Full Mouth

Rayman Origins • PlayStation Vita

Today’s trophy seemed inevitably elusive. At 11.58pm last night I was playing Rayman and had reached the end of my first race against a treasure chest with legs. I knew if I waited a couple of minutes, I could kind of cheat, take the treasure, score a trophy and use it for today’s contribution. But no, I got greedy and took the treasure and got the trophy before midnight, making it null and void.

When you are time-poor, you look for opportunities to squeeze in some gaming. You never know when you’ll have gone entertain family, cook dinner, change a nappy or, the worst, go to work. So for the next half hour, I tackled a bit more Rayman, failed miserably at Street Fighter X Tekken and, for a very small moment, contemplated Flying Hamster HD. As time stretched on, I arrived at the conclusion that no (more) trophies would be forthcoming in the middle of the night.

My next attempt to grab a trophy was a discreet 30 minute block of time to compete the raid on the FIB building in Grand Theft Auto V. A great mission going in ‘guns blazing,’ parachuting in, rappelling down the building and then attempting to escape a four star wanted level. Which I did, no problems. But as the time edged dangerously close to when I needed to leave for work, I thought I could shave a minute or two off the return trip to Franklin’s house with my crew by cutting across a field – which might have worked if there wasn’t a large body of water there for me to drive my car into. Everyone looked to be getting safely out of the car, and if they did I may have been able to partake in the game’s titular activity and still make it back. But no – one of the NPCs must have got stuck in the car or had a seizure or some other fatal incident as the ‘Mission Failed’ prompt splashed across the screen alerting me to the situation.

“That’s OK,” I thought. “Surely the game would have auto saved once I cleared the cops.”

It didn’t. The Mission Retry placed me back at the base of the FIB building with another four wanted stars to try and get rid of. By then it was far too late to make another attempt before work, and I shut down the PS3, wiping the whole marathon attempt.

So, slightly dejected – I was determined not to walk away empty handed today. I returned to Rayman with one goal in mind. Get any trophy possible. I scrolled through the trophy list and saw one for earning five ‘dragon teeth’, which was the treasure that those four-legged treasure chests carry (remember my 11.58pm trophy?). So, spending a meaningful couple of commuting hours racing against treasure chests allowed me to hear that sweet, sweet Silver Trophy ding later this morning – and what a relief!

These races are some of the best Rayman levels I’ve played, but they don’t really unlock until you’ve earned enough pink dots, and even then you quickly get satisfyingly frustrated with the no-save-points and ninja-like reflexes needed to succeed.

Tomorrow I am hoping for another attempt at my GTA trophy, but after a late night, an early start and a busy evening planned, I’m not making any promises…

… except that it won’t be a Flying Hamster HD trophy.