the right volume until you got into a firefight, which would ramp up the pace of the music (allowing you to feel more intense in some epic firefights) and the volume which was kind of annoying when trying to think or just having to pause to turn the volume down. Each gun seemed to have it's own sound which made the gun feel more unique then the next. You also had the NPC's, the good or bad guys, talking in the game which was a nice addition. Made the characters feel more like real people, but if I hear whats his face say, "I can't stay here any longer..." I'ma shoot him in the face repeatedly.

Gameplay: Nothing that stood out from any other Shooter except the ability to strategically place your team and give them targets, but honestly that sometimes didn't work properly. On the 2nd mission they taught you how to target an enemy, but not give the go ahead until you say when. Well by the 5th mission that stopped working and they would just not do it all together, so you had to push left/right real quick (instead of holding it down). The enemies AI as well as your team were complete nimrods! First off, enemies would charge out of their cover and run straight to your cover to shoot at you. No enemy in real life would risk their life to do that... The AI on your team would constantly run in front of you when your shooting at enemies, and then repeatedly tell me, "watch your fire". This game isn't all what I was hoping. The single player custom missions were a huge disappointment, because I expected it to be more customizable. You get 6 maps, 2 game types (kill leader(s), or retrieve data), and 4 or 5 settings for amount of enemies. If I remember correctly Ghost Recon from 8 years ago allowed you to choose the number of enemies you wanted to face. Why couldn't I get that in this game? Why do I have to choose from low, medium, alot, alot alot... seriously? I was expecting way more customizable features. Other than all those issues, the game-play was smooth and enjoyable half of the time, but not outstanding enough to keep me playing for long periods of time.

Story: Like most shooters, not much of a story. I am seriously still waiting for a decent shooter on the PS3 to give me a Halo quality story. I need more, "Okay this is your mission this how your going to do it", "Follow orders you renegade", "Shit we've been double crossed", and "They have big weapons that they plan to turn on us" lame ass story lines! Give me something people! Resistance has been by far the best shooter storyline on PS3, but it's still really far away from Halo quality (not Halo series Halo one).

Replayability: There is lots of replayability in this game, how long it will last is another question. I got bored of the single player custom missions pretty fast, but online custom missions were quite intriguing. Playing with a team of 3 other people to complete the missions was fun. The little amount I got to play competitively online was just a disaster. The game types were boring and if you played the current style of games, there was a ton of camping in the objective games as well as a lot of spawn killing. The maps and weapons were not balanced properly, I was getting headshot by a SMG from half a map away constantly. I went and tried out classic, which I must say is more my cup of tea. It's a lot like Search and Destroy on Call of Duty, but if you have played Search and Destroy on Call of Duty then you should know when you have 1 life that also leads to a lot of camping. As I expected the Online custom Co-Op missions is why I wanted this game, and I'm not sure how long it will keep my interest. I hear the Single Player game is a whole different ball-game on harder difficulty, and that you have to actually use your team strategically to successfully complete missions. I will be able to confirm that when I go through my elite difficulty.

Graphics: Nothing special, cutscenes weren't rendered, which makes it more difficult to look at after having every game render their cutscenes now a days. No real facial expressions throughout the cutscenes as well. The environments looked pretty stable and decent, as well as the buildings. I could tell the characters were a little blocky looking at times.

DS3: From what I did play, the controls were almost natural. They were different settings than normal shooters, but after a few seconds it just made sense. Responsive controls, easy to use, and fast to learn if need be. I should have checked for customizable layout, but I doubt it as a lot of games are leaving that option out (which I also disagree with)

Move: Again fun to use, but I don't see my self using this over a DS3 when it comes to harder difficulty or competing on-line. Might be fun just to pick up and dink around with, but nothing for serious gamers to get excited over. It was a lot more responsive and better tracking than in the Killzone game. You could also tell this controller was made for Socom. In my opinion, the button layout on the Sharpshooter is perfect for socom 4. The melee was rather easy, and didn't jerk the screen around like it did in KZ3, same with the reload. Although the reload button on the bottom is more realistic I find it much simpler and faster to just cock the front part to get your reload. It was also more customizable than Killzone 3 in it's sensitivity options, and allowing more choices for horizontal/vertical deadzone.

