My brother has been complaining recently that all his friends have Platinum Trophies on the PS3 system, and I never buy him anything. So we decided to look through our trophy collection and see which game it would take the least effort to finish completely. 100%. Platinum.

It turned out to be the exemplary Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, at 78% complete. When it comes to video games, both my brother and I are completion whores. However, we have our different fields of expertise when it comes to gaming, and the Uncharted series is one of mine. The second game I ever played on the PS3, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune blew me away. It remains one of my favourite games and I must have completed the story six times altogether. But what with one thing and another (including one set of lost trophies), I never got the Platinum Trophy. I was thrilled at the announcement of Uncharted 2, and it did not disappoint. Expect to see Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception make an appearance in this blog around November or Christmas!

Anyway, back to the story. I found, to my surprise, frankly, that I had 73 of the 100 treasures (feel free to be impressed), only a handful of gun achievements and crushing mode to do to gain the Platinum on Uncharted 2. So I waited patiently until my brother wasn’t around (so I could hog the machine), fed the dog, battened down the  hatches, and prepared for what was almost certain to be an arduous experience.

In Uncharted 2, Crushing mode does what is says on the tin. Your health is approximately the same as the lowest of the grunts, meaning you take a mere 3 or 4 shots to kill. I’ll admit, this might still be far from realistic, but when you have every enemy armed with assault rifles or shotguns from level 5 of 26, and on top of that there are heavily-armoured honchos with mini-guns, the odd assault helicopter, a tank and then mythical creatures to get past and a god-like super-villain as a final boss, it suddenly becomes a slog. You learn to stealth kill, as much as possible, and you suddenly become very good at landing head-shots, or you don’t get anywhere. But no big deal. It’s a fun game.

The real monster would be the remaining 27 treasures. If I hadn’t stumbled across them yet, they would be fiendishly hidden, in sewers beneath manhole covers down alleys that are far off of the beaten path of the story.

And I was doing this by choice? Yes. In the name of procrastination. So off I set, with nothing but entertaining dialogue delivered well by a good strong cast of actors backed by a fantastic score to keep me company. Within ten minutes, I know I won’t regret it. This game rocks. I was right about some of the treasures – I found myself checking the ceiling above every set of stairs I climbed, for a treasure that would otherwise be out of view. The hundredth treasure, however – which I had missed towards the end of the game – was staring me right in the face, and I was bewildered as to how I had missed it in the first place. Maybe I was all caught up in how awesome Uncharted 2 is. Did I mention it was awesome before.

Then came the final boss. Procrastinators, I spent hours – and I mean that literally, hours – on this boss. The idea is that he is invulnerable to your bullets, so you have to wait for him to wander next to some blue tree sap (I go no further – no spoilers in THIS article!) and shoot that, which will then explode, and damage him. You have to do this circa 15 times to kill him. And every five you get, the situation changes. First, he starts running to catch you. Then he throws grenades. Then he throws 5 grenades at once while running to catch you. And then the level starts to fall apart around your ears.

I would like to say I stuck at it. I would like to say that, although it took me many cups of tea, and soothing music, I eventually got lucky, killed him, and completed the game,  free to move on to other medals. Well, after the first 3 hours, I did indeed mute the PlayStation and put on soothing music instead, but  to no avail. I threw my controller down again and again until I decided that I needed to have a break, or I might damage it. This procrastinator was, for a time, defeated. I went and did some work. I hate to admit it, but it came as a welcome relief.

So when my brother returned, I had to face him with my shame. The game had defeated my spirit. And so we decided, as only brothers can, that the only thing to do would be to tag-team his ass. My brother and I played hot-potato with the controller; when one started to despair, the other would jump in, fresh and invigorated by team spirit, ready to do his part. And, after nearly two more hours, my brother finally broke the bugger’s back. Boom. One more gold medal in the bag. There was much whooping and self-congratulation.

After completing the game on Crushing, I will admit to you that I had to turn the difficulty down and start again to attempt to get the final few trophies. But I defy anyone to get ‘Survivor’ (Defeat 75 enemies without dying) on Crushing mode without cheating. However, much like the new Star Wars release, there is a disappointing end to this saga, as the platinum remains unattained. Even after defeating Crushing mode, the final medal to evade me was “Steel Fist Expert”. Steel Fist is a kill you get by punching someone out after depleting their health with gunfire. And to get the medal, you had to do this ten times. In a row. So in effect, you’re bullet counting, trying to keep track of how many bullets you’ve shot into whom, before rushing forward and hoping that you’ve judged it correctly. Nightmare.

All in all this procrastination took me a long time, and it is still unfinished. Was it worth it? Probably not. The trophy is only for bragging rights, after all, and video games are there to enjoy, not as a tool to drain your spirit until you cry with frustration. If you intend to follow in my footsteps with this one, fellow procrastinator, choose a game you truly love.