The Giant Bomb Community Game Giveaway: One Year and Counting

The first Game Giveaway was hosted on January 16th, 2011, in the Off-Topic forum. On July 1st, almost six months later, I wrote an in-depth blog post about the origin of the contest and provided some stats. I said pretty much everything I wanted to say back then, so this post will be far shorter.

First, let's start with the old stats that I wrote at the beginning of the aforementioned post:

28 games have been given away.
20 of those games were donations from 11 different people.
12 out of 28 games were physical copies and had to be shipped. Let's say it cost $7 average for me to ship each game, including cost of bubble envelopes, delivery confirmation etc. 12x7 = $84 spent. This does not include the cost of shipping that the two donors who sent physical games had to pay.
3200 Microsoft Points have been given away. These were digital codes, so I didn't need to pay shipping, meaning the cost was $40 total. This means, along with the cost of shipping the physical games, about $124 has been spent thus far.
30 people have won something.
1 contest began and ended while flying several thousands of feet in the air.
Vito's Game Giveaway has never missed a week!

Now, the new stats as of The Giant Bomb Community Game Giveaway #100:

150 games have been given away. I count bundles as one game, so this number is actually far higher.
Those 150 games are the result of my own donations along with 93 other donations.
22 out of those 150 games were physical copies that had to be shipped. Let's say it costs $7 for me to ship each game, including cost of bubble envelopes, delivery confirmation etc., and let's subtract one game since I wasn't the one who shipped it. 21x7 = $147. This does not include the cost of shipping the three donors who sent me physical copies of games had to pay.
3200 Microsoft Points have been given away. These were digital codes, so I didn't need to pay shipping, meaning the cost was $40 total. This means, along with the cost of shipping the physical games and the $25 I spent specifically on games (X-COM: UFO Defense and Bastion) to give away, about $212 has been spent thus far.
144 people have won something. Less than five of those people are repeat winners.
1 contest began and ended while flying several thousands of feet in the air.
The Giant Bomb Community Game Giveaway has never missed a week!

The look of the contests haven't changed much since contest #23. The only major changes that have happened have been the name change from Vito's Game Giveaway to The Giant Bomb Community Game Giveaway (at contest #55) and the new banner (at contest #58 and done by Deusx), both of which are a result of my username change from my Internet pseudonym of 10 years (Vito Raliffe) to my real-life name of 23 years (CharlesAlanRatliff). As I mentioned in a previous post, the change was also because the community had donated far more than I by that point, so it didn't make sense for my name to be in the title.

As far as special events go, the most notable ones would be contest #50 where there were 15 winners to celebrate The Big Live Live Show, and contest #62 which marked the start of the contests happening daily (or near daily). The latter was originally as a celebration of Christmas and also because I had so many damn donations. The daily contests ran from December 1st to January 16th, which was both the one-year anniversary celebration and the 100th contest in total. The only reason they've returned to their weekly format since then is due to the amount of time it takes to do them every day. I wish to focus that time on other projects for now, though I'm sure daily contests will return sometime in the future.

Big thanks to everyone who's donated; we wouldn't even be close to contest #100 if it weren't for you! As always, their names can be found here and here.

The last two lines I wrote six months ago were

And seriously, you guys? With the way things are going, I fully expect Vito's Game Giveaway to run a whole year straight.

If you ask me, I think that's pretty fucking cool.

And that's exactly what happened. Here's to another year!

Here are the banners used December 1st through December 31st. The first banner was done by Deusx with c0l0nelp0c0rn1 adding the Santa hat for me. This was only used on December 1st for contest #62 before Deusx sent me his version in time for contest #63, which can be seen below.

Gamerscore Milestones

I was going through old files on my computer and came across some pictures I had taken when I reached a certain number of Gamerscore. This first one was taken when I reached 20,000 Gamerscore on December 21st, 2008. I had played various Xbox Live Arcade titles in an attempt to get the number just right -

783 days (or 2 years, 1 month, and 22 days) later on February 11th, 2011, I reached 45,000 Gamerscore. I don't remember why I took a picture of this, but I figure it's because I landed on a nice, even number.

