The Gnome Quest

May 28th, 2008

When I first acquired Half Life 2, Episode 2 I just had to see how many of the quests I could complete once I had got past the act of playing the storyline properly once through. And of course I attempted to complete the particularly aggravating Little Rocket Man quest, which essentially sees you carry an ornamental gnome (found hidden in a radio station at the very beginning) throughout the entire game all while doing the challenges you face normally.

And despite the challenge I did manage to get the little clay bundle of joy to the end of the game where I popped him in the rocket with Lamarr to be sent into space. Thus I continued with the game not seeing the Achievement pop up because I had read somewhere that you had to complete the huge end-finale before it appeared. What I hadn’t known was that in order to complete the Little Rocket Man Achievement you MUST SHUT THE ROCKET DOOR.

Annoyingly I got to the end, awaiting my Achievement to appear but it never came, and my frequent use of Savegames during the finale meant that I couldn’t go back to shut the door. I promised never to carry that irritating gnome again.

Some time passed and eventually I gave in, and gave the gnome a second shot, this time with a bit more experience how to solve certain situations. For example, I’ve learnt that one way to solve the gnome endlessly falling out of the ridiculously uncontrollable car ride on every little corner or bump is to drive really, really fast, and of course not lose control.

“Actually I’m putting a GNOME in your ROCKET Dr Magnusson!”

On the second attempt the Achievement popped up immediately, much to my relief.