Trophy Huntin' (31/07/11 - 06/08/11)

Welcome to a new weekly post tracking all the trophies and achievements I've earned over the last week. This may turn out very similar to "This Week I 'Ave Been Mostly Playing", but the focus on individual achievements will allow for a more structured post, rather than just a general overview of my gaming week. Let's begin with the past week...

Demon's Souls (Playstation 3)

Adjudicator's Trophy

Slayer of Demon "Adjudicator"

There's not much I can say about this boss. It looks interesting, being a big, bulging brute with a floppy, but destructive, tongue. Unfortunately, it was one of the easiest encounters I've faced so far.

I can imagine if I was trying to fight using a melee weapon, I might have found more of a challenge, and generally, the type of character I like to play is melee focused. Usually you would expect to have to pick between melee or ranged, the two being almost mutually exclusive, but in Demon's Souls, I've found that by focusing on increasing my dexterity while keeping my strength high enough to wield certain weapons, I'm quite capable of dishing out the damage both up close and from afar. It was quite a shock when I found a decent bow, fired at an airbourne enemy and the arrow killed it instantly. It was an identity crisis for a while. I'd defined myself as a man of melee, bravely fighting toe to toe with every monstrous demon that crossed my path. But now I found that I could stand safely at a distance, firing arrows like some sissy hunter? Unthinkable.

It certainly worked against the adjudicator though. Its weak point was its head, it could only hurt me if I was standing in front of it and it was extremely slow. Simply by strafing around it to keep at its back and shooting a handful of arrows at its head, it was vanquished within minutes.

Dragon God's Trophy

Slayer of Demon "Dragon God"

Now this is more like it. I wouldn't say that this was a particularly difficult fight either, but what it lacked in difficulty, it made up for in epic style. This thing was huge, its fist alone being at least three times the size of my character. As you can imagine, one strike from a Dragon God and you're dead before you hit the floor. You can't attack it directly, so what are you to do?

One of the mechanics I love to see in boss battles is the use of objects in the environment to bring the enemy down. In this scenario, there are two ballistae, one at either side of the chamber. A corridor filled with rubble leads to each ballista. Stealth is the name of the game here, as the tactic is to make your way along the corridor, hiding behind conveniently placed columns that act as a blind spot to the Dragon God. At an appropriate moment, you run out from your hiding place, smash through the rubble and pray that you're going to make it to the next pillar before you're crushed by a giant dragon fist. Once you get to a ballista, you fire it. The combination of both projectiles on ropes pins the dragon down. You can then proceed to the centre of the chamber to administer the extremely satisfying killing blow.

And that's my first silver trophy in Demon's Souls, as well as one of the worlds complete.

Fool's Idol's Trophy

Slayer of Demon "Fool's Idol"

A boss that creates false images of itself to disorientate you; ah yes, that old chestnut. Unfortunately, there was one thing that made it glaringly obvious which was the real Fool's Idol. Locking onto a target usually brings up its health bar, except on bosses where it's displayed at the bottom of the screen throughout the encounter. All of the Fool's Idol's false images had health bars when locked onto, so it was merely a case of cycling through targets until you found one without a health bar. Apparently, you can also tell by watching which image her minions worship, but I killed them all before starting on her.

Despite this, it was still an interesting level overall. The setting of a rotting, torturous prison has been the most disturbing so far, and I appreciate it for its creepiness.

World of Warcraft (PC)

Character: Grimtoosk (Troll Druid)

Level 70

Reach level 70

Level 70 means something to me. I began playing WoW when The Burning Crusade was the current expansion, so my first level cap was 70. It may not mean anything now as there are still another 15 levels and a slog through Wrath of Lich King content before reaching the maximum level, but I still get an odd nostalgic feeling when I see the number 70.

Team Fortress 2 (PC)

General Achievements

Riftwalker

Kill an enemy within 5 seconds of you traveling through an Engineer's teleporter.

I don't actually remember doing this, but such is the nature of Team Fortress 2 that you end up earning a lot of achievements by accident. It must have been a shock for the poor soul on the receiving end.

Heavy Achievements

Heavy Milestone 2

Achieve 16 of the achievements in the Heavy pack.

As you may have guessed, Heavy is my favourite class and the one I've played the most. In a genre that I'm mostly inexperienced and terrible at, the Heavy has allowed me to feel at least a little competent for the first time ever. I've noticed I can get a pretty decent score, especially when teamed up with a friendly medic.

Earning 16 Heavy achievements came with the reward of a new mini-gun named Natascha, which sacrifices damage and speed for the ability to slow down enemies. It seems very situational, its usefulness being based on the class make-up of the opposing team, but then, this applies to most of the Heavy's weapons. I've found myself mostly sticking to the default mini-gun, only switching to the alternatives in very specific scenarios.

Onwards to Heavy Milestone 3!

Permanent Revolution

Kill 5 enemies without spinning down your gun.

Obviously, I was paired up with a medic buddy for this one. The ÜberCharge is a wonderful thing, and allows for great moments like these. What a rush.

Vanguard Party

Be the first on your team to start capturing a control point in a round.

Another accidental achievement, though another possible product of the ÜberCharge. In fact, this may have occurred at the same time as Permanent Revolution. The capture point would certainly be clear after 5 enemies met their demise.

Spy Achievements

Identity Theft

Backstab the enemy that you're currently disguised as.

This week I experimented with a couple of classes that I've never really played long enough to work out what to do with them. The Spy is one of these classes and has always interested me, despite being of the sneaky play-style I'm not usually accustomed to. The Spy is quite a tricky class to play well, considering that your main tactic is to convince the enemy that you're one of them. I actually pulled this off a few times this evening, and managed to get a few backstabs in, including the hilariously insulting one mentioned in this achievement.

I'm still mostly awful at playing the Spy though, so I have a lot of practice ahead. And by practice, I mean deaths at the hands of enemies who see right through my guise.

Engineer Achievements

Uncivil Engineer

Provide an enemy player with a freeze cam of you and the sentry that just killed them.

The Engineer is the second class I decided to try out in this weekend's Team Fortress 2 session. My main problem with this class is that I'm not a very good judge of where to place a sentry gun. I suppose that just comes with experience. I did enjoy the difference in pace and the overall play-style of the engineer during those moments where I did get a few kills with a sentry gun. I'll definitely be coming back for more.

I gather that I earned this achievement just by being stood next to the sentry that killed an enemy.

Land Grab

Help a teammate construct a building.

There's no "I" in "Engineer"!