White Day - A Labyrinth Named School - Kill Me Now

This game has one of the most annoying Platinum's to aim for, but for some, this may be more of a kill me now than a challenge. They have the most ridicules trophies that make it grindy and annoying, not forgetting the creepy Janitor. You have to play the game multiple times to get the platinum, so if you are a trophy hunter, you will know the first thing is to play and enjoy, then look at the trophy list. To blindly play this game and hope to get platinum with a couple of playthroughs and some challenges, think again. You may need more than a cup of coffee; think about writing your last will and testament. 

If you are not interested in trophies and looking for a story, playing this game on anything other than hard would be a pointless walkthrough as most of the ghosts only show up on hard mode. What really bores me to tears is the lack of thought that goes into the achievements.

Memory of white day is a day the game will never let you forget.

There are multiple endings in the game that you need to get the platinum. The problem is that you must get every ending on every difficulty to obtain the "Memory of White Day" trophy, along with the related trophies. There are five characters in the game, and you have to find all of their endings. There are a total of 10 endings and five difficulty levels to complete, so it can take a total of fifty playthroughs. Not to mention the cryptic story line of having specific items and carefully choosing dialog in the hope of playing a character.

If you are prepared to spend the next 85 years of your life playing one game with a polluted story or spending an extra 10 years reading through walkthroughs, then go for it. Whatever the developers were thinking with this is beyond my comprehension, and anyone who wants to attempt it may actually have a meme named in your honor.

The many routes through hell to get an ending.

The game requires you to do separate playthroughs for each character and not just once, as well as play on each difficulty. You also need the ending trophies for each character, as well as the "Memory of White Day" trophy. Let's not forget that even though they put you through hell to play their game, they want you to repeat that experience by doing it ten times in hell mode.

This really is a trophy hunter's nightmare, as there are too many permutations to simply pull off without a walkthrough. As a trophy hunter, this has to be the worst trophy collection in the last decade, and to boot, they have managed to turn a game into a grinding mass of polluted story-telling with a Janitor who is overly used, annoying, and makes the game almost unplayable. So don't expect a haunting experience walking through dark corridors and rooms, not knowing who is going to pop up next, because you will spend 90% of the time running from a guy with a club. 

The worst part about this game is that the story can be told in one sentence, so you are putting yourself through hell to come up with the same conclusion 50 times. Maybe it's just me, but I prefer Japanese survival horror games that just play and feel differently than their Korean counterparts. So if you really are looking for a game with an actual story, plenty of jump scares, and a haunting experience, then pick up a copy of Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water. 

Trophy List Rating -1 

Kill Me Now

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Alien Isolation: When you think you are safe.

I recently decided to stream one of my older games. I'm not known for streaming single-player games, but I decided to give it a shot with the support of my dear friend Final Cut. This is one of those games that never gets old and can be replayed multiple times. 

Alien Isolation is a 2014 survival horror game based on the Alien films. The game is set 15 years after the events of the original film. Amanda Ripley, daughter of Ellen Ripley, learns that the flight recorder of her mother's ship, the Nostromo, has been located and retrieved by the salvage ship Anesidora and is being held at the Sevastopol Space Station. Samuels, an android, offers Ripley a place on the retrieval team to obtain the flight recorder.

Alien is a single-player action-adventure game with an emphasis on stealth. The player controls Amanda Ripley from a first-person perspective and must explore a space station and complete objectives while avoiding, outsmarting, and defeating enemies. The alien creature cannot be defeated, requiring the player to use stealth tactics in order to survive, but there are other enemies who can be defeated.

Alien was nominated and won many awards, and by 2015, it had sold over 2 million copies and supported additional in-game content in the form of a downloadable content pack, but it never got the sequel it deserved as it was not seen as financially successful.

Clip my contain content not meant for children

Trophy List Rating 9

Survivor

To gain the platinum for Alien, you will have to replay the game in hard mode which can be a bit tricky if you neither like or are good at stealth games. It has the usual trophy collection of collectibles and accessing/upgrading your equipment, with some minigames and accessing computers under some constraints. The main trophies are: 

Survivor - Complete the game on hard and Mercy or Prudence - Do not kill any survivors and importantly do not get Androids to kill them for you or uses the Alien as your shield.

One Shot - Complete the game without dying, which will also reward you with three other trophies: 

Mind Your Step - Navigate the maintenance reactor without dying. 

Hide, Run, Survive - Complete the filth mission without being killed by the Alien.

Just Out of Reach - Contact your team and escape comms, without being attacked by an android. 

Excluding hard mode, every other trophy can be awarded on novice. It's also important to save the game every chance you get. Overall, the trophy list is fun to complete, but you are always under duress, not knowing who is going to show up, whether it be aliens, androids, or humans, especially in hard mode, as the experience is more intense.

 

Ten stars is the maximum rating given, but there are two things that negate one star. There is no trophy tracking in-game. Yes, I know PlayStation now has this feature, but in-game will always be better, as it's easier to pause and look at your stats than pin a card to track. The most annoying trophy is 100 times too many, but it can be achieved by playing through nightmare mode. I feel this trophy was unnecessary and should have been removed or replaced. I personally would rather have seen a trophy related to not dying anymore than 10 times on normal mode. There are also a lot of similar trophies but that is probably because of the nature of the games as its about survival, in which you cannot kill or damage the alien it self. 

