The Platinum Card

I consider myself to be a bit of an on again/off again trophy hunter, a comment which I'll shed some light on before continuing. You see, when the PS3 and 360 came out, everyone was going nuts for achievement points. When Sony finally released trophies (which took nearly 2 years after launching the PS3) I was all over that shit. Of course after a year or 2 it became more of a hassle then an enjoyment and I started playing games to just play them again instead of trying to pad my stats.

Cue the Ps4 release and I find myself elusively hunting for those trophies again. My rationale though, is that I'm streaming nearly everything I play now and with the speed at which I complete a game’s story, trophy hunting is the next best thing to extend that game’s lifespan.

Now that you're safely out of my head, let’s get back on track. Recently I got the platinum trophy (100% completion) in inFamous: Second Son. Moreover, I wanted to look at this accomplishment from a trophy hunter’s prospective.

First things first though, this game was amazing! I loved it. The powers were cool, the story tug at the heart strings when it needed to, the pacing was great, and I found the entire experience to be quite a deal more focused than other open-world action titles. I did however feel that the older games in the series did have more content in the world than Second Son. The side missions felt more like side distractions: usually side “missions” have a sort of overarching narrative while these did not. Every mission you did as Delsin (the main protagonist) was story-relevant and progress the plot forward meaningfully. This isn't a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination; like I said, the game was focused, which I feel too many AAA games now a day's are jam packed with filler.

Trophy wise, the game was a joke. I almost feel bad getting the Platinum because it was so very easy, to the point where I almost feel dirty for getting it. I guess I'm kind of weird or stupid; or better yet, maybe I’m just difficult. I feel that it's challenging for developers to come up with achievements/trophies which effectively extend the lifespan of a video game. Developers either mail it in and make them un-challenging or they make them so impossibly hard and/or time consuming that you must spend like 100+ hours on a 10 hour game just to get them. Some games have the perfect balance. For instance I feel Resogun (ps4 downloadable game) has this, although I have yet to platinum it yet.

Second Son, sitting in the former camp, was very straight forward. The player pretty much has to beat the game twice, once playing as a Hero and in the next play through, you behave all villainous-like (with one session being played on normal ideally, and the second on hard mode). There were a few trophies thrown in there after the fact that required some extra gusto, such as killing one enemy with 3 different powers or staying afloat in the air for more than 45 seconds (which I thought would be harder than it actually was).

Moral dilemma... Those graphics though!

Now, yes it was easy, however the developers did one thing...one thing…that annoyed me to no end. They made it so you couldn't skip the cutscenes! In this day and age, who can't skip cutscenes? On the first play through it didn't matter, but when I have to play the game a second time, it would at least be beneficial to skip over previously watched cutscenes.

We shall see how long I can keep this going. So far on my Ps4 I have platinumed (in chronological order): Knack, Lego Marvel, Strider, Thief and now Second Son. Additionally, I'm on my way towards Dead Nation and Resogun. Looking back at my list, the last PS3 game I Plat'ed was Just Cause 2, which was in 2010...That very well might be the reason I stopped in the first place. My advice to you: never attempt to get all the achievements/trophies in a sand box game, it's not worth it.

Completely unrelated, I'm going to leave you with this: I started playing Mercenary Kings, which is free in April if you have Ps+, right after finishing Second Son. The only reason I bring it up is because the music is awesome and I desperately wished to share it with you!

So awesome... foreshadowing anyone?