Overall, It was a decent game that missed out on some key points - major key points. I would recommend a rent for this game, and if you enjoy the Co-Op/Online play I would suggest a buy. I would try it out first before you jump to that conclusion though. This game could have been a 8+/10 for me if it just had options such as the local Co-Op. It's a playable game, and very fun if your into the whole strategizing a Navy Seals team to own a bunch of terrorists then this is a great game for you, but for gamers like me this was a lackluster shooter with no attention grabbing story, and poor multiplayer options.

Brink Review
For a game that I was hoping would be good turned out to be sad and disappointing, but on the other hand, a game that I had little faith in was just downright amazing! A game that I didn't want to drop money on, but took my time and chance to win it off of UGO.com and their daily contests. This game is non-other than Brink! A game that caught a lot of bad rep, but for all the wrong reasons. It seems when critics say nono don't pick this game up at all then everyone says the same thing without actually having their own opinion, and just saying nono they said it's a bad game don't get it. Completely gave me a shock when I started playing this game.

When I first saw videos and news on this game I automatically thought Borderlands looks with a Team Fortress multiplayer. How can that be bad? I don't know but it's gonna be bad somehow... I was absolutely wrong. This is the competitive multiplayer that Borderlands should of had implemented into it (would have made Borderlands the best game to date). Unfortunately it's not, but let me tell you why this game is so great. This game doesn't have an amazing story, but I can honestly say it's 8 chapter/levels had more story then Socom 4. The story isn't what matters though, it's the multiplayer. I have never played a multiplayer that required so much team effort to win at. Buffing your team with Health, Damage, extra ammo, more supply bars is all required for your team to win. This game has everything I've looked for in a shooter multiplayer game.

Sounds: I have yet to try my headset on this game, so I couldn't tell you honestly if it supports surround sound or not. Again it is a huge deal to have this and it would be very disappointing if they left this feature out. The sound seems to be very cookie cutter music was just implemented in the game I don't think it changes from firefight to firefight, but I do remember it getting more intense in the last minute of the game. The characters do speak. When you choose out a mission on your mission wheel your guy will shout out what he plans on doing, which is nice for the people who don't have mics.

Gameplay: This is where the game shines for me. First off you get to create your own character from what he looks like, sounds, and wears. You can spend a good hour on customizing your character, but have to say there are limited choices at the beginning as a lot of customizable features are added after ranking up or completing challenges. That's not even the key feature in this game. You have 4 classes Medic, Soldier, Engineer, and Operative. They all have their own key points to them and they make each class definitive in their specialties. Medics can revive and give health boosts. Soldiers is more offensive with boosting your teammates ammo supply while giving yourself armor piercing rounds to go through and Engineers Kevlar buff. Engineers have the ability to give weapon damage buffs, as well as create turrets to cover choke points or defending a position. Operatives get the ability to disguise as the enemy team and hack comm stations, and this can give your team a buff in health or supplies. Each class has a use when it comes to objectives in a game as well with the exception of medics, so every class is needed and one isn't better than the other. The teamwork required is what really makes this game fun and challenging. On top of all this this game also has a point system you get when leveling and each class has it's own upgrades and abilities to purchase giving you so many different options and builds to work on.

Story: It's like beating a dead horse I know... trust me. FPS lack story, and this one is no different. Your on some island that has been abandoned and your given the option to save it or escape it. Most of the cutscenes are just talking about giving your life to get off or saving the island. These cutscenes could have been used to tell us why they are escaping the ark and what happened before the incidents as well as whats happening currently.

Replayability: You can have I believe up to 8 characters, allowing you to build each class on each team. You have 20 levels to max out your character and so many different ways to build characters. It is honestly one of the most well designed multiplayer games created to date and so many different options are given. You can play your character online and offline, so if your friends aren't playing there is no reason you can't work on building your character.

