In Half-Life 2: Episode 2, near the very beginning of the game, hidden underneath a rotting mattress, it is possible to find a carved, painted, Wooden Gnome.

At the very, very end of the game, there is a rocket ship that flies off into space.

And you can put the gnome inside the capsule before the launch.

Doing so will earn an achievement called “The Little Rocket Man.”

But you have to carry that fucking gnome throughout the entire game. Which is insanely difficult to do. Pick him up, move him around, set him down when the zombies attack, pick him up again, etc.

Sometimes, if you know that you’re going to be coming back to somewhere (“go and find the parts that will make this elevator work”), you can leave him waiting for you.

I did that for a while, and then there was a point where I was sure that I’d be coming back: my AI-controlled companions were all like, “Go and do this, and come back here, and we’ll go.” So, drop the gnome!

So I went and ran through a crazy maze filled with zombies and toxic compounds to get a working car and drive it across a collapsing bridge. It was a lot of work, and kind of hard.

And when I came back, my AI friends had come out a different door and locked it behind them, and I could do nothing but stare through the window at my little, abandoned gnome, and lost work.

Pain in the ass.

Otherwise, Episode 2 kicks the holy balls out of Episode 1 (which I also enjoyed a great deal) so far. I’m probably 3/4s through it given that I’ve been playing it for 2.5 hours and reports say that the game is about three hours long.

Also: Vanilla Crazy Cake.