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Dark Pictures: Anthology - Devil In Me

Devil in Me is one of four games and the season finale in the Dark Pictures: Anthology series developed by Supermassive Games. The story is based on HH Homes Murder Castle. The story follows a group of documentary film makers who receive a mysterious call inviting them to a modern-day replica of HH Holmes’ ‘Murder Hotel’. But on arrival, the crew soon discovers they’re being watched and even manipulated, and suddenly there’s much more at stake than just their ratings!

  

The Devil in Me encourages the player to put their problem-solving skills to good use, as the game includes puzzles. You’ll need to find codes hidden or disguised in the world, untangle old fuse boxes, and find your way out of mazes, and failure might prove to be very costly. Like other games in the series, you control their fate, whether they live or die.

 

There are rewards, but what is more interesting about this one is the collection of videos about H.H. Homes that you will need to find throughout the game. If you find them all, you can view a small documentary about him, which can be found in the bonus features.

So who was H.H. Homes? Herman Webster Mudgett, better known as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, was an American swindler and confidence trickster who is widely considered the country’s first known serial killer. Mudgett moved to Chicago and took a job as a pharmacist under the name "Dr. HH. Homes." He built a house for himself, later known as "Murder Castle," which was equipped with trapdoors, secret passages, and soundproof rooms with doors that could be locked from the outside. Mudgett confessed to 27 murders, which he later increased to 130. Some researchers, however, have claimed the real number exceeds 200.

To gain the platinum will require more than one playthrough, and for some, it may actually require a walkthrough, but overall, it is not bad but not great either. The dialog can become tedious as there is no option to skip when replaying the game. Some trophies can be a little more tricky but still achievable, but I see it as more of a glitch problem than anything else. Like the task of collecting crime scene photos, there is no way of tracking how many you have or need, and most annoyingly, you spend too much time trying to find the right angle. Overall, it's a pretty decent list, but questionable on some things. 

Trophy List Rating 7 - Say what now?

 

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Final Fantasy XVI - Best Game of 2023

 

Final Fantasy XVI

Final Fantasy XVI is the best game for 2023, in my opinion, and no other game comes close. Yet, it was snubbed by the game awards, and "Game of the Year" went to "Baldur''s Gate 3". Now, admittedly, I did not play it and was never interested in playing it or being interested in any of these games. The same could be said for Final Fantasy 7, as I barely touched it, so what changed?

Square Enix actually turned the industry upside down with their demo, which brought in a number of new Final Fantasy players. When the demo was released on PS5, it blew every other game out of the park and streamed all over the world while gamers eagerly hit that pre-order button. It was new and refreshing—not a remake or a seconds. This game should have won every award across the board, including all the voice actors in this game who all brought these characters to life.

Final Fantasy XVI being snubbed so much by the game awards makes me feel irritated that games are being given accolades that are not worthy and put on pedestals that should be knocked over. The same thing happened with Horizon Zero Dawn and Ghost of Tsushima—new games being snubbed for seconds. I'm not saying remakes should not happen; hell, I loved the Dead Space remake and loved playing the game, but seriously, whatever the agenda with the game awards, it's getting old, as is everything they stand for, because this isn't about games anymore.

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Days Gone - Underrated and Untouchable

Days Gone by Bend Studio is one of the most underrated games and was overly criticized; like Assassins Creed Unity, it was destroyed in one day. Critics play a game for five minutes, then destroy it in one. They want everything tied up in a bow while putting some games on pedestals because it's their favorite game. They then destroy others by throwing a tantrum. Not only was Days Gone underrated, but it never got the sequel it deserved because of some overzealous critics trying to make a name for themselves instead of reviewing the game fairly. If you want to call yourself a critic, then play the game from start to finish. I get that some reviewers like to review games based on their own opinions, but critics are a different breed. I also notice some critics put a game on a pedestal, giving it a 10 when it's obviously a 7. This doesn't make the game bad; it makes the game average. Games like Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon Zero Dawn were not only new IPs; they did something new and brought new mechanics to the game. They told a great story, and the graphics were phenomenal. Voice actors brought the characters to life, and developers gave us the adrenaline we needed. 

Trophy Hunters Delight

Days gone is one of the most fun games I have ever played. As far as the trophy list goes, it joined other games like Ghost of Tsushima as the top trophy lists in the last decade. Getting that shiny platinum felt like winning the lottery; the feeling of achieving that trophy while having fun doing it is something you don't experience with every game. 

Days gone did everything right. from the trophy list to the in-game trophy tracker, which was perfect for trophy hunters. The story may not be an 10/10 and more of a 8/10 but everything else exceeds a 10. It had some bugs, so as most games do, that's why we have updates. Days Gone is the best zombie game I have played, and I had the most fun with it. The only thing missing from this game was co-op. Taking on hoards with friends would have been the ultimate gift. 

One Percenter

To get that shiny platinum so aptly named, you are doing what the game intended. Learning the mechanics, build up your skills, take on challenges, and the most fun is taking out the hoards and having a blast etc. If only every trophy list could make you feel so driven. Even the name of the Platinum Trophy makes you feel empowered; you are playing a game, you are in control, you take out the hoards, and you are the survivor and the hero. 

What I loved most about this game is that it directed you, so that you knew, exactly what was expected of you.  I don't need my hand held I simply need to know what the game wants. It was fun working things out for yourself, and the trophy tracker kept you in the loop without having to constantly look it up to see what you needed. Let's also talk about replay value. I have already played the game several times, and it never gets old.

This will be the first game I would actually give a trophy list 10+ because it did everything right and actually cared about trophy hunters enough to include them when developing this game. We don't want to be the reason to play we want to be included.

Trophy List Rating 

Untouchable 10 

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