Rocking my Limbo avatar awards.

It was 246 days later on October 14th, 2011, that I reached 50,000 Gamerscore. I had originally planned to get it with my brother while playing Gears of War 3, but my score reached 49,990 on October 7th, and it wouldn't have been possible to land on 50,000 if we kept playing. I somehow reached 49,995 (I can't figure out how) and tried playing Comix Zone and Street Fighter II': Hyper Fighting to get the last of the points, but needed something faster that wouldn't push me over 50,000. I then looked at Game Room's achievements and remembered that I never changed a theme in my arcade for 5 points. My brother disapproved of my method and thought it was cheap, but achievements are achievements, and I needed that perfect string of zeros.

That's right, I bought a Batman costume and Towelie prop. Worth it! Here's him stealing my Cheesy Poofs.

StreetPass 3: Smithsonian Edition

Last month, on our way to visit our mom in Kansas for Christmas, my brother and I spent a few days visiting Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia, and Gettysburg. Having not had a StreetPass encounter since the ones with the Whiskey Media staff in June of 2011, I was eager for more. Luckily for me, at least three other people had the same idea on December 17th at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History. My Mii got to meet Max from Virginia, sarah from Virginia (I'm thinking they're from the same family since both of their Most Recent Software titles were nintendogs + cats), and nick from Coahuila de Zaragoza, Mexico. Max and sarah helped me finish my Pikmin and Metroid: Other M puzzles, respectively. I took more steps that day than ever before with a total of 7,545.

The Miis I met, along with some of the new features Nintendo added recently.

The next morning, on the 18th, I was excited for more SteetPass opportunities. If I got three in just one museum, how many would I get today? Though I crushed my previous record of 7,545 steps with a new, and current, record of 17,396, I got nothing. At first I was sad, but then annoyed because I realized the wireless functionality of my 3DS has been turned off somehow. I wondered how many encounters I missed as I turned StreetPass back on.

I encountered another person, Aggan, on the 22nd while in Kansas, but only via Super Street Fighter IV. Much like my fights with Jeff and Matt, I got my ass kicked.

Fast-forward almost two weeks later and we pass by someone on a road near our home, will rhein from North Carolina, who happened to have their 3DS on as well. On the 13th, at the Genghis Khan exhibit in Raleigh, North Carolina, I encountered Fupo, also from North Carolina. Supposedly it was their birthday!

I think that price drop is working!

Japan: Arrival (Episode 01)

I hadn't slept much. The little time I had left that wasn't used preparing for the trip was spent preparing for our return. The few things I kept, such as my game consoles and computer, were strewn about the bedroom floor; the rest of my stuff was on its way to a storage facility in Oklahoma. See, we were to be moved out of our house in Texas and on the road to Fort Sill the day we got back to the States. I wanted more time to get ready, but it was my fault for spending so much time messing with my new Xbox 360 S and watching Lost. (I had set up my own mini home theater in my room after the movers took our projector and spent more time on Netflix than I should have.) I wasn't completely unprepared, though - after spending eight hours trying to find our hotel in France, I made sure of that. This time, I bought two binders, one for me and one for my brother, and made note of some key bits of info to avoid issues later, such as directions to our hotel and a small glossary. I figured the covers of the binders should represent things we like from Japan, so I put some art of Metal Gear Solid 3 by Yoji Shinkawa on mine and a badass drawing of Toshiro Mifune on my brother's.

Our binders.

The stuff I kept in our binders, including our itinerary info, basic phrases, and the aforementioned directions and glossary.

I also brought the menu I had been using for our local Japanese restaurant, Shogun. I've always had an aversion to seafood and was able to count on my fingers the number of times I ate it throughout my life. Figuring this was something I should get over, I started going to Shogun a few months before the trip to try foods I never had before. I circled the things I liked and placed an asterisk by things I didn't like. Having now been to Japan and various Japanese restaurants across the U.S., I can say Shogun has had the best food I have ever had - we once drove six hours just to eat there! Also, I ate more than what the menu shows; I just stopped circling stuff at a certain point.

