Thursday, 16 April 2015

Journey To Platinum - Call of Duty: Black Ops [Part 1 ~ Single Player Trophies]


I'll be honest, when I first played the campaign for Black Ops, I found it pretty boring. I don't know if it was because the plotline just didn't interest me or if it was because the previous CoD title was Modern Warfare 2, which was pretty high octane. As you'll know by now, I always read the trophy list after completing a game, just to see what the demands are for the platinum trophy and even though I thought Black Ops was doable, I just didn't have the will power to go for it at the time. Fast forward a few years and I'm in the mood to clean up my virtual trophy cabinet, so I figure it was time to finally put this trophy list to bed. As I mentioned, I didn't think the trophy list would be too demanding and having now earned my platinum trophy, I think that was a fair initial assessment. There are more single player trophies than there are multiplayer trophies but depending on how lucky you get, the multiplayer trophies could end up taking you longer to complete [I'll explain more in that article].

Single Player Trophy Guide

Death to Dictators - Take down Castro with a headshot. 

I would’ve thought that everyone will do this during the mission; I mean after all there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t go for the headshot. It’s a slow-motion room breach and the best shot to take, is the one where you place a bullet in between his eyes. If you fail to get it first time, just come back after and try again using mission select.

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Sacrifice - Ensure your squad escapes safely from Cuba. 

Part of the story, so can’t be missed, just follow the games direction.

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Vehicular Slaughter - Destroy all enemies on vehicles during the prison break. 

Just keep shooting until the end of the sequence, not a trophy that you’re likely to miss, if you make an effort to track enemies. Remember vehicles can explode, so that might be a more efficient way to take care of groups of enemies, instead of concentrating on single targets.

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Slingshot Kid - Destroy all slingshot targets in 3 attempts.  

A relatively simple trophy but one that requires a bit of trial and error. I missed this on both my playthroughs, so I had to come back and do it via mission select. Fortunately difficulty is not a factor, so just pick easy and rush until that section, it isn’t too far into the mission. You might like to check YouTube for a video guide beforehand, as it can be helpful to see the sort of drop the slingshot incurs over distance. My advice is to go for the hardest shots first, that way if you mess up, you can restart the check point and try again.

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Give me liberty, or give me death - Escape Vorkuta.

VIP - Receive orders from Lancer. 

A safer place - Sabotage the Soviet space program. 


Part of the story, so can’t be missed, just follow the games direction.

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Tough Economy - Use no more than 6 TOW guided missiles to destroy the tanks in the defence of Khe Sanh. 

The missiles are a one hit kill if they make direct contact, so that’s the best way to do it but if you aren’t great at lining them up, you can try using the auto detonate feature. You’ll still need to make sure you have a good line of sight to the targets but after that you just need to guide the missile as close as you can, then self-destruct when you’re next to each tank.

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Looks don't count - Break the siege in the battle of Khe Sanh. 

Part of the story, so can’t be missed, just follow the games direction.

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Raining Pain - Rack up a body count of 20 NVA using air support in Hue City. 

In all honesty I can’t remember if there’s a limit to how many times you can use the air support but I don’t believe there is, so just spam it on any location that has more than two enemy personnel. It’s the easiest way to progress through the mission anyway, so there’s no real reason why this trophy shouldn’t occur naturally.

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The Dragon Within - Kill 10 NVA with Dragon's Breath rounds. 

At one point of the mission where you’re in Hue City, you’re told about the shotgun which has the Dragon’s Breath rounds loaded. You’ll be in engaged in CQC for the first part of the mission, so a shotgun is pretty ideal, just blast ten enemies and the trophy should pop. Btw, there are way more than ten enemies in that section anyway, so it doesn’t matter if you miss a few.

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SOG Rules - Retrieve the dossier and the defector from Hue City. 

Part of the story, so can’t be missed, just follow the games direction.

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Heavy Hand - Use the Grim Reaper to destroy the MG emplacement. 

The game instructs you to do this, so it’s pretty hard to miss this trophy. The Grim Reaper is the rectangle rocket launcher which has four shots before a reload is needed; it’ll be located on ground in the vicinity of where your allies are taking cover. You’ll have to pick it up off the floor, then just point and shoot, it’s fairly accurate but you might need more than one hit to take out the enemy position.

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Up close and personal - Silently take out 3 VC. 

This means getting stealth kills i.e. a melee attack that doesn’t alert any other enemies. Pretty sure it’s harder to not get the trophy that it is to get the trophy, if you know what I mean lol.

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Double Trouble - Use only dual wield weapons to escape Kowloon.  

