Gnomes and Their Wicked Magicks
Since it's summer I've been playing a lot more Xbox than usual. I rented the Orange Box, as I've said before, so I've been plowing through the Half-Life 2 episodes so I can stop paying 99 cents a day for it (Blockbuster). Episode One was the most boring shooter I've ever played, and Portal was lame until the end (which I had quite a bit of fun with). But Episode Two is more like the original Half-Life 2, which is a good thing.
But I'm not here to give a review or anything, I'm here to talk about Trey the Gnome. I think I read somewhere that he has been named Trey, and if not, that's his name now, since it's what I've been calling him.
There are things in all Xbox 360 games, for those who don't know, called achievements. You get a predetermined amount of points (which, when it comes down to it, mean nothing) for pulling off certain tasks in the game. Most of them are pretty standard stuff, 50 points for beating the game, 10 for X amount of kills in a row, 15 for finishing first in a race, yada yada. But sometimes there are weird ones. Fun ones. Episode Two has one of the weirdest (but coolest) ones I've ever come across. It's called "Little Rocket Man" and requires you to carry a garden gnome (Trey) through the whole game with you, put him in a rocket at the end, and launch that little sucker into space.
Keep in mind this is a shooter. There's lots of bullets, puzzles, swarms of enemies, bosses, falls, jumps, vehicles, you name it. Now picture someone running through all of this with a garden gnome tucked under their arm. Pretty excellent, no?
At first I loved Trey. I'd run into a room, see some baddies, run back and put him down safely while I took out my gun and cleared a path. Then I'd go back, pick him up, and move on. I grew close to Trey. I would talk to the TV, tell the other characters that I can't go anywhere without my little man, to wait up because I can't run while holding a gnome.
We had good times. We swam in underwater caverns. I shot him at some zombies. I shot him ahead, sprinted, picked him up mid-run so we could both outrun the antlion warrior. We solved puzzles. We were friends. Or so I thought.
Recently Trey has been a wicked little gnome. One that snickers and grabs out at your ankles while you walk down the stairs. One with pointy teeth and leathery skin.
For some reason, about halfway into Episode Two, Trey has been two and a half feet of glitches in a pointy red hat. If you put him down somewhere he's fine. But sometimes you're being rushed by a mob of zombies. Or the sky is raining bullets and hand grenades. Sometimes you don't have time to put him down somewhere out of the way. Sometimes you step on Trey, and that is when Trey gets nasty.
When you step on Trey, you launch into the air. And when I say launch, I mean it launch. Once I was flung 200 feet into the air, and at such an angle that I flew out the game. I was surrounded by white nothingness and died. Another time I was flung over a building and, in the process, skipped almost an entire level. Sometimes if you're lucky you'll get flung right into a mob of baddies and get raped to death.
Trey, if I didn't enjoy your company so much at first, I'd dump your ass in a swamp. But you're sticking with me, no matter how many times I step on you and launch into the sky. I didn't carry a goddamn gnome around for two hours for nothing.
update: I'm bringing this game back tomorrow. I can't play it anymore, the gnome is making me insane. To play a difficult part over and over, and then finally beat it, only to back up and accidently step on that fucking gnome and fly to my death is infuriating.
Here's a YouTube video of it . At least I'm not the only one.
Fuck you, Trey. And fuck you, Valve, for making carrying around 20 pounds of fatal glitch an achievement.
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