When it comes to being authentic, Shogun is the Kid Rock of Japanese restaurants. Mmmm, old Giant Bomb memes...

With an 8:20 AM departure, there wasn't a lot of time to mess around. After gathering up our luggage, unplugging all the electronics in the house and taking a stupid picture, we took a cab to the Killeen-Fort Hood Regional Airport.

After checking our bags and getting our boarding passes, we headed upstairs to wait in the food court. Luckily for me, there was an arcade right across from where I sat.

My boarding passes and the book we took on the trip.

A couple of shots of the arcade. On the left is the Global Arcade Classics machine I played Rastan on. On the right is the only full shot of the arcade I had. I was waiting for the announcer lady who interrupted my video to shut up so I could finish talking.

I didn't spend much time actually playing games. The arcade had Global Arcade Classics, T-Mek, Giga Wing (which wasn't working), Tekken 3, Off Road Challenge, Demolish Fist, Ranger Mission, and San Francisco Rush: The Rock (Alcatraz Edition). I played Rastan on the Global Arcade Classics machine, but it was time to go through security so I rushed through the game until I died, hence my terrible playing in the video. A short while later we were on the tiny plane en route to Houston. We arrived about an hour later and took a bus to the actual airport, which is the first time I've ever had to do that. We took a train cart to Terminal E and waited to depart for Tokyo.

We were a little concerned about our flight. Every international flight I've been on had seats in rows of three. On Travelocity, they had an overhead map of the plane and let you click on the seats you wanted, which I thought was pretty cool. There were rows of just two seats in the back of the plane, and I chose to go with those. My brother had recounted a story in which he sat in the back on an international flight before, and the seats didn't lean back at all, which would be pretty bad for a 12-hour flight. It ended up not being a problem, and we had the benefit of not sitting next to someone else.

I was surprised by the variety of people on the plane. I'm sure I would have heard a lot of interesting stories if I asked them why they were going to Japan (though I know there were a few on their way to China), but I decided to indulge in the massive entertainment selection available, instead. Far more robust than when I went to France, there were 192 movies, various TV shows like The Office and The Simpsons, music, and a video game selection that included basic titles like Asteroids. I tried to watch Up in the Air, a movie I have still yet to see, but my headphones couldn't go loud enough for me to hear all the words. I decided to watch movies I liked and already saw before, such as Get Smart and Ratatouille. I went with the beef and rice meal for dinner, which included bread, salad, and a cookie. It was actually pretty good, like most food I've had on planes, contrary to what comedians of the '90s led me to believe. Maybe something about being 34,001 feet in the air makes food taste better. That, or it's improved over the past fifteen years or so.

They brought around fruit and eggs for breakfast. I skipped the eggs, since any eggs that aren't made by me usually aren't very good (the trick is lots of margarine and salt). They soon brought around the customs declarations forms, and we landed at Narita International Airport shortly afterward.

What the customs declarations forms look like. Riveting!

After taking the escalator down past the "Welcome to Japan" sign, we stood in line for about twenty minutes with the rest of the people entering the country. We scanned both our index fingers and had our pictures taken, got our luggage and handed customs our forms and continued on through the airport. They didn't bother looking in our bags or anything, and it was the first of many instances that revealed just how much better dealing with Japanese airport employees was compared to the TSA.

We went to go purchase our Suica & N'EX package from a lady who didn't speak English. Thanks to those handy Arabic numerals, however, we were able to eventually figure everything out and went toward the train heading for Shinagawa Station. We got on the Narita Express and sat in our reserved seats, 7A and 7B, placing our luggage at the front of the cart in a convenient storage area.

Some of the pamphlets we picked up, along with our Suica & N'EX receipt.

Attached to the ceilings were TVs that displayed trip progress, news stories, advertisements, an overhead map of the next station, updates on other train lines, and the time; they would even cycle the information through various languages.

Super useful!

