Tone Parsons

The bane of my damn existance

As you probably know, I’ve been rather bored since I was placed on disability. There are a few things I can do around the house, and I do them, but I have a lot of time to kill otherwise…. so, I picked up a few games to help pass the time.

That damn garden gnome from Half-Life 2 EP2… I hate it!

One of these games was Valve’s “Orange Box” (which is actually 5 games in one package). Of course it contained Half-Life 2 and Episode One (both of which I already had), but it allows you to “gift” them to other people, so I gave my extra copies away.

One of the first things I found was this damn garden gnome, hidden under some shelves in a shed (it’s in the first few minutes of Episode 2). My son said “Keep that…. you’ll need it!”. “No problem, I replied” and began hauling this piece of ceramic crap around with me.

Of course, a large chunk of the game requires you to drive a car, and the damn gnome keeps falling out of thus said car every time you turn, hit a bump, or something starts shooting at you.

So, I’d grab the little bastard and throw him as far ahead as I could with the gravity gun, drive for a few seconds, stop, toss his ass again… repeat for a very long time.

I also learned to save the game and save it often, as I’d occasionally toss the damn thing into an area that I couldn’t get to! I did, however get my reward near the end. I stuffed his ceramic ass into a rocket that was later launched into orbit.

The rocket in Half-Life 2, Episode 2

He became the first lawn gnome in space!

5 comments

5 Comments so far

  1. bugfreezer December 7th, 2007 12:12 pm

    So how is Episode 2?

  2. Tone Parsons December 9th, 2007 10:15 am

    It’s very fun!

    It was much cheaper to by the orange box than to purchase the three games I actually wanted separately (Episode 2, Portal, Team Fortress 2). At least they allow you to give the items you already owned (in my case, Half-Life 2 and Episode 1) away as a gift to another Steam user.

    I’m eagerly awaiting Episode 3, as there are teasers for it in EP2 that make it look like it’s going to rock!

  3. Pynk Pantha December 28th, 2007 4:05 pm

    Are you playing this on the 360?

  4. Tone Parsons December 30th, 2007 10:23 am

    No, Pynk Pantha…. I’m playing on a PC. I’m not wild about the whole console thing, as my PC kicks the ass of most of them.

    Give me a keyboard and a mouse any day (I hate the 360 controller for FPS).

  5. bugfreezer December 30th, 2007 11:34 am

    Merry Christmas to you – albeit late!

    I have acquired said orange box – portal rocks (if only it could be backward compatible with the games)! I was concerned that it and Ep 2 would not play well on my Dimension 4550 with a radeon 9700…I’m certainly not getting the bell and whistle vid fx, but it plays well.

    I’m going to play Ep 2 once and then try the gnome thang – one thing at a time.

    I’m just waiting for the Black Mesa team to get the HL1 mod done. Sadly there is not much I can do to help them out – I missed my chance at voiceovers – unless I can master choreography (like I have the time).

    Happy new year, Bio!