Gnome Freeman

Hello and welcome to this week’s bad gaming idea. After cruising through the early chapters of Fire Emblem Sacred Stones, I decided I needed to step up the difficulty to get back on the pain train. This time I’m going for a very specific achievement in Half-Life 2 Episode Two. The objective is to carry a small garden gnome from one end of the game, to the other end and put it in a rocket. Now as Half-Life 2 Episode is a first person shooter with enemies ranging from aliens to super soldiers, carrying around a garden gnome is not going to be the easiest task in the world. I’ve been playing Half-Life games since high school but I never got into them as much as one of my friends did. Since he has gotten every achievement in all three of the Half-Life Two games, I asked him for some pointers on how to do the run and I got a lot of good advice from him. For example, he told me that during the chapter where Alyx is injured you can just leave the gnome in the room with her and play the chapter normally rather drag it around with you the entire time. While I didn’t play super long into the game due to its length, it was a very interesting way to play since I was constantly making mental notes to myself about where I left the gnome and if it was safe to throw it somewhere. If you’re not an experienced Half-Life 2 player I would personally not recommend going for this achievement.