Graphics: This is what seemed to be the proverbial "nail" in the coffin to the critics... Which I don't understand at all. Yes there are imperfections like right after loads, but I have not seen any major issues after 30 secs of game have started up. No tears or rips have popped up or stood out. We are looking at a cell shaded game which is a technology that is week in graphics but gives it a whole new look and color than what we see today, and critics seem to be hung up as it not being the norm. A big plus for this game is they implement your characters into the cutscenes, yea that's right the exact face, voice, and clothes that your character looks like on the opening screen.

Controls: The controls follow every other basic FPS. Aim is L1, fire is R1, jump is x, and etc... If you've played or haven't played an FPS it's real easy to pick up and understand. The only thing different is sprint, which is L2 and honestly I can't argue with it being there. A new technology known as "SMART" has been implemented into the game. Allowing your character to smoothly move across random terrain, did you ever sprint into a rock or a slight risen platform on another FPS and get stuck or unable to step above it. Well SMART allows you to hold the sprint (which would be hard to use on the analog stick which is why I agree with it being L2) making your character more mobile to terrain that would get in your normally on another FPS. The HUD when playing is easy to understand and everything is spaced nicely and neatly.

I highly recommend this game, if you have it hit me up. This game is by far one of the best multiplayer objective based FPS games I have ever played. I plan on keeping this and playing it with friends for a long long time, and when I get flustered with Activision and their poor decisions in Call of Duty I will be glad to pop this in my system instead. All around it is a fresh new experience you don't normally get from other FPS out there at the moment, and I hope other developers take a note out of Bethesda book of online/offline multiplayer games.

Alright and now for my weekly videos of Mass Effect 2. Sorry to keep you all waiting on these, I really wanted to use this week off to get all these video posted today, but I was way to far behind in my gaming that I used it for that instead. Anyways here is your video for the recruitment of Archangel, which is said to be one of the hardest missions in this game on Insanity. Sorry it's hard to hear me in future videos I'll make it an effort to speak louder or determine how to lower the game volume.

Mass Effect 2 Recruiting Archangel 1/4 (Insanity)


Mass Effect 2 Recruiting Archangel 2/4 (Insanity)


Mass Effect 2 Recruiting Archangel 3/4 (Insanity)


Mass Effect 2 Recruiting Archangel 4/4 (Insanity)


And on that note that is the end of this fun-filled and exciting blog entry. Thanks again to all my followers and browsers for reading, please tell your friends about me and my Super Awesome Blog! If your just browsing please join and come back at least once a week to continue getting updates and new videos of me completing my goal of reaching my trophy mark of 2,012 by 2012! Until next week I hope you guys have a good wonderful week ahead of you. My summer classes start up and my new work schedule kicks in, and I'm hoping this will make it easier and my gaming availability more consistent. Thanks again and catch you all next week!

I have decided to throw up a trophy card from PS3trophies.com so people can keep up on my progress daily.



Trophy Counter:
Trophies: 1438/2012 Platinum Trophies: 23/32

Week 21 (Month 5) - Double Platinum

That's right everyone two platinums in one month! Not only that, but in the same Week! On Tuesday I received my platinum in Mass Effect 2, and early this morning I received my second platinum in Killzone 3! Welcome everybody to my awesome blog of Trophy hunting where I try to reach my goal 2,012 trophies by the year 2012. This month I am super excited, because I have made my first move to gaining on my fifteen platinum trophies. All the way up til now I have been completing one platinum trophy a month, this month I have one uped that putting me closer to my goal! Like every post I've done so far where I have completed my platinum I give you my tips on the best way to platinum this game. I will start off with Killzone 3, and finish it off with Mass Effect 2 following with some Mass Effect 2 videos.

My Roadmap for Killzone 3 is to start off on the easiest difficulty, this is needed due to the Elite difficulty to be unlocked so you can get that trophy by going through the easiest difficulty. You can play at a harder difficulty if you would like it's up to you. Along this playthrough you want to get the story missions and some of the random trophies. This game did a real great job of making the trophies easy to get in one playthrough. Here's the trophies you should be going for broken down by levels.

Chapter 1
Ready for Battle - Complete weapons training: This is story related.

Chapter 2
In Your Face - First Brutal Melee: This will be available early in the level.
Frag Out - Kill 3 Helghast with 1 Frag Grenade: Mid part in the level after a cutscene you will be behind a Helghast that you can Brutal Melee. To his left is is a hill of rubble and over that are 4-5 Helghast that are bunched up. Throw your grenade over this rubble pile.
One Each - Kill 3 Helghast with Shotgun Pistol, no reloads: In the area where there is a giant door blocking the tank route, and you have to open it by turning the wheel. One of the enemies drops the shotgun pistol here. Next you just need to find 3 unfortunate enemies to blow a hole through.
No Witnesses - Destroy All Dropships on the Highway: At the end of level 2 you will end up on a bridge where you will have 4 dropships come down. They can be real hard to take down, but with the detachable minigun they are no problem. The first one comes down after the first bridge. once you advance a bit another one comes down and is hard to hit because he's usually behind some highway signs. Then 3 and 4 both show up at the same time a little further down the bridge.
Time For a Dip - Reach the River: Story Related

Chapter 3
Mopping up - Kill 40 Helghast Foot Soldiers: Right at the beginning when your in the turret R1 fires shells and R2 fires the machinegun but overheats if held down for to long. Try to take out the 2 dropships usually holds quite a bit of enemies.
Sawn Off - Destory All Chasing APC's: After the beach you roll up on land and over a bridge. You need to kill all the enemy APC's which look like what your driving. The will usually show up behind you, and it's about 6-7 APC's.
Smoking Wrecks - Destory all Tanks on Senlin Beach: Same as the APC's there are about 4 tanks. 1st Tank will appear behind the debris to your right. 2nd Tank will be on your left up on the highway. 3rd Tank will be after a dropship appears this one will be on your left. 4th tank will appear after the guy in front of you stops suddenly, the tank is right in front of him.
Eagle Eye - Every Sniper Rifle Bullet is a Kill: last section of the game you will split from you team to go in a building there will be 3 or 4 snipers in this building that you can grab a sniper rifle from, and the next part is the best for this trophy.
Save The Intruders - Arc APC's Destroyed: Story Related

Chapter 4
Spiky Personality - Kill a Helghast Using a Burster: a Burster is those plants with orange bulbs that explode when you shoot them. just pick you shot this shouldn't be to hard.
Never There - Sneak Past Helghast: You don't have to sneak by everyone. Just make sure your not spotted period. If you need to kill someone brutal melee or Shoot the guy in the head.
ISA TV - Establish Communication: Story Related
Turn the Tables - Melee Kill a Capture Trooper: a capture trooper is the bad ass looking Helghast that kill by melee. You just have to give him a taste of his own medicine. These guys will come after you make contact with the ISA.

Chapter 5
Minigunned - Destory all targets: when your on the ship with the minigun at the beginning you will fly by these oil tower structures. you need to aim and shoot at whatever looks like a blue cylinder or vessel next to pipes marked by blue stripes.
Areial Superiority - Kill 5 Helghast While in the Air: When you get a hold of a jetpack kill 5 enemies while boosted in the air.
Quick Exit - Escape the Oil Rig Quickly: After setting the 2 bases with C4 you have 4 minutes to escape... do it in 2 and get you'll get this trophy.
Excessive Force - Kill a Lone Helghast with the WASP secondary Fire: The wasp is the attached weapon in this level. The secondary fire is lock on with L1 and fire. try and hit one target.
Spread The Love - Kill 5 Helghast at Once Using the WASP's Secondary Fire: Similar to the last one just try and hit 5 enemies. There will be a drop ship after destroying a few gun nests. Wait until it drops of your buddies and lock on and boom this trophy should be yours.
Into The Lair - Reach the Cable Car: Story Related

Chapter 6
Jail Break - Liberate Narville: Story Related
Shattered - Destroying All Glass in the Labs: This is a difficult one... in the first room there is 10 pieces of glass, 4 in the refrigeration room, and then 64 in the last room. This last room is tricky, STA14 or whatever the single shot rifle is that zooms in. easiest way to get the top floor.
Frazzle Dazzle - Kill 3 Helghast With One Shot From the Sta5x Arc Cannon: This is the weapon you start out with in this level, most likely the easiest to get somewhere in this level just keep it in mind
Go Down And Stay Down - Destroy ATAC: Story Related
Iced - Destroy all Ice Saws and Dropships: this is the last part of the level where your in some jet-ski vehicle. You must kill the 4 Ice Saws and 6 Dropships before the level ends.

