"Little man finally rocketed": comment by Jo Wright

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 23:51:32 CDT

I’m so proud! :’)

"Little man finally rocketed" by abica

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 23:15:00 CDT

I’ve finally gotten around to playing and beating Half-life 2 episode 2.

I knew before I even began playing the game that I absolutely had to snag that Gnome achievement during my first play through.

All I knew going in was that the Gnome was somewhere near the beginning, and that I had to launch him into space somewhere near the end. I was right, he was indeed near the beginning, and I did infact have to launch him into space.

What I was tragically unaware of, however, was that the section where you put your little buddy (which I’ve affectionately named ‘Greggory’) into the rocket was not at the end of the game. Sure it was near the end, but it wasn’t at the end.

As this was my first play through, I was also really worried about losing him before hitting some checkpoint that I wasn’t expecting, so I kept him close by me through the entire game.

When I walked into the control room at the end, I was a bit puzzled when I was told to press the button to launch the rocket. Seconds before, Dr. Kliener even made some comment about how the rocket was approximately 8 and a half pounds under weight! I figured something would go wrong during the launch and I would be asked to go down to the rocket and deposit something in there of weight (at this point I was starting to get a bit annoyed and was really grasping for straws.)

Of course, this never happened, and the rocket happily launched straight into the air. It was while everyone was celebrating the successful launch that I went through my old saves and managed to find one directly before the race to White Forest with Dog that I had made so I could beat him, get the achievement, and go back to grab Greggory and continue on my way.

I loaded the save file and made my way back up to White Forest, by this point reserved to the fact that I’d have to do the Silo 2 clearance and 12 Strider battle yet again.

I figured the best I could hope for was that I could stick Greggory into the rocket, create another save file, then go back to the beginning of T-minus One and relaunch the rocket, just in case there would be some sweet glitch in my favor that would pick up that he was stuck in the rocket at one point and then I’d get my achievement after the credits rolled (one thing I had known was that you don’t see the achievement pop up, but it does actually appear unlocked after you finish the game and sit through the credits.)

Thankfully, after throwing him at lamar and slamming the door shut, I was rewarded with my very own Little Rocket Man achievement! I was sooooo happy that I didn’t have to finish the rest of the game yet again.

Still, I can’t help but wonder how many people actually made much more work for themselves by carrying the little guy for another hour and some change? I’d feel way better if the answer to that question was “A very large number”.

I’m now taking it upon myself to trick people into getting caught in the same trap as myself (Jon, Alex, I pray that you guys don’t subscribe to my feed… MUWAHAHAHA.)

At any rate, once I had achievement in hand I fast forwarded back to the launch and finished watching the game. Such an unexpected ending!

Roll on EP3.

Rant first, think later. comments on Little man finally rocketed

"Little man finally rocketed": comment by Jo Wright

"Little man finally rocketed" by abica