I’m not really a fan of using dual wield weapons, so this was never going to happen naturally for me, having said that, I doubt many people will have completed this trophy without first knowing about it. I just came back after and re-played the mission on easy, then blitzed through, it was actually quite fun but not something I recommend doing on higher difficulties :P

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Broken English - Escape Kowloon. 

Part of the story, so can’t be missed, just follow the games direction.

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Lord Nelson - Destroy all targets and structures while making your way up the river.  

I managed to get this done during my veteran run and it wasn’t too bad but a bit time consuming. You have an unlimited amount of ammo, so that’s not an issue and you can hit targets from a pretty lengthy distance, so you shouldn’t have any trouble staying alive. The river is quite long and the targets/structures are often spread out, so you’ll need to keep checking both sides of the banks to make sure you haven’t missed anything. Marked targets are usually quick to take out but the other structures, such as huts and generic buildings will require a lot of shots.

You’ll know when you’ve fully destroyed a structure, when you’ve literally taken off all the walls and ceilings, leaving nothing but the framework. What I did was to work my way up the river bit by bit, then double back every so often and check that I hadn’t missed anything. Sometimes there will be buildings that are not right on the river banks, so be sure to scan the background and don’t assume there isn’t a little shack in that dark corner behind those bushes.

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Never get off the boat - Find the Soviet connection in Laos. 

Part of the story, so can’t be missed, just follow the games direction.

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Pathfinder - Guide the squad through the Soviet outpost without them getting killed.  

This is the part where you’re in the SR-71 giving the ground team instructions of where to go, it’s a pretty straight forward trophy, so I really don’t know how I managed to mess it up on my first playthrough. Anyway, there’s really only two parts of this section that you need to be wary of, the first is easy to avert and the second just requires you to be ready to tap a button. Shortly after giving your team their initial relocation orders, you need to scan your screen to right hand side and slightly north, there will be two enemies standing guard (or something), if you highlight them, your team will be able to take them out stealthily.

Towards the end of the SR-71 stage, you’ll need to instruct your team to dig in and avoid an enemy patrol; this part is easy because the game tells you to do it. After the danger has passed, you’ll eventually be instructing the team to cross an open road, just as they approach it, a convoy of enemy vehicles will drive past. The game won’t tell you to get the team to dig in but you must give the order, otherwise they will be spotted and you will not unlock the trophy. Like I said, really simple, you just need to be quick on the button.

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Mr. Black OP - Enter the Soviet relay station undetected.  

After the SR-71 sequence, you’ll eventually approach the relay station, where the team will then take up positions and wait for you to act. As far as I know the only way to do this is to use your crossbow, which you can use to take out enemies quietly and from range. I recommend treating it like a sniper rifle, so make sure you line up headshots and hold your breath for pin point precision. There are lots of enemies to kill but fortunately, the game splits them off into smaller groupings. After you’ve dropped one target within a group; your team will take out the rest, so despite there being about twenty enemies in total, you’ll only need to kill about six/seven. It’s really all about making sure you target the right enemies and take them out, as not to alert the other groups. I’m probably not painting a very clear picture but you’ll know what I mean when you start the section. There is no time limit to clearing this area, so don’t rush, use the vantage point to the right and make sure you’ve spotted all enemies.

Your team will call them out at the very start but it’s better if you clock their locations with your own eyes. I should tell you that there will a few enemies right below the elevated vantage point, so don’t do anything to give away your position, staying prone should keep you hidden. I don’t think there’s a set order you need to follow when taking out the groups but whichever pattern you decide on, make sure that the group you kill aren’t in direct line of sight to another, otherwise you’ll be compromised. Most enemies are stationary but there will be a couple on patrol, these are the trickiest to take out because you need to hit a moving target, while also making sure that he dies in a spot where no-one will see him go down. Don’t be afraid to relocate for a better shot, just make sure you stay in cover, move slowly and always remain crouched or prone.

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With extreme prejudice - Get to the POW compound in the Hind using only rockets.  

I tried to do this on my veteran run and at first it wasn’t too bad, so I thought I’d be able to complete the trophy but then I got to the part where you have to take on the two enemy attack helos and just couldn’t progress any further. The enemy birds are very mobile and your rockets aren’t that quick, so the result was me missing shots all over the place from range. I tried to get in closer for more accurate targeting but when you’re at point blank range, they will literally rip you to shreds very quickly.

After several failed attempts, I just gave up and returned after the campaign and re-played the mission on easy. At the lower difficulty you can get right up in their faces and then all you need to do is keep spamming your rockets until they go down. I’m not sure if it was a one off event but at one point, I actually managed to back one of the enemy gunships into the edge of the map and keep him pinned there until I’d destroyed him, so you might want to try that tactic lol

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Russian bar-b-q - Incinerate 10 enemies with the flamethrower attachment in the POW compound.  

Another trophy that I tried to get on my vet run and again, at first it wasn’t too bad but then I reached the centre of the compound and ran into dozens of enemies, it was literally suicide to stick my head out, let alone getting close enough to use the flamethrower. Save yourself some considerable bother and just replay the mission at a later stage, you’ll probably need the above trophy anyway, so might as well kill two birds with one stone.

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Light Foot - Escape the ship with 2:15 left on the timer in Veteran.  

This was an annoying trophy to get and as it happens, it was also the last one that I needed before finally unlocking the platinum. Basically the part of the mission where this trophy is earned is right at the end of the mission and I mean right at the end, so if you mess it up (like I did -_-), you’ll have to replay the whole level just to get another crack at it. Unfortunately you have to be playing on veteran difficulty, which means you can’t just rush enemies carefree, to try and reach the end quickly. Anyway, once you escape the room on the ship, just play normally until you get to the stage where you’re about to set the explosives. Before you start the countdown, I highly recommend reloading and taking a moment to look at the layout of the room, so when the timer begins you know exactly where you need to head.

From where the bomb is located turn to your left, there’s a rocket that’s leaning against a broken walkway, in front of that rocket is a pole/pipe thingy. After you set the explosives, the game will have you trapped in this room for a few seconds then it will indicate that you should shoot the pole/pipe thing, which will bring the walkway down, allowing you to use it. After you use the walkway, you’ll get onto the upper deck of the ship, where you’ll encounter various troops. Take them out while pushing forwards, hip fire should suffice but you can aim down sights if you prefer, the important thing to remember is to keep moving.

Keep following the way points and eventually you’ll reach a set of steps, climb those and turn right, head towards the hanging rope and you should automatically start using it. This is the point you need to reach before the timer dips below 2:15. Something I found out during my failed attempt is that there is a check point halfway between the collapsed walkway and the escape rope, if you die past it, you’ll respawn at that location but unfortunately you’ll be stuck with whatever time was left on the clock at the time. So the priority for this trophy really is to reach that first check point as quickly as possible, so that if you die while trying to escape, you’ll still have decent time left on the clock to work with.

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Some wounds never heal - Escape the Past. 

Part of the story, so can’t be missed, just follow the games direction.

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I hate monkeys - Kill 7 monkeys in under 10 seconds in the Rebirth labs.  

There are two occasions when you can try and complete this trophy, the first is when you’re playing as Mason and the second is when you’re playing as Hudson. Logically I think it’s better to do it as Mason because he’ll pass through the labs first, so why would you wait to try with Hudson? Either way, before you go for this trophy, it’s highly advisable to take out the present enemies first because a) they might hinder you and b) the monkeys can be killed by their crossfire.

I think the most efficient way of taking out the monkeys is by using explosives, so make sure you have a good supply of grenades and if possible, pick up a weapon with the grenade launcher attachment. Before you start blowing up said monkeys, you should identify where the biggest groupings of them are and then plan what order you’re going to attack. Ten seconds should be ample time but you don’t want to needlessly waste time searching for that one monkey you still need to kill.

What I did was to first chuck out a couple uncooked grenades at one group of monkey cages and then quickly ready my grenade launcher, as soon as the ‘nades went off, I’d fire off the noob tube at another group. Then just to make absolutely sure I’d met the target number, I switched to my secondary weapon and started spraying at whichever live monkeys I spotted. To be honest it’s not really a hard trophy, you just gotta be quick and hope that you get nice monkey spawns.

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No Leaks - Make it through the NOVA 6 gas without dying on Rebirth Island.  

Yet another trophy that I tried and failed to achieve during my veteran play through, so once again my recommendation here is to just re-play the mission on the easiest difficulty. But just because it is the easiest difficulty, it doesn’t mean the trophy itself is a walk in the park, you will still need to apply a bit of effort to be successful. The reason being, the suit that you’re wearing does not regenerate like your health would, so while enemies are less accurate with their fire and will go down without too much of a hassle, every bit of damage you take is permanent. If you take too much damage the suit will crack and you will die, so be sure to use cover and as much as it sucks, try to take advantage of the infra-red sight on your weapon, it will make spotting enemies through the gas a simpler task.

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Clarity - Crack the code. 

Part of the story, so can’t be missed, just follow the games direction.

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Double Whammy - Destroy both helicopters with one Valkyrie rocket from the deck of the ship.  