Chapter 7
Power Spike - Nail a Helghast to an Exploding Object: You must pick up the Nail gun from a weapon rack and look for a exploding barrel then pin a helghast to that barrel. Not easy to find a helghast in front of a barrel. there is one to the far right of an area when you get to the huge tower and a bunch of miniguns. He will be on the minigun to the farthest right, if you position yourself just right you can nail him to the barrel to his right.
Pinpoint - kill the Heavy With an StA-14: The single shot rifle makes the heavy's a lot easier. Make sure you pick this up from a weapon rack. I believe there is one right when he shows up, but not 100% sure. Shoot him in the head and then shoot the pack on his back when he turns around.
You Drive - Drive the Mobile Factory: Story Related

Chapter 8
Completist - Destroying Everything on the MAWLR: Biggest pain in the ass here is a video for you :D

Bring It Down - Defeat the MAWLR: Story Related

Chapter 9
Let's Go Home - Destory Stahl's Cruiser: Story Related

After you beat the game, play through it on your new unlocked difficulty (Elite). After that you can co-op with a buddy or plug in a second controller and replay the first 3 levels. Then you have your online trophies. You can get the Infiltrator trophy with the brutal melee kill trophy. Also revive someone, repair a turret/or bot, and capture a spawn point all while trying to win a round in each gametype (you'll know this when the xp bar goes up) and playing a game with a friend (Squad)

That is the way I did it and was able to complete this in about 2 weeks of gameplay while working on Mass Effect 2 as well. Speaking of Mass Effect 2 Lets move on to that...

Unlike most other games you dont need to unlock the hardest difficulty, but honestly it's faster and easier if you hold it off to the second playthrough. In the first playthrough your looking to recruit every member, purchase every Normandy upgrade, do every loyalty mission, High paragon/renegade rating, and have a love interest. Really that's all you have to worry about in your first playthrough.

To unlock the Loyalty missions you must talk to every teammate on the ship between each mission until you exhaust there dialogue. The high Paragon/renegade rating is to prevent from losing members loyalty from the fights on the ship, so when playing through the game make sure to choose paragon or renegade everytime.

I found that Thane is the easiest to have a love interest in. Jacob just wasn't getting any closer and I didn't even try ?Jack or whoever else she could go with.

Play through the game, recruit, max Paragon/Renegade, Loyalty, Upgrade, and love interest are what you need if you would like more info on this playthrough I suggest going here.

All you should need after that is to hit level 30 and beat the game on insanity. get to level 30 will be along the way to beating insanity. Beating insanity is the hardest thing to do in this game, so I took the fastest route.

Tutorial and Freedom's Progress
recruit Master Thief
recruit Mercenary
Recruit Professor
recruit krogan
recruit convict
recruit archangel
Horizon
5 missions (loyalty or side missions)
Collector Ship
Reaper IFF
Suicide mission

Don't bother with saving loyalty or keeping your team alive it's not worth it the pain that will be in your ass. Lucky for you guys I'm releasing videos and commentary for my Mass Effect 2 Insanity walkthrough. All I could get down this past week (takes a lot of time up just to edit and commentate these videos) is my recruitment of Zaeed (mercenary) and Mordin (Professor), and it takes place after my last 2 videos. here's your 5 part series of the recruitment of the two

Mass Effect 2 Recruiting Zaeed & Mordin 1/5 (Insanity)


Mass Effect 2 Recruiting Mordin 2/5 (Insanity)


Mass Effect 2 Recruiting Mordin 3/5 (Insanity)


Mass Effect 2 Recruiting Mordin 4/5 (Insanity)


Mass Effect 2 Recruiting Mordin 5/5 (Insanity)


That's it for this weeks blog! Thank you all for tuning in! Hope you join me next week for some game updates on Socom 4 and Brink, as well as some more Mass Effect 2 videos! Follow me on Twitter @Majorpain2587 hit me up talk to me I'm actually quite a cool guy and love to talk anything nerdy (mainly video games, comics, and movies). Please tell your friends about me and my super awesome goal!

