Sum 41 Goddamn Iã¢â‚¬â„¢m Dead Again

March 15, 2022 Post a Comment

I Played Through Episode Two Belongings A Goddamn Gnome

Halfway through reviewing Half-Life ii: Episode Two for PC Gamer nigh a calendar month agone, Valve PR Doug Lombardi asks me if I know well-nigh the gnome achievement.

"No?"
"Did you observe the gnome near the kickoff?"
"Yes."
"You take to put him in the rocket earlier it launches."
"But isn't that correct near the cease of the game?"
"Yeah."
"Doesn't that mean y'all have to-"
"Yeah."
"Oh I'm so doing that."

A month or then later, I accept.

Manifestly any time you know y'all're going to exist coming dorsum to an surface area, you tin can set up him down there and go off on your own. My tendancy to put him in areas where I knew something dramatic was going to happen toll me my gnome once or twice.

You lot'd remember the defense department in the mines would exist an piece of cake spot – just leave him there and come dorsum. Yep. Simply don't leave him virtually the people you're protecting. It turns out there'south a bottomless chasm directly behind them with inadequate safety railings, and antlion swipes send the trivial guy flight.

The gnome adds poignancy to whatsoever scene.

But he's a liability in lifts – put him on the flooring and he sometimes gets stuck, jamming role of the elevator but letting the rest move upwardly, fatally crushing everyone inside. Except the gnome. The gnome, I discovered after a quick relieve-and-load test, is indestructable.

Similar The Freeman, he's a good listener during exposition.

He managed to autumn out of this lift while information technology was going up, meaning I had to throw myself off a cliff with 3 health to get back down and retrieve him, and pray that the lift was summonable again from the gound floor. It was.

Ah, how easy all this would accept been if Alyx actually did agree him on her lap. And an extra 3% onto the score, by the mode, Valve. But no, he clips through her, and half-rests within the chassis of the car, sliding around it wildly with the slightest dispatch and hurling himself dramatically out of it at even the gentlest turns.

You become the car after a long trek through some sludge and abased buildings infested with zombies. I left the gnome with Alyx and the Vortigaunt, because I knew you come back to that area once you get the car. Merely and then I remembered with some caste of horror that you don't really get back into that room again – you accept to open the door to it for the 2 of them using a switch in another room, and it simply stays open up for a few seconds.

Could I, if I pulled the switch from as far abroad as information technology was usable, then spun one-eighty, jumped off the ladder, dashed up the stairs and barged my style past Alyx and the alien, get back in at that place and grab the gnome?

No.

I could, however, pull the switch, spin one-eighty, leap off the ledge, dash up the stairs, clomp past the NPCs and suck him to me with the Gravity Gun just microseconds before the door slammed back close. If I'd left him a few feet further from the leave, I would have had to repeat the whole section. Holding a fucking gnome.

Strapping him to the bonnet does not work.

Here'due south the gnome at the end of the Hunter-Chopper pursuit department. That department is tricky for a few reasons.

1) If you steer at all, the gnome falls out of your car. If you lot don't steer at all, yous run straight into the Chopper's mines and die.
two) If you get fast, he falls out. If you go slow, the Chopper switches to directly-fire mode, hovers in forepart of you and fires straight in your face, killing you.
3) If yous stop to pick up the gnome when he falls out, the Chopper swings down low over your vehicle, and the downdraft sends the gnome flying. It'south impossible to put him back in the car under these conditions, or predict where he'll go if yous burn down him into that downdraft with the gravity gun, or survive for more than a few seconds considering of all the gunfire.

And so it plays a fiddling like a nightmarish version of Speed – yous have to keep your velocity higher up a certain margin to avoid certain death, merely at the same time bulldoze as slowly as possible and incredibly advisedly.

Alyx sometimes gives the gnome funny looks.

He is besides more than photogenic in bright lighting weather condition, and prefers studio lighting where available.

I could have left the little guy hither while I dealt with the Autogun, but I couldn't call back if you go dorsum into the garage after the rebels take stock-still your car, or if they have it out to you and the garage is shut. I left it on the road exterior instead.

I'one thousand non actually sure what happened here. I left him to stand up sentry on the high wall outside the Inn, and afterwards the Hunter fight he was face up-down in the dirt at the scene of what looks like it must accept been a fairly serious explosion.

The gnome knows no fright. He knows nothing.

White Forest, at freaking terminal.

The gnome is nifty to learn of your 'AR3's.

Who watches the watchers? The gnome does. He watches everyone, unblinkingly.

His presence starts to get a little creepy during the more than personal moments.

Ah, his chariot at long last. Lamarr is permitted to enter offset.

Farewell, brave traveller! May I never, ever set up eyes on your stupid fucking face again.

The hatch is sealed, the bargain is done. The accomplishment is not unlocked. The worry begins here, and does not end until after the credits ringlet – the achievement never really pops up.

Merely there he goes, exploding in infinite alongside everyone's favourite headcrab eunoch. I'm guessing Kleiner won't have time to grieve in the rather more than serious context of Episode Three.

It had indeed registered the Achievement. Information technology'south nice to have a permanent record of the insanity Valve have inexplicably put me through, but by the end of it the satisfaction of doing something really, really difficult and really, really pointless was enough.

Update! Trey The Gnome is going even more in-depth on this, since he, yous know, is the gnome. He's started his ain blog about it, and he'southward taken a load of shots I wish I'd thought to get.

Up-update! Chris Livingston, author of the superb webcomic Concerned, had a much, much meliorate idea. He'south screenshotting the gnome equally if he is Gordon Freeman, and it's already produced three completely priceless images. The residue are here.

Upward-upwardly-update! Er, a few things seem to demand clarifying. In descending order of obviousness:

This is non Halo (!). It'south Half-Life two: Episode Two.
This isn't a review (!?). My Episode Two review is online here, along with my Portal and Team Fortress two ones.
There isn't really a Gnome Supply Cupboard in the silo at White Forest (!??). I was joking in the comments.
In that location isn't a second gnome near the rocket launcher enshroud – Kotaku commenter Thorn thought he saw one there, but later realised he was thinking of the same place we all got it from near the starting time.
I was playing on PC. Steam has an Achievements system simply like Xbox Live.
It has been established that due to its design the gnome is probably, but not definitely, an Amelie reference.
My screenshots are definitely Amelie references.
This run through really took less fourth dimension than my start, gnome-free play-through of the game. It's harder, but it's not significantly slower.
'Pentadact' in the comments is me, Tom Francis, master of stealth. I don't know why that's non made clear anywhere on this site.

Tip! If you're trying for the Grubs achievement, yous're insane, but commenter Escobard points out a guide by bdmason over at the Steam forums that volition assistance. Information technology tells yous how many you should have killed at the end of each section.

Lastly: Garry has more gnomes than you lot or I: