Shrek Forever After - Platinum Trophy Tips

My 10th platinum, Shrek Forever After, was good fun. At least better than all the other movie tie-in games that I rented to get easy platinums. The game has lush environment, controls respond fairly well and it is easy to switch to any character or drop in/out a second player. The battles are way too easy even with no upgrades and the puzzles are mostly straight forward. But the game was fun to play, especially with the donkey rambling non-stop.

Resources

• PS3Trophies Guide - This is sufficient to cover most of what you need, including a link to the chest locations (given below)
• Treasure Locations - This is definitely a handy guide, but is not quite complete since it does not cover many secret items
• Docks Level Chest Guide - Very good resource for the docks level
• Swamp Level Secret Item - There was one very tricky secret item in Swamp level that I missed twice, and this thread cleared it up for me
• Walkthrough of Dragon's Keep Level - Not really needed, but in case you miss some treasures/dronkeys or don't know how to proceed. The treasure guide isn't complete even for this level.
• Video Walkthrough - This walkthrough appears complete, but the player is sooooo slow that you'd want to play the game without looking at it (which is what I did). You can get past an entire level in the time this guy figures out one puzzle.
• Catacombs Treasure Puzzle - Refer to my tips in the next section

Tips

Do the entire game without bothering much about the treasures as you have to do them again anyway. Buy the money upgrades first to get more coin drops. If you see a "stack of coins" during your battles / crate breaking and you pick it up, any crate you break or any enemy you kill will drop gold coins instead of silver for a short period. Keep this in mind when you play. Remember that during your second playthrough, once you get all collectibles, the game will save and the trophy will pop. You can go back to Ogre Camp after that without finishing it.

Catacombs Puzzle

The only place I found a bit tricky is the puzzle in Catacombs that gives you 4 blue chests, 1 tie and 1 wanted poster. You will figure it out eventually if you work backwards, but in case you are in a hurry, I've taken screenshots of the final positions with my phone. Albeit terrible quality, they should help you finish it fast.

To get to this area, you need to be in that big room where you are asked to rescue many ogres by solving puzzles. You start out by lighting a lantern with Fiona and running down, where you see the 3 mice that give you tips. Run past them, use Fiona upgrade to burn the logs and run downstairs and light all lanterns you see. On your left side there should be two dials and on the right side one map and a waterfall. If you stand between the two dials, the camera shows you the entire area to help you solve the puzzle on that side. One dial will reorient 3 poles, and the other dial turns the other three. There is a 'wanted poster' inside that checkered gate at the bottom. To open the gate, you need to turn another dial that is right at the bottom of the screen (when you are looking at the overall view). To reach this dial, there is a place you can raft to, but this place is not visible on the screen when you get that overall view.

Your first goal should be to light up the small lanterns near the chests by rafting to them. They will enable a few more rafting points, giving you more options to get to your destination. Get the blue chests on this side first, then turn the last dial to open the gate to the poster. Lower the water level and run to it.

I don't remember in great detail to give you step by step guidance on this, but here are some screenshots to help out:

• After you light up the two lanterns in the top-middle of this screen, you get more rafting points. If you turn the dials to position the poles this way, you can raft to the left most corner of the screen, giving you access to a blue chest.

• After you get the blue chests on the left side, you need to get to the last dial (see bottom-right corner of the screenshot). This dial opens the gate with the wanted poster (see top-right corner of the previous screenshot to locate the gate). The following screenshot shows the position of the poles that will raft you to the last dial.

• The following pole positions will raft you to another blue chest on the left side (you get off right above the gate with the wanted poster).

• Once you get everything from the left side, you move to the right side with waterfalls and a map. You get a bow tie and a blue chest (or two) on this side. Getting the bow tie is just a matter of turning a couple of dials that are easily accessible, and then rafting to it. To get the very last chest, you need to form a bridge with the boxes. One of the boxes is in a different corner and you need to move it all the way. See screenshot below.

Hope that helped. The fun is in figuring it out yourself and this is not difficult, but the tips are for those who are in a hurry to platinum.

Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Part 1 - Platinum Trophy Tips

Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Part 1 is my first Potter game and 9th platinum. Have read all the books and own most movies on blu-ray though. The game is quite easy to platinum, but takes a long time because you must complete 3 playthroughs and 15 online challenges. The only hard part is the horcrux fight (A Cold Dark Night level) on hard mode.

