When the Earth was young and the stakes seemed high, all that would remain to showcase our video game related triumphs were a few initials scrolling slowly, or far too quickly, on a flickering screen. Now though? No, now things have changed...

Was...was that opening too dramatic? I can never tell anymore.

Regardless, I'm here to have a conversation about a certain shooter some of you may have heard about: Battlefield: Hardline. It has it's flaws, Jeff having mentioned a few of them during a fairly recent bombcast in fact. Despite them though, I find myself returning to it over and over again these last few weeks, like a moth to flame. Was it the riveting story? Hahaha...No. The tight gun play? Nah. The surprisingly stable (for a BF game) multiplayer? Nope. This particular moth was drawn not to a flame, but the sweet shine emitted by possibly easy trophies!

Now, before some of you run away at the mere mention of them, let me defend trophies a bit here. A trophy or achievement can bring about a lot of reply value for a game. Middle Earth: Shadow Of Mordor is a good example of that, the activities it requests in order to earn them a nice balance between just playing through the story and messing about with all the game's systems in ways that you may not have tried.

Hardline goes a more simplistic route, often tying a trophy/achievement unlock to the "old standbys" like finishing a chapter or getting a few kills with a new weapon or item. It was in this kill-focused trophy that I encountered a problem: The grinding...oh dear lord, the grinding!

If you Look At The Trophy List, you'll see just a standard collection of stuff I mentioned. You know, complete this mission, find x item, finish on this difficulty, etc. along with a few that make you do some fun side things (Tasers! Tasers everywhere!). Hidden there in that list, however, lies an evil presence. A dark beast that isn't there for replay value or entertainment. No, this creature demands your time, all of it. Your skills, faultless. You must be a machine, a cold calculating beast yourself.

This terrible spirit has a name: They call it "Menz In The Hood" and...and it's impossible to keep this foreboding tone going when the name is that dumb isn't it?

To save you a trip to the trophy hunters den, that particular trophy has become the bane of most who try to earn it. You think to yourself "Well, I'll just unlock the weapons I need and get the kills right?" Oh you simple fool! No, not this time. Now, here, at this very moment, you must get not one but two classes to basically their max levels to even qualify to get the guns. Then, and only then, will you be allowed to start working towards the criteria to actually get the guns themselves.

What's that? You completed these kinds of things already? Hah! They didn't count then you silly person you: Do them again, and mean it this time! You'll actually start hoping, as I did, for people to drop the already unlocked guns so you can pick them up and get closer to that dark trophy's goals.

Or perhaps it's not a beast at all? Maybe this is instead a dark messiah, it's rage-inducing requirements causing others in the hunting community to band together and boost the hell out of this thing? Because we are. Oh man we surely are.

So what was the point of this blog, hmm? To unite all trophy hunters towards a common goal? To shed more light on a shooter with far better online functionality than the studio that normally makes the battlefield games?

Nah, not really, I just wanted to say I enjoyed the game and that I disagreed with Jeff's dismissal of it. In long prose because, hell, why not?

Thanks for reading along with my hubris folks. Now then, if you'll excuse me, I still need to unlock this damn shotgun...