When we weren't looking at the TVs, we were admiring the view out the window. One of things that surprised both my brother and I, even on the flight in, was just how green everything was. There were seemingly miles of perfectly cut grass without a dead patch of brown in sight, not to mention all the lush trees. Passing by dozens of homes with clothes hanging out to dry only reinforced the quaintness of it all. Another unusual sight, though I'm sure it's no different in America (not that I would know since public transportation here is terrible), was seeing everyone playing with their phones at the various stations we stopped at. You would have been hard-pressed to find someone not staring at a tiny screen of some sort as they waited for their ride.

Look at all that green! Also, the first McDonald's we saw.

There were a couple of people reading manga on the train, one of which was a Weekly Shonen Jump. At one of the stops, a white guy with an N7 Mass Effect shirt got on. As we arrived at Shinagawa Station (the entire trip was about 70 minutes) I was sure to say "Awesome shirt." He looked up from his DS (I think he was playing a Pokémon game) and said, "I appreciate it." in an accent that wasn't American, and I gave a thumbs up and simply said "Mass Effect", which I think should totally be a thing.

Shinagawa Station is a large place with various shops for whatever one might need, including a Super Market (That's the name of the store!) that's always crowded. Outside of Shinagawa Station is a large crosswalk that takes you to the Shinagawa Prince complex, which is composed of a few different towers. We stayed in the North Tower, which was a little tricky to find at first as the complex is so big. During my stay, I saw several different stores (including a drug store), a movie theater, a bowling alley, a bunch of restaurants, and that wasn't even close to everything the complex contained. I could have seen Gary Whitta's The Book of Eli with Japanese subtitles!

I accidentally read about the revelation at the end on NeoGAF before seeing the movie. :(

After checking in, we took an elevator to the sixth floor. There was a vending machine as soon as we exited that contained various drinks, such as orange juice, tea, and ... beer. Asahi, specifically. My brother was thrilled.

Our room was right by the elevator, and my brother practically passed out after we got settled. I hadn't slept properly for about 39 hours at this point, but I wanted to get some writing done for the trip. I decided to go to sleep as to not disturb my brother and later awoke a bit earlier than him at 4 AM. I knew trying to rest at this point would be a pointless endeavor. I was too excited, because today was the day we were going to Akihabara.

Making the Video
List of Episodes
Introduction to the Series
SmugMug Version

Japan: The Series

The welcoming sign at Narita International Airport in Japan.

List of Episodes

On July 15th, 2010, my brother and I took a two-week trip to Tokyo, Japan. It was a place I had been wanting to go to since I was in elementary school, and I planned on filming the trip so I could make a series of videos afterward. We purchased a Canon VIXIA HG20 shortly before leaving, giving me just enough time to learn how to use it. It was then that I learned my computer was too weak to play the videos properly, not to mention that I had zero experience with video editing and didn't own a proper program to do so.

It's been nearly 18 months since we returned, and, with assistance from Will and Norm over at Tested.com, I finally have a top-of-the-line computer that can play the 1080p videos at full resolution. I recently got my first video editing program, too, settling on CyberLink's PowerDirector. I'm still amazed at how fast and easy the program is to use, and, though I've just started, I feel like I've learned a lot.

With over 300 videos totaling around 168 gigabytes, my goal is to whittle those down into a series of videos that are hopefully somewhat entertaining. I actually didn't film as much as I had planned to, opting to just enjoy the trip and not focus on documenting it. Because of this, I don't really have a set plan; I'm just organizing and editing these videos as I go, eventually turning them into something I feel comfortable showing other people.

As of right now, I intend to have each video in the series represent one day and be edited in chronological order, though I might throw an extra day in there if there's not enough footage. The first episode, which I'm titling "Arrival", is nearly done and takes place during July 15th and July 16th. Each episode will be accompanied by a blog post that I'll be posting across the various Whiskey sites. I imagine the Giant Bomb and Anime Vice crowds will be most interested in these, as you can't turn a corner in Tokyo without seeing something related to video games or anime. I also spent a lot of time in arcades, though I don't have much footage of that as they don't like people filming or taking pictures inside.

There's no set format for each video, since, as I said before, I'm just now editing them and will be releasing each one when it's done. My shots weren't planned, so the quality of the videos will be dependent on what footage I have and what I can do with it. I kind of prefer it that way, as I have no idea what an episode will be until I'm nearly done with it. I'm really enjoying the process; it's a completely new experience for me and gives a unique satisfaction that I don't get from writing.

On the subject of Japan, it's the only place I've traveled that I can say I would like to live at (though I probably wouldn't want to work there). I was taking Rosetta Stone courses to learn Japanese beforehand, but decided to stop a while before the trip for a very specific reason: that out-of-element feeling one gets when in an unfamiliar environment where they don't speak the language. I experienced it in France and Italy and loved it, and knowing that Japan is a place I'll be going to more than once, figured I could either have the one experience of knowing the language and culture, or have both experiences of not knowing what the hell is going on, and then returning later, fluent and far more knowledgable than before. I chose to have both experiences.

I think that's everything I wanted to say. The videos will be uploaded to YouTube (and my SmugMug account) and posted as blogs. Episode 01 will released on the 7th, and then I'll start working on Episode 02: Electric Town. All in all, this is just something I'm doing for fun to both showcase the trip and learn how to edit video.

My Top Man Crush of 2011

Michael Fassbender

My Top Ten Games of 2011

Criteria:
1. It had to come out in 2011.
2. I had to beat it.

MY TOP TEN GAMES OF 2010

Breaking Bad: Netflix Replaced Extended Pilot with Edited Version

Hello! I figured I would let everyone know this since I just found out yesterday. I recently finished up all three seasons of Breaking Bad on Netflix and, like with most good shows, just started watching it again with my brother. I was seriously confused for the first half of the pilot, as scenes that I vividly remembered watching before were no longer there. Figuring that I wasn't some creative genius that imagined scenes that fit so perfectly into the show, I told my brother to wait a few minutes so I could look something up on the Internet. While I couldn't find anything specifically about this situation, I did learn that there were two versions of the pilot: a 58-minute version, and a 48-minute version that aired later. Netflix originally had the 58-minute pilot, but, for some reason, replaced it with the edited one fairly recently.

I feel that the full pilot is the one to watch, as cutting out nearly 1/6th of a TV episode results in a lot of missing scenes, some of which I consider to be important and make Walt's decision to start cooking meth make more sense. We went to Amazon's streaming service and bought the episode, which is the full version, and went back to Netflix for the rest.

Just something to think about for those of you that would care.

Here are some of the scenes that were cut out (minor spoilers ahead!):

The ambulance scene where you learn Walt's never smoked.
The part where the car he is wiping down belongs to his asshole student, who proceeds to take a picture of him.
The handjob scene where you learn Skyler sells stuff on eBay.
The broken glove compartment scene.

There might have been more scenes that were cut, too. We stopped the episode about 25 minutes in, so I'm not 100% sure on what was left out.

My Kinect

I'm so lazy that I photoshopped the dust out of this picture instead of just cleaning my desk.

Controlling an in-game character using the motions of your body has been a concept I've been interested in for a long time, well before anyone even knew what a "Revolution" was. Rumors of a motion-controlled device by Microsoft had been in circulation for a little while, and the Kinect, known then as Project Natal, was officially revealed at E3 2009. I was optimistic, understanding the unique gameplay opportunities if the Kinect worked as advertised.

I had already been let down by the prospects of motion control once with the Wii, and though some of that may be my fault for letting my imagination get carried away when it was first revealed, the general consensus I see is that the desired support for the Wii never really arrived. And when it comes to what I've wanted from motion control, the fidelity just wasn't there. While there are some great exclusives for the system, the Wii ended up just like my GameCube several years ago, becoming something I rarely bothered to hook up, spending most of its time in a closet or drawer collecting dust. This is in large part due to my home theater setup, in which I play everything on an HD projector which doesn't work too well with motion games (most of the 100-inch screen ends up being covered by my shadow, and the only way to set up the projector in this room is to have it directly behind the couch), and the fact that the HD monitor I use for the Kinect and PlayStation Move doesn't have a component hookup, which is an issue I plan on remedying soon. Regardless, I've never made much of an effort to fix these problems as there just isn't much I'm interested in playing. I mean, I think it's a great system, but there aren't that many exclusives I care about. I think my referring to the Wii in the past tense for most of this paragraph is pretty indicative of my experience with it.