Resources

1. PS3Trophies, for a nice trophy guide
2. Video walkthrough
3. Collectible video guide

I recommend not following the video guide on ps3trophies.org for collectibles because sometimes it is hard to figure out where the location is. Follow the link I gave above instead.

Roadmap

I started the game on hard because I wanted to breeze through the medium and easy modes without thinking much. Hard mode is not hard, except one or two tight spots. In my first playthrough (on hard), I picked up all collectibles, finished all combat trophies except the 1000 kills trophy. This one, I got sometime during the 'Follow Dean' level in my second playthrough. You can get it much earlier (or even at the end of the first playthrough) but I was very bored of killing; so sneaked through most of the time with the cloak. Other than that, the only trophies that remained were the online ones and medium and easy mode completion trophies.

After this, I finished medium mode, followed by easy mode; took about 4 hrs each. Then did the online challenges, finishing up with the Friendly Rivals trophy and the platinum.

Tips

While you'd get a lot of tips on ps3trophies.org, I give below some tips that I discovered / particularly found helpful.

General Tips

• There are loads and loads of enemies that spawn several times, so it gets really tedious if you have to fight everyone. Use your cloak to sneak past groups of death eaters / acromantula / pixies. Don't worry too much about the 1000 kills trophy, since you have 3 playthroughs. If Ron and/or Hermione are with you, let them take the heat while you sneak past with your cloak. They will blow your cover if they catch up with you, so while they are busy fighting, you need to make your way forward not accidentally stepping in the line of fire. They will join you when you reach the next checkpoint. If your cover is blown, one good option is to run (holding X button), get slightly farther and put on the cloak.
• Use Impedimenta for acromantula, pixies, horcrux snakes.
• Stupefy works fine for enemies but takes longer to kill unless you get headshots. Since the auto-aim doesn't snap on to the head that often, you may want to use Confringo instead.
• When under heavy fire, run to a corner where enemies can't come behind you. Cast Protego and hold, move your cursor near the next enemy you want to hit, quickly release Protego and hold R2 + R1 to fire. If you are using Stupefy, make sure your cursor is very close to the head when you press R2. Confringo worked very well for me in the survival missions, since it can take out multiple enemies at once (unlike Expelliarmus).
• If you have trouble aiming and throwing Doxycides at pixies (I did, initially), use this method. Wait until they all surround you, select the potion, throw it on the ground right where you are standing (you don't need to aim, just look at the ground and throw). This is almost sure to freeze them all. Now step aside, use Impedimenta and take them out.
• When you get near Whomping Willows, step close enough until you wake it up, then step backwards immediately. Right after the willow sways, press X and run forward. The willow will not hit again until you cross.
• Sometimes enemies spawn right after you cross Whomping Willows. Using the method above, step close enough to wake it up and step back. This usually makes the enemies on the other side spawn. Now you can easily kill them standing from the other side. If you don't do this, you may be surrounded when you've just crossed the willow.
• Sometimes enemies stand close to the willows, in a way that it doesn't wake up. If you see more than one standing around it, use Confringo and hit the tree. This will make the tree whack the enemies, possibly taking them out for good. Do this multiple times if they don't die.

Muggle Rescue Mission inside the Ministry

This mission seemed daunting at first but it is ridiculously easy when you know what to do. You don't have to kill anyone if you do it right (unless you do want to kill for the potion - see the next section). Put on your cloak and walk right in between the guards into the cell; the meter will turn red but will reset once you go in. Walk out the same way and get out of that section quickly. Suppose you get noticed when walking into the cell, throw Peruvian Instant Darkness close to the cell entrance and run to a quieter section to put on your cloak.

Liquid Experience

While you'll get all the potions eventually, Elixir of Life is supposedly the rarest. While it all seems random, I noticed that Elixir of Life starts dropping in the muggle rescue mission inside the ministry. This is not random because I confirmed it with multiple walkthrough videos. So when you play that level, make sure you kill the guards standing near the cell door. They will very likely drop the potion.

