- Estimated trophy difficulty: 5-6/10 (Personal Estimate), Platinum Difficulty Rating Thread
- Offline trophies: 22 (7, 9, 6)
- Online trophies: 3 (1 , 1 , 1 )
- Approximate amount of time to platinum: 8-12 hours, skill dependent Estimated Time To Platinum Thread
- Minimum number of playthroughs: 1 Career (5 Cups), 50 Single Event Races, 1 Local + 1 Online Multiplayer Race
- Number of missable trophies: None
- Glitched trophies: None known, but read Warning below
- Does difficulty affect trophies?: Yes, all Career Cup Events must be completed on All-Star, and Single Event Time Trials must be done on All-Star
- Do trophies stack?: Yes - there are 2 versions of this game, a retail version and a digital version. They are identical, but have separate trophy lists, so 2 platinums are possible. Note that the Disc and Digital versions are NOT compatible for online play (so you can't use a Digital copy to self boost the MP with a Disc copy on a second PS3)
- Do cheat codes disable trophies?: Yes, read warning below
- Additional Information: As of writing, this game is available only in North America (both retail and digital versions). 2 Controllers are needed for the local multiplayer race and therefore the .
Jimmie Johnson's Anything With An Engine (JJAWAE) is a Kart Racer style game, along the lines of ModNation or Little Big Planet Kart. There are 13 tracks, and the main career spans 5 Cups, with 6 Events + a 1 on 1 duel against Jimmie Johnson in each Cup. Events are traditional races, with powerups including boost, mines, missiles and rams, as well as timed events, endurance, survival and matador races where half the cars are driving in the opposite direction on the track.
While not a long platinum, the game does feature some very cheap AI, with intense rubber banding, and a huge learning curve. The first Cup will leave you feeling rather overwhelmed, but once you learn some tricks of your own, and get familiar with the tracks, winning should become easier.
Before reading any further, there are 3 very important warnings to note.
1. Cheat Codes
- There is a cheat code available allowing you to unlock all Karts from the start. This is accessed by pressing and holding + + + , then on the in order, Up, Right, Down, Left, Up, Left, Down, Right, and finally click the Right analog stick (), then click the Left analog stick ()
- I believe this will lock you out of both Tinkerer and Collector, as you can no longer build the cars in your garage. You will still unlock tokens for beating JJ in the duel's, but the trophy won't pop until you build the cars, which you can't do.
- I would recommend you avoid this code as you can't use the only useful Kart (Speed Demon) in Career Cups anyway.
2. Difficulty
- As I will explain in the Walkthrough, it is highly recommended you start on All-Star difficulty right away. Normally I would not make this a warning, but this game features a very unusual Cup Point System.
- Basically, once you start a Cup Career on a save slot, you must continue that slot through all 5 Cups. If you decide to switch to a new slot, you will have to restart the Cups all the way from Bronze.
- Why does this matter? Unfortunately, progress in a race is only saved if you beat your previous best finish. If you do a race on a difficulty lower than All-Star, you will have to replay the Event on All-Star until you better your previous result. If you played on Rookie and did very well (for instance, winning easily), you may never be able to beat that on All-Star, thus blocking any further progress.
- Since nothing carries over anyway, there is absolutely no point in playing Career on anything other than All-Star
3. Difficulty 2.0
- Learned this the hard way - if Warning 2 above wasn't bad enough, every time you progress to a new Cup in your career, the game defaults back to Rookie difficulty!
- This is potentially a game breaker, if you get to the 3rd or 4th Cup, and have a momentary lapse, and find out several races in that you were on Rookie, not All-Star
- You are now faced with the daunting task of re-racing any events that are on Rookie, and having to beat them - if you can't, your save slot is blocked, and you will be restarting all the way from Cup #1 on a new slot.
- I cannot over emphasize, check the difficulty on Race Event #1 every time you start a new Cup during your career. Once you change to All-Star, you should be fine for the rest of the Cup, but watch this very closely.
Step 1 - Career on All-Star:
As noted in the Warning Section, start out on All-Star. The learning curve is very steep, and you will struggle, but persist. Once you get the tracks down it becomes easier.