Trophy Counter:
(I'm away from my system I will update this the next chance I get)

Week 19 - It's Not Over!

Alright! Welcome back to my blog 2012 by 2012! It's a good weekend. After PSN has been down for almost a good month it finally has returned to us last night! I know I've had a lot of friends waiting on it's return, and the second it popped on they were already gaming. They didn't care it was 1 or 2 in the morning all they cared about was that satisfaction of bashing in some guys head or fragging their friends and enemies. Although I am a big fan of online gaming... I have to say this PSN outage wasn't that big of a deal to me. I had my Single player experience to hold me over, and I'm glad it was Sony's Single Player experience that kept me alive for this long :P.

Lets get started on this week episode shall we! I have completed Killzone 3! That means I have a review for ya! Also I promised to start getting out a few videos of me going through Mass Effect 2, so I have some of those for you today as well!

Lately I've been kind of lazy when it has come to trophy hunting. I've tried to sit down and just bust out some trophies or work towards Mass Effect 2 platinum. It has just gone slow and I've lost the motivation for the day and I would stop. Sadly I have to say it's because Mass Effect 2 glitches. I'm literally 4 levels away from completing this game, but it takes 3 hours (sarcastically) to beat one level due to the difficulty with the glitches/bugs tacked on to that. That is mainly why I didn't do an update last week, because I got like a whole 5-8 trophies as was just like big whoop what am I going to talk about?

We'll start with the Killzone 3 Review and leave the goods for last. Killzone 3 not a earth shattering stop the presses FPS game, especially with the market flooded with FPS it's hard to shine. What does give it that shine and little above the top and edge on other FPS is it's was created by Sony's team... is Sony the only team that knows how to make a shooter? No I'm not saying that, but what I am saying is it's not a third party shooter allowing Sony to professionally implement their new motion controller into the game correctly. I played 95% of the game using the move + sharpshooter controller combo. I must say it added some frustration at first, but once you get use to it it's quite fun! That's enough with that let's move (pun intended :P) on to the review!

Review:
Sounds: The music did an awesome job of drawing you into the firefights. When a big battle came up I was guaranteed that my blood would pumping from the intense music working with me to feel in the moment. Clean crisp sounds everywhere I would go faded sounds of explosions and gun fire in the back. Nothing to fancy for FPS today, but enough to know that your in a war driven planet trying to make it out alive. I didn't get a chance to test out the surround sound, and that was do to me using the move (couldn't where my SS headphones and play with the move). I do plan to take advantage of it when I play it through the hardest difficulty next time (which I'll give you a heads up that I will be recording that as well).

Gameplay: Average FPS you can say... run here, shoot these guys, run over there, complete objective, shoot more guys, continue on, and do other objectives and killings. It used a lot of the stuff it picked up in the second game, but nothing else really new, which kind of seems lackluster. setting the C4 and turning the valves with the movement of your controller was brought back. A lot of the same weapons were back, but they also introduced some cool new ones. Sadly though there was 1 rifle, smg, sniper, and lmg... so yea not much variety to choose from. Heavy weapons shined in this game though from flamethrowers to detachable miniguns and guide mini rockets (kind of like the Jericho from the first Iron Man movie). A new enemy joined the Helghast team, but didn't show up a lot in the game. The final boss fight was disappointing though.

Story: There was a story, but as most FPS that doesn't really show. Not very many cut scenes that relate to story in this game most of the cut scenes are just transitions to new objectives/missions.