From Under the Cloak Trophy

Here is how I got the trophy. In Streets of Godric Hollow muggle rescue mission (not the main mission), start by following your Four Points spell. You should first reach an area with two guards and a muggle. After you finish that section, use Four Points again; this will take you to a muggle with a single guard, with enough space in between them. Sneak behind the guard, stand very close, cast Stupefy without aiming. This will definitely take him out. Now walk in the same direction he was facing, keep walking past the entrance until you see a chair. Once you cross that chair, turn around, put on your cloak and walk back to the muggle area. You'll see that the guard respawned. Rinse and repeat 50 times, the trophy is yours. At times you'll see one or two dementors bugging you. If you do, just kill the guard, get rid of the dementors and continue.

Horcrux Battle

This battle on hard mode annoyed me quite a bit. Finally I figured out a way, after which I never died in any difficulty mode. I've posted my method here. Copy pasting from there, in case that link dies:

As soon as the level started, I killed 1 or 2 snakes that were right ahead of me. Then I turned all the way around and ran like hell. After some distance, there was a tree with a big rock right next to the tree, on the right side (when you see from the "snake's point of view"). I hid behind the tree and started taking potshots at the snakes. The spiders mostly came from the side where the rock wasn't there, so as long as I'm watching that side I could kill them easily. They occasionally came from the rock-side too and sat on that rock, but this wasn't very often. The green stuff came flying on both sides, but the rock took all the hits that came its way, so I didn't have to bother about that side at all. After a long time the scene ended, but I seriously doubt if I killed all the snakes! And I had this doubt in each difficulty!

Online Trophies

While the challenges are easy, there are one or two things that may need explanation. In Easy Challenge 5 (Go to Umbridge's Office), the Four Points spell stopped working for me after a while. If it happens for you, keep walking in the same direction until you find an area where there is some crowd, 2 big pillars, some lighting in that area. The door in between the pillars is where you need to go into.

Hard Challenge 5 is the easiest of all, and this will help you with Survivalist and Friendly Rivals trophies. You just need to remember that you can run fast as soon as it starts, until you get to the end of the street. The sneak meter will go red in a while, so you need to refresh your cloak at least once in the middle. A good place to do this is as soon as you enter the ministry fortress (from the street); you should see a guard there facing the other way. It took me about 48 seconds.

The Friendly Rivals trophy, which looks easy enough, warrants some explanation as it gave me a hard time at first. In the Online Scoreboards, once you select a challenge, you'll see the 1000 people who made the best scores. Even if you finished this challenge, if you press the square button (marked "You"), you may not see your name. That is because you need to get a score that is better than the 1000th person's score. Similarly, the friends you added (to compare scores) should also have completed that challenge with a score that puts them on the leaderboard. So when you add a random person for this trophy, ensure that he/she is on the leaderboard for some challenge, and that this challenge is easy enough for you to get a good score. Suppose you choose Hard Challenge 5. Go to that challenge, play it, get a good score. You'll see the "Continue" and "Retry" options; choose Continue here and get back to the online challenges menu (where you see the list of challenges). Now, STAY HERE for a few minutes ... or play some other challenge, but DO NOT quit to the previous menu. The reason is that it takes some 10 mins for your score to be posted to the leaderboard, and it will not be posted if you leave the online challenges menu (it is OK to be playing a challenge). Once you wait for 10 mins, go back to the scoreboard, you should find your name when you press the square button.

WWE Legends of Wrestlemania - Platinum Trophy Tips

WWE Legends of Wrestlemania was my 8th platinum, and mostly my last game before my Gamefly trial expires. The game was fun, but I often got annoyed with certain moves that always ended up wrong because the key presses were tricky. Apart from that, there is one mode where the game gets very repetitive when you fight 38 opponents in a row. There are only 2-3 fights that are a bit hard to clear, so this is a fairly easy platinum.

As usual, here are some guides that might help understanding what is required for the plat and also help you understand some confusing challenge descriptions -

IGN's guide is not really a platinum guide, but will help you tackle the tour challenges.

PS3Trophies guide is indeed a trophy guide, but doesn't say a lot about different challenges. This isn't required really since most of them are easy.

The tour mode, which is the most interesting, requires that you play several games (that happened in the past) and complete some or all challenges posed to you. The challenges could be as easy as getting the first hit or as tricky as getting yourself beaten up badly and then reversing your opponent's moves. The good part is, all except one match give you the option to skip one or more challenges. So look at the objectives, if something is particularly tricky, don't bother doing those. If all of them appear easy, you could skip the finisher challenges since you need to be at level 3 to execute those. If you see any challenge that requires you to get beaten up, you might as well skip it if there is an alternative. Reason is that, you might get pinned down accidentally if you mess up the reversal button presses or if you become too weak.