When it comes to consoles and gaming hardware, I like to own everything so I can play everything, and I knew this would be no different with the Kinect. No matter how it turned out, I knew I would be getting something out of my time with it, and I just hoped that the device would come closer to my younger fantasies of my real-life movements having an impact in a game. I headed over to Amazon on June 14th, 2010 and pre-ordered the Kinect with release-date delivery. I later pre-ordered Dance Central in October.

Fast-forward to November 4th, and I'm watching a live stream of Jeff and Ryan as they play all the Kinect launch titles, checking the shipment progress of my own. Eventually, late in the afternoon, the status changes to "Delivered" and I immediately open my front door to see a small package that obviously contained Dance Central, but nothing that could hold a Kinect. "Hmm, that's odd. Maybe they're delivering it later for some reason?"

They really should be commended for their work done that day.

So I waited, checking outside every so often, even checking the backyard to see if they placed the package there. The Kinect never arrived. Now, I don't remember how this next part played out, whether it was customer support telling me what happened or if it was something I discovered when I went to the Amazon order page, but the reason my Kinect never showed up was because... well, because it was delivered to my old address in Texas. I had forgotten to update the shipping information after I moved to my new place in Oklahoma, and someone in my old house just got a free Kinect.

Amazon is an amazing company, one that I have always loved and supported, and what they did next only solidified my loyalty. They immediately sent me another Kinect. For free. They fixed an error that was totally my fault, and even knowing the full story, didn't question whether I was trying scam them or anything. The Kinect isn't some cheap device, either, selling for $150. I actually felt bad, and the nice, helpful customer service lady seemed confused when I showed concern for what would happen to the original Kinect and whether they would get it back or not. I hope that they did.

Being impatient and not wanting to wait until the 9th to get my motion-controlled gaming on, however, I went out to try to see if I could get a Kinect that night. I got the usual "only if you pre-ordered" deal at both of the GameStops I went to, so I went where I always do when they fail me and headed to Walmart, but they were sold out of anything that wasn't a console bundle. Getting desperate, I used my phone's GPS to locate any places in the area that would sell video games, and found another Walmart a few miles out in some rural area I had never been to. Maybe it being a little out-of-the-way helped my chances, as when I walked back to the electronics section to see stands where a large amount of Kinects once sat, there was still one left. "Man, this thing must be pretty popular."

Victorious and reinvigorated, I headed back home to set the device up. I had heard that at least five to six feet of space was needed to use the thing, so I was a little worried about how this would all turn out. I had about that much space between my door and desk where my monitor sat, but there was this incredibly stupid step that led out of the room, taking an unnecessary foot or so of much-needed space. That foot of space was all that it took for the Kinect to not see my feet, effectively making my avatar during the calibration tests do the Kudo Tsunoda dance. I tried pushing the Kinect back and even stacking it on game cases, but there just wasn't enough space. I was going to have to reorganize my entire bedroom.

And so I did, taking my desk from its place against the wall and putting it in the very middle of the room, sacrificing aesthetics for usability. I now had plenty of room, and the Kinect worked marvelously. I did what many people do when they celebrate and started dancing, except I had the benefit of owning a video game which focuses on just that. And you know, I must say... there's something really special about unlocking achievements using your whole body.

The 9th came around and the original Kinect arrived, which I ended up selling on eBay for a nice profit. Since then, I've beaten Kinect Adventures (pics and video coming soon!) and received Your Shape Fitness Evolved as a gift. I plan on beating Dance Central and getting as many achievements as possible in Your Shape before their sequels come out later this year. I also intend to play Child of Eden, Fruit Ninja Kinect, Rise of Nightmares, and The Gunstringer relatively soon.