I managed to do this on my veteran run, so it isn’t too bad, more of a trial and error task I’d say. After you board the ship, you’ll need to fight through a few enemies, and then as you progress a bit further, two enemy attack helicopters will appear. Once this happens, you’ll be instructed to take them out using the Valkyrie rocket launcher but in order to get the trophy, you’ll need to wait until the two helos fly next to each other. When you think they’re as close as can be, fire your rocket and guide it in between them, then use the remote detonate feature. If all goes to plan, you’ll be able to take out both birds at the same time; if not then you’ll just have to keep trying. There’s quite a bit of decent cover on the deck of the ship, so you can wait as long as need be, for the perfect shot. If you happen to take out only one of the choppers, just restart the check point and they’ll both spawn back in.

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Stand Down - Complete the campaign on any difficulty. 

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BLACK OP MASTER - Complete the campaign on Hardened or Veteran difficulty. 

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Frag Master - Kill 5 enemies with a single frag grenade in the campaign.  

I earned this trophy completely randomly during my veteran playthrough, on the mission where you track down an individual to the POW compound. There are quite a lot of enemies during the firefight inside the compound and in order to thin out the numbers I was basically just chucking grenades behind their cover. After one of the explosions, I suddenly saw the trophy notification and I lol’d. Seeing as I really don’t know how it went down, given I was keeping my head well in cover, there’s only so much I can tell you about how I think I earned it.

First off make sure you cook your ‘nades because the enemies will try and flee them, so don’t give them the opportunity to get away. Secondly, that part of the level will have a couple waves of enemies that spawn in, so when you hear/see reinforcements turning up, that would be a good time for tossing out a grenade. As I wasn’t sticking my head out very often I can’t really tell you what the triggers are for new enemies to spawn in but what I do know is that they’ll appear from the tunnel in the back left and from right at the back of the map. I honestly don’t know if this is the best place to try and work on the trophy but if I can do it, then maybe you can to?

Throughout the campaign, I noticed that there were several occasions where you’ll get a wave of enemies coming at you or spawning in, if you spot this early enough, you might be able to throw a cooked ‘nade their way. Other than this, the only other thing I can recommend is to re-play levels (on recruit) where you know there are lots of enemies bunched together and then just run into their midst with a cooking grenade in hand. This was how I got the respective trophy for MW3 XD

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Sally Likes Blood - Demonstrate killer economic sensibilities by taking down 3 enemies with a single bullet. 

I have no idea when I did this but it must’ve occurred naturally because I definitely did not intentionally set out to achieve it. The easiest way to kill three enemies with a single shot is by using a sniper rifle but as far as I can remember, there isn’t a point in the game that sticks out for being the best place to go for this trophy. All I can say is, when you come across a sniper rifle, pick it up and just use it as much as you can :P

[Note: There is some speculation that this trophy can be completed outside of the campaign i.e. in multiplayer or zombies, I haven’t verified this myself but if you’ve beat the campaign twice and still not unlocked it, you’ve got nothing to lose by trying…]

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Unconventional Warfare - Use the explosive bolts to kill 30 enemies in the campaign.  

There are two missions that I remember, where you’ll be equipped with the crossbow, the mission where you need to rescue Weever and when you’re infiltrating the Soviet relay station. Fortunately the crossbow kills do stack, so you don’t need to get them all in a single level. The good thing about the explosive bow is that it can take out more than one enemy at a time, so it’s best used on groups and enemies in close proximity to their allies. Ammo is quite limited, so you won’t get enough kills by repeatedly getting singles, however if each explosion nets you a double or more, then you should easily meet the quota before the end of the story. If by the time you’ve wrapped up the campaign, you still haven’t got the trophy, you can replay separate missions to add a few more to your tally.

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Cold Warrior - Complete "Operation 40," "Vorkuta," and "Executive Order" on Veteran difficulty. 

Down and Dirty - Complete "SOG" and "The Defector" on Veteran difficulty.  

It's your funeral - Complete "Numbers," "Project Nova," and "Victor Charlie" on Veteran difficulty.  

Not Today - Complete "Crash Site," "WMD," and "Payback" on Veteran difficulty.  

Burn Notice - Complete "Rebirth" and "Redemption" on Veteran difficulty.  


Part of the story, so can’t be missed, just follow the games direction.

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Closer Analysis - Find all the hidden intel.  

As per usual, you can either try and find these by yourself or look up a guide. There are some pretty obscure intel locations in this game, so the former method might take a while but entirely it’s up to you.

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As single player trophies go, I think the ones for Black Ops are pretty standard, there isn't anything that requires you to go through extreme measures to complete it. I think the hardest ones to achieve will be completing the entire campaign on Veteran, if you manage to get through those, you should be able to achieve the other trophies with relatively little bother. Like I said above, while the side trophies can be a bit of pain to complete, they aren't exactly tricky, just a bit more time consuming. A little bit of persistance and pre-planning should pay off in the end.


Did you enjoy the Black Ops single player campaign? Let me know below :)


>> Part 2 - CoD: Black Ops Multiplayer Trophies

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