The last game in Relive mode (Stone Cold vs The Rock) is what most people claim the hardest since you are expected to clear every single challenge. The only thing I found hard in this is the "Block Bottom" challenge where you need to let The Rock beat you up bad and then reverse his level 3 move. The best tip I can give is - Check out the IGN guide above, and DO NOT follow it! It tells you to do this challenge at the end, and that is the worst advice in my opinion. I tried that and when this was the one of the last challenges left, I let Rock win the game. So use that guide to understand how to do the other challenges, and then ignore the order. After you win the opening move, let Rock beat you up and get his level 3. Then give him a few blows now and then and try reversing everything he does (using L away + Triangle). If you are not good at reversing (like me), you will get hit pretty bad, but try your best to kick out of it and continue. The moment you get the rock bottom reversed (you'll see the challenge completion), then it is your game. NEVER let Rock get better of you after that. Finish off most of the "inside the ring" challenges, then get out of the ring and do everything else. Suppose you can't get to level 3 soon, the easiest option is the pick up the chair under the ring. Two or three blows with this will get you to level 3, and in this game, you will not be disqualified.

The only other match I found hard was the Iron Man fight between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels (last Rewrite challenge). Luckily in this, there was only one challenge that required you to get beaten, but I skipped this since you are allowed to skip one. The other challenge "Busted Open" might be tricky, but follow what IGN guide says - get to level 3, keep doing strong grapples (hold X). Do not do your finisher before you get this, since you'll lose the level 3. About 3 strong grapples at level 3 will make you win this challenge. Keep in mind that Shawn is a tricky opponent, and a few times, I found myself getting pinned down when I least expected, resulting in a loss. Just ensure you have the upper hand always and don't do too many of those "button mashing" combos unless you need to complete a challenge. Those are the ones that might get reversed if you mess up.

As a last note, getting to level 3 appeared quite tedious at first when I was just using the strike moves (square button). Later I realized that the more grapples you do (pressing X), the faster the meter moves. Also, one easy move I found while playing Stone Cold (not sure if it works with other players) is pressing X X near the opponent. This would put you right behind your opponent, and you can press an X now to deliver a good blow. This also contributes to your level increases. Try it with other players, and if it works, you got yourself an easy method.

Terminator Salvation - Platinum Trophy Tips

I found this game reasonably entertaining, in spite of all the criticisms from hardcore gamers (I'm not one). Some parts were really frustrating but I somehow got through. The worst things about this game are its long reload times after you die and the terrible frame rate issues that pop up now and then. The good thing about trophies in this game is that it is about quality and not quantity. They have just 11 gold trophies and 1 platinum, which you get if you beat the game on hard. So no stupid collectibles, no 100 head shots etc.

Here are my tips, if at all you care:

1) NEVER go guns blazing. All enemies are stronger than you, and the only way to defeat them is by finding the right location to take cover and hitting their weak spots.

2) Kill the wasps / aerostats first, or let your teammates take them out. I say this because you need a good vantage point for the other enemies like spiders, and these flyers tend to annoy you constantly when you move around. All you need to do to kill these is get one good shot with a shotgun. If not, just stay hidden until your teammates take them out; they are pretty good at that.

3) To kill spiders, always find a spot exact opposite to the majority of your team. If the spider is looking at your enemies, shoot its upper back (you'll see a red box highlighting the weak spot). If you can't shoot properly, just shoot until it turns your way, stay hidden and blind fire (press R2 without aiming). This will keep them focussed on you while your teammates get them from the back.

4) T600 / T7s are very hard to kill with rifles, so use your heavy weapons on these and soften them up (you'll see a blue light on them when they are weak). There is one machine gun (not the one you start the game with, but you should find it on the way) that does very heavy damage to these. I can't remember the name though. Most other rifles are very weak against these machines; but if you pick up this machine gun, you can shoot the machines' head and take them out in a few rounds. These machines also have some kind of glitch; if you get them to go near some corner and start shooting them, they seem to sort of freeze up and just stand their without doing much. You can continue firing from your cover, and they usually take a step or two back and forth but that's it. See if you can find this sweet spot and use it to your advantage.