It is highly recommended that you choose Silverspoon as your Driver. Kiss of Death would likely also work, but the additional armor from Silverspoon will come in handy. Any of the slower vehicles, including the ones that appear to be better balanced, are almost certainly too slow. You won't be winning based on offense, so speed is critical.
There will be 5 Cups to complete (Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond). You do NOT need to complete, or even play, the Bonus Cups. Cups have 6 Events, and if you are first overall in the standings at the end of the 6 Events, you can race JJ in a 1vs1 duel. Winning that Event (best 2 out of 3), will award you the Cup, and 1 Unlock Token to be used in the garage to build a new Kart.
It is also worth noting that you do NOT need to win every event. One nice feature is you can play all 6 Events, see where you stand, then go back and re-race Events where you fared poorly until you find yourself on top. You do not have to re-play an entire Cup; you can pick and choose just the Events where you want to improve.
As an added bonus, if you replay Events not only can you gain points, but the overall leader might lose points. As an example, in 1 Cup after 6 Events I was 2nd overall, 70 points back of the leader. I replayed 1 Event, moving up from 7th to 3rd, and the leader who had won that race dropped all the way to 7th. Thus, he lost 60 points while I gained 40, moving me all the way to 1st overall in the standings.
Once you have won all 5 Cups, you will unlock Jimmie Johnson's vehicle, as well as Speed Demon (who I would recommend using for clean up).
Trophies Earned in this Step - 8
Beginner
Rookie Champ
Pro Champ
All-Star Champ
Speedster
Endurerer
Tinkerer
Collector
Step 2 - Single Events & Clean-Up:
After completing the Cups, you still have a number of trophies to complete. Many of these are Single Event only, while a few are Cup or Single Event. Ultimately you will need to complete 50 Single Events anyway, so I would suggest working on the miscellaneous trophies along the way.
To start, I suggest choosing Time Attack, and cleaning up the remaining tracks. You have completed 5 already through the Cups, so finish the other 8. Using Speed Demon these should be fairly easy; most can be done first try. Make sure to keep the difficulty on All-Star for this step.
You can now drop to Rookie difficulty, then go through each track in Race mode (keep it on regulation setting), and look for the Expert Shortcuts, and try to get all the Gotcha buttons as you go. Unfortunately this is not tracked anywhere, so I would recommend staying on a given track until you know you have both of the above completed.
Along the way you may pick up Come Back Kid! and Achiever, but if you have not then finish these before moving on.
After finishing all of the above, you probably still won't have 50 Events complete, so choose any track and go into Survival Event, then just sit at the starting line. The timer is set to 25 seconds, after which you will be destroyed and the race ends. Remember to leave the Settings on Regulation or these events won't count towards the 50. Obviously you could choose to do another type of Event, but this will take a lot longer to grind than the Survival method.
Trophies Earned in this Step - 10
Duelist
Pacifist
Sprinter
Strategist
Achiever
Comeback Kid!
Explorer
Renegade
Rascal
Enthusiast
Step 3: 50 Lap Endurance Race
I have placed this as a separate step. While this is a Single Event, you have to modify the settings so it won't count towards Enthusiast. You can choose any Racer/Track, but I suggest Speed Demon and a short Track like Dirt Derby or Hillbilly Hoedown to keep the total time to a minimum (this will still take a good 30 minutes).
Trophies Earned in this Step - 1
Marathoner
Step 4: Multiplayer
There are a couple of MP trophies - 2 can be done in local MP at the same time, and the other 2 will require an online partner. See trophy descriptions for the details on these.
As online is completely dead, feel free to use the boosting thread to find a helper. Note that the Digital and Retail versions of this game are NOT compatible for online play. You will have to find a boost partner with the same version of the game as you are playing.
Note that the Disc and Digital versions are NOT compatible for online play (so you can't use a Digital copy to self boost the MP with a Disc copy on a second PS3)
Trophies Earned in this Step - 4
Homebody
Saboteur
Traveler
Advocate
Step 5: Final Clean-Up
There not be anything left here if you followed the Walkthrough, but if you have missed a miscellaneous trophy somewhere along the line, check the trophy descriptions and finish it here for your
Trophies Earned in this Step - 2
Boxer
Platinum
[PST would like to thank diskdocx for this roadmap]