Demon's Souls (Playstation 3)
Master Bowman's Trophy
Obtained Best Bow by Spiderstone
This is an unusual trophy for me in that it's one of those rare moments where I committed to farming for more than ten minutes. I was looking at upgrading my weapons, specifically my bow due to my recent found love of ranged combat. I discovered that my best option was the Sticky Compound Long Bow, a bow that's of benefit to characters with high dexterity. Initially, I was only thinking of upgrading it a few times, but looking through my items revealed that I already had a few of the rarer items I needed to upgrade it fully, including a pure spiderstone, which is needed to make the final upgrade. With that in mind, I set out to farming the shards and chunks of spiderstone I still required.
It was disheartening at first, when not a single shard was dropping despite multiple runs through the area that contained the beasts that held onto them. It was then pointed out to me that items drop much more often when in pure black world tendency. So, I committed suicide in body form 7 times to achieve this. Around the same time, I discovered a crystal lizard that dropped a nice amount of the items I needed, and I was able to kill it twice before it stopped respawning. That sped things up a little, but I still had a few more chunks to find, which thankfully all dropped at the same time after another stretch of farming.
Does all of that sound ridiculous to you? If you've never played Demon's Souls, I'm sure it does. But that's what this game has you do. You have to kill crystal lizards, kill yourself and spend a couple of hours running through the same tunnel over and over again to get the weapons you want. I'm happy with the outcome, though, as I now have a pretty fantastic bow that's dishing out respectable amounts of damage. I've decided not to do the same for my melee weapon and shield, which would involve yet more hours of mindless farming, instead choosing to focus on actually completing the game. Funny, that.
Maneater's Trophy
Slayer of Demon "Maneater"
This was bordering on Flamelurker levels of annoyance. The strategy seemed simple enough; shoot at the Maneater as it was running towards me down a long platform, run past it and to the other end of the arena when it got too close and fire at it again while it continued to run towards me. Unfortunately, I was finding that it was always a little too close behind, leaving me little time to fire at it. The wonderful thing about this battle is that a second Maneater enters the fray after a certain amount of time. If the first one isn't one or two hits away from dying, your chances of survival are lowered significantly.
I died over and over again, even giving up before I went off on my holiday to Dublin, vowing to destroy it when I returned. It turns out I was making the whole thing difficult for myself, as I hadn't noticed one massive detail; the platform continued and the arena was actually twice as long as I thought. With this extra length to run into, it was much easier to get enough distance to get a few shots in before the Maneater reached me. Following this facepalm-worthy discovery, I killed both Maneaters first time.
Old Monk's Trophy
Slayer of Demon "Old Monk"
This is one of the most interesting bosses in the game and makes very innovative use of online functionality. If another player is available, he/she takes on the role of the final boss for this world. It's a brilliant example of PvP as it brings a whole new meaning to the fight, as there's so much more at stake. You're no longer fighting to stave off a mild annoyance, you now have to defeat another player in order to progress through the game. Meanwhile, the other player gets to feel the power of acting as an end-boss, and has the chance to bring a stall to another player's progression.
Of course, this would have been interesting had I not been playing offline. I'm trying to unlock certain areas and events by bringing each world to pure white tendency. Unfortunately, world tendency resets to an average of every other Demon's Souls player's tendency every time you load up the game while logged into PSN. For that reason, I've remained offline so that my world tendency persists, as I just don't have the time to go through other means of bringing it up to pure white. As such, this boss was merely an AI stand-in that's very much a pushover, meaning a very easy silver trophy. A shame, but it's my own fault for playing offline.
Old Hero's Trophy
Slayer of Demon "Old Hero"
I'm coming across quite a few scenarios now in which it seems I've automatically entered as the victor, purely because I'm fighting with a bow. Perhaps I am reducing difficulty by playing it safe with a ranged weapon, but surely a game like this should be balanced around making it hard for any style of fighting. Sometimes it feels like I've broken the game.
This boss is blind, and locates you based on what it can hear. Make too many loud footsteps and it'll come right at you. Attack it with your melee weapon and it'll lash out. Stand at a distance and fire arrows at it, and it'll just throw a bit of a tantrum, but never actually find you. Once again, an interesting boss with an intriguing mechanic made trivial by my choice of weapon.
Storm King's Trophy
Slayer of Demon "Storm King"
Honestly, I think this boss fight was a reward, allowing me to deal out a little payback to the airbourne manta things that have been causing so much irritation so far. The battlefield's sky is littered with them, and they're all shooting their barbs at you. But in a small corner of the arena lies salvation; a sword named "Stormruler."
This thing cuts through the air at quite a sizable range, allowing you to kill flying enemies from the ground just by swing it in their general direction. It makes this battle very easy, but I honestly think that the aim here was satisfaction more than anything else.
This trophy and the last 3 were all achieved in one session, which has brought me considerably closer to the end of the game in just a couple of hours. I now only have the fifth world to complete before returning to the final two levels of the first world.
World of Warcraft (PC)
Character: Grimtoosk (Troll Druid)
Explore Howling Fjord
Explore Howling Fjord, revealing the covered areas of the world map.
We're so close to reaching the required level for Dragonblight that it seemed a waste of time to go all the way over to Borean Tundra to grab that last chunk of experience. With over 30 quests remaining to get the quest achievement for Howling Fjord, we decided to stay in the hopes of leveling up without leaving the zone. This achievement was a consequence of us having no idea where those 30 quests were hiding. We explored the whole zone mostly by accident trying to locate them. It turned out that we'd already passed the quest giver that starts the entire chain off earlier, but we weren't a high enough level to accept them at the time. One sneaky talking walrus-man had us flying around the whole zone...
Team Fortress 2 (PC)
General Achievements
Master of Disguise
Trick an opposing Medic into healing you.
I'm not sure why this is listed as a general achievement; surely it's a spy achievement? In any case, I don't remember this happening at all, and I can assure you it had absolutely nothing to do with any skill in deception.
Spy Achievements
Burn Notice
Survive 30 seconds after being ignited while cloaked.
Following on from my dabbling in spy play last Team Fortress 2 session, I gave it another go this weekend. Unfortunately, it went just as terribly as last time. There's something about it that I just can't get my head around. I managed to pick this achievement up due to the sheer amount of time I spent on fire. I'm probably going to abandon the spy for now. Clearly, it's just not my style.
Engineer Achievements
Doc Holiday
Have a dispenser heal 3 teammates at the same time.
On the other hand, while I'm still fumbling a little with the engineer, I'm finding it infinitely more accessible than the spy. This achievement shows that I'm useful for something, as I managed to keep a dispenser up long enough for it to be used more than once. Incredible.
Deputized
Get 10 assists with another Engineer where a sentry gun was involved in the kill.
Playing in 2fort, I was trying out different places to build a sentry gun. It's a bit of a hit and miss map when you're playing as an engineer, as it all depends on whether the opposing team is actually trying to capture the briefcase or not. When they are, there are strategic points which need defending, perfect for a sentry gun camp. When they're not, you often find yourself standing in an empty room with nothing going on. This session's 2fort was one of the latter.
I didn't let that stop me, though, as I was still keen to practice as the engineer. I found a spot just inside the entrance of the base that was seeing some action every now and then. For some reason, 2 other engineers decided to set up their sentries right next to mine, making the whole thing trivial. No-one could step into the doorway without being ripped to shreds in a second. It was a very dull situation, and it was at this point we quit for the evening.
It was this wall of sentries that got me this achievement, as unsatisfying as it was. I'm still waiting for that one game in which I finally place my sentry gun and dispenser in a great position, and get to play the engineer properly. Perhaps next time.
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