5) In most levels, when you fight a lot of spiders and/or T600/T7s, look for a staircase or a platform to go to the next level. I found these on many locations, and they are perhaps the best vantage points you can get. Just climb up, position yourself right across your teammates and shoot. The enemies won't come up the stairs in most cases so you are very safe. There are 2-3 situations where T600s do come upstairs and screw you, but this is because the game is supposed to proceed this way; as in, it is not like they followed you just because they saw you hiding upstairs, they would've come up anyway.

6) When you shoot rockets at those motorcycle enemies, aim a little ahead of them, but not too much.

7) When you operate the blue harvester in level 7, use the missile fire on the AA guns or HKs (the big flying vehicles) as often as possible. They cause heavy damage but they take time to reload. So fire them as soon as you get them, switch to regular fire, go back to missiles as soon as they are ready. In short, don't forget they exist - they are quite powerful. If you are sure you are aiming right, feel free to press both L1 and R1 at the same to fire both missiles together. This will make sure your target gets hit pretty bad before it moves away, provided you aimed right.

If you are stuck and need some help with good hiding spots, refer to these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLM2aewF-6o&feature=BFa&list=SPEB6A5A9D2DE8F1DD&index=1 (a playlist)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neEhSopOqco (find the other videos in the related videos column)

Pixar UP - Platinum Trophy Tips

Pixar UP gave me my 6th platinum. The game should be fun and easy for kids except the plane levels. I've always hated plane games, and have never liked inverted controls, and this game had both ... and didn't let me change the controls! The camera angle was poor at times, making it hard to move. Having multiple characters and switching between them is fine, but sometimes it got too crowded and the characters bumped into each other and fell off the cliff.

Anyway, this is a fairly easy platinum; may be 3/10 difficulty, considering the plane levels (or would've been easier). The guides I followed were:

Trophy Roadmap

Artifact/Memento Locations

Video Walkthrough, although I didn't use it much (for the other parts of the walkthrough, look at the suggestions on the right)

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - Platinum Trophy Tips

This game is really easy like Megamind and is more kiddish than that game. No one older than 10 is likely to find it amusing. Nevertheless, there is a low hanging platinum trophy, and that is all I needed. You don't really need walkthrough for the gameplay, but there are collectibles in this game that may need some guidance. Most of them are in plain sight while some are not. I give below some resources I used.

Trophy list and tips: http://www.ps3trophies.org/forum/cloudy-chance-meatballs/24659-cloudy-chance-meatballs-road-map-trophy-guide.html

Foodpod locations (video walkthrough): http://www.ps3trophies.org/forum/cloudy-chance-meatballs/87817-cloudy-chance-meatballs-hydroponics-vids.html

And suppose you get stuck somewhere and not sure how to proceed (highly unlikely), you could look at this text walkthrough and get yourself out - http://www.gamefaqs.com/wii/959204-cloudy-with-a-chance-of-meatballs/faqs/61093

Copying data files using Android.mk

One of the most under-documented areas of Android at present is its makefile. There is of course a ton of those for reference under Android source tree, but they aren't really 'documentation'. THIS is the only one I found that is reasonably adequate. The other day I was trying to find a way to copy an xml file into the image's /system/etc/permissions folder through Android.mk. Upon googling, I realized that many people were looking for ways to run shell commands through the makefile so that they can run copy commands. I was pretty sure that there had to be a better way, just not documented. And then I found it. The template to copy a file is this:

include $(CLEAR_VARS) 

LOCAL_MODULE := my_data_file.cfg 

LOCAL_MODULE_TAGS := optional 

LOCAL_MODULE_CLASS := ETC 

LOCAL_MODULE_PATH := /path/to/the/destination/folder 

LOCAL_SRC_FILES := sources_files_to_copy 

include $(BUILD_PREBUILT)

So if you want to copy an xml file to the permissions folder, you could do this:

include $(CLEAR_VARS)
LOCAL_MODULE := mydata.xml
LOCAL_MODULE_TAGS := optional
LOCAL_MODULE_CLASS := ETC
# Copies mydata.xml to /system/etc/permissions
LOCAL_MODULE_PATH := $(TARGET_OUT_ETC)/permissions
LOCAL_SRC_FILES := $(LOCAL_MODULE)
include $(BUILD_PREBUILT)

The above example is from one of Android's makefiles (location service) found here.  You should be able to use the above snippet and make it copy any file to any folder.