*Spoilers*
The story is pretty straight forward your Sev and your partner in crime is Rico. You start off at a Helghast base blending in as Helghast, your there to save Narville who is scheduled to be executed. You then head back to 6 months earlier where you just left off in Killzone 2 where you killed Visari. You have to escape the city why facing heavy resistance. Rico disobeys Narville's orders and separates from the team to go save a group of soldiers. Narville abandons him there thinking he's dead (I think he does it because he's tired of him disobeying his command).

Meanwhile the Helghast leaders are having a problem with Officer in Command Orlock has takin over, but is doing a poor job, so weapons designer Stahl is trying to turn the council against him and make him leader, and eventually refusing them his weapons until they do so. Stahl eventually becomes head of the council and has designed this new weapon that basically melts whatever it passes, which he plans to use on earth.

During this Narville and Sev gets captured and is being sent to some snowy Helghast base (which is where the game first took place) Rico intercepts the plan taking Sev, and you find out Rico has been alive for 6 months working with a resistance group made of ISA's. Sev wants to save Narville, but Rico says it's suicide but eventually ends up helping Sev anyways.

Then you take place in the middle of a helghast base with 3 guys (after saving narville) that's when you find out about the WMD and decide you need to plan an offensive now. You escape the building and due to thins Stahl is made a fool of (due to not properly executing Narville when he was right in front of him but instead gloating about it). The council have turned on him and have gone back to Orlock. Sev, Rico, and Narville make there way to the orbital elevator with there team of 60. Narville says we can't go we don't have enough men where Rico and Sev say we don't have time the world will end soon. Gives this huge long spirit lifting speech and they all head up there and in the end they basically stop Stahl from unleashing the WMD on Earth. I also need to add that I'm very upset that this game wasn't left at a close. They left it open hinting another one will be made, and I was really hoping this one was going to close the trilogy.

*End Spoilers*

Replayability: After beating it once you unlock the hardest difficulty, so it has a little replayability in that aspect. This game was also equipped with Online multiplayer, which I hear is really good and resembles much like the second one. It lacks the fanbase like CoD games have had though, but that might be because of how easy CoD games are to just pick up and play.

Graphics: Didn't feel that they improved much over the Killzone 2 graphics, but still highly comparable to any other game out there. No graphic tears or rips, and didn't see any bugs or glitches. All around very well ironed out game.

DS3: The bit that I played with the DualShock 3 was really good. The response didn't feel slow like in Killzone 2, but you still had that feel that you were holding a heavy weapon. Great job by the team on revamping what was a great idea but complained a lot about. They didn't ruin the aspect of it or dumb it down and out of the game.

Move: Few problems with this... The synching is off by some bit. I haven't played any other game yet with it, but it seemed off all the time. I even synched it up in the XMB options before going into the game, but when I aimed it at the eye and the two corners it would be anywhere from 4 inches to off the whole screen from where I was aiming. It also would move when I held the controller still in the center, you could see it slowly inch away from where I was aiming. which made it a little difficult to play with having to resync it so much. All it all the controls were easy (except the melee), aiming, firing, pause, jump, reload, and etc were all easy to do/learn. Pause was out of place and the Melee was stupid IMO... jerking the controller forward would make my guy spaz out and look left or up or down due to me arm movements. at the end of the game i learned circle was my not movement melee button, but the reload on the bottom or even twisting it to reload as well as the melee were poorly implemented in this game. They probably should have froze the reticle when the controller was under sudden movement maybe that might have been better.

Overall great game to add to the Killzone story, you can beat it in a few hours which is sad so I would suggest rent if you just want the story. If you want the platinum and want this for you Killzone collection then obviously buy it. It has a great online gameplay and community especially if you want to venture away from the CoD series.

Now the moment you have all been waiting for! My Mass Effect 2 videos! I will be showing you the Intro and Freedom's Progress today.

Intro


Freedom's Progress


I would like to thank everyone for reading, and I hope you enjoyed my video help and commentary. Please let your gamer friends/family now about my blog especially if they're interested in receiving some help/info about trophy gathering, and I will hopefully see you all next week! I should have more Mass Effect 2 videos for ya (hoping to get caught up so that would be a good 5 or so videos).

Trophy Counter:
Trophies: 1340/2012 Platinum Trophies: 21/32