So far, I've gotten good use out of the Kinect, with the only annoying issue about it is having to move my 360 back and forth between my office and the living room, but that's just me being lazy. It's about to get used a lot more as I try to overcome my heart condition that I've had since the age of 16, hoping that the unpleasant ordeal it's sure to be will be masked by the fact that I'm playing a video game and unlocking achievements. But that's a blog post for another time.

Gnome Chompski

There's something special about getting a game on launch day and playing through it with a bunch of affable strangers, all of who are trying to figure things out. It's not a situation I find myself in often, usually being "late to the party" and all, but it's always fun. Take Left 4 Dead 2, for example. Unlike the first game, I wasn't able to play with any of my friends, so the only way I was going to play co-op was with people I didn't know. A risky situation, sure, but better than playing alone.

Speaking of alone, I don't think I'm the only one who believes the Left 4 Dead games can be pretty damn difficult for a new player, even on the Normal difficulty setting. They become less challenging as you play through them multiple times, mastering the best ways to deal with the different special infected and crescendo events, but it can take hours to complete a campaign when a group of novices are thrown into the fray. Imagine, then, four strangers trying to complete the silly task of carrying a garden gnome through a campaign they've never experienced before, all for an achievement. Well, I did it mostly for the novelty of the situation, but points certainly don't hurt, and I would have doubted the commitment of the team otherwise.

I had just spent quite a while on the first campaign's final crescendo event, where players have to collect gas cans to fill up Jimmy Gibbs Junior's car to escape the mall. A couple of players had either quit or been kicked out due to their inability to follow the simplest of instructions, which consisted mainly of "stick together", but the eighth gas can had finally been collected, and it was time to move on to probably the most anticipated campaign for everyone in the game, Dark Carnival. Like with most games before I beat them, I had yet to look at the achievements for Left 4 Dead 2, so I was surprised when I came across Gnome Chompski at the beginning of the second chapter. One of the other players mentioned there was an achievement for carrying him through the campaign, and the general consensus was yeah, we have to do this.

We hit the button to start the shooting gallery, trying our best to reach the 750 points needed to unlock Gnome Chompski from his box on the wall, which took longer than it should have since we had yet to realize that shooting peanuts deducted points. We had to fight off small hordes of infected every so often, and one of the players grew impatient, but we ignored him and eventually achieved our goal. I took up the task of carrying Chompski, protecting him with my life and only putting him down in the most dire of situations. He was good at stunning enemies, at least. We reached the end of the chapter and all asked each other if an achievement unlocked, as we weren't sure if we had to carry the gnome through the entire campaign or just the chapter. It turns out it was the former. "Fine with me. This is fun!"

Having Mr. Chompski stare at me the whole time was kind of creepy, especially with the lighting in the Tunnel of Love reflecting off his face, but I loved him and protected him like my own. We grew close, him and I, and us and the rest of the survivors persevered until the crescendo event of chapter four, the part where you open the gates and have to push your way through the seemingly infinite horde of infected to reach the safe room. We were not prepared.

In the many times I have played and beaten Left 4 Dead 2, whether it's with friends or people I've never met, this bit in particular is one of the most difficult parts of the whole game. It's hard enough with a fully capable crew, but throw a gnome into the mix, disabling the carrier's ability to use a decent weapon and adding another thing to keep track of, and it can get pretty rough. And let's not forget this was our first time playing through the game.

It was like this, but with way more zombies.

So we tried. And tried. And tried some more. It became a sunk cost scenario, where we had invested so much time into this little gnome that there was no way we were going to give up now. And then something horrible happened. The gates had opened, I was being swarmed by infected, and Gnomey was nowhere to be found. He vanished, our memories the only evidence of his existence. We had been at this for well over an hour, and I sat him down in a corner so I could assist the team better, and now he was gone. The others pushed forward, and one by one we fell, but that impatient player I mentioned earlier? He made it to the safe house. There were to be no do-overs or retries; we had to continue and finish the campaign. We eventually made it to the helicopter, but something about our victory felt a little empty.

It was two days later that I returned to the campaign by myself. I put it on Easy, determined to get that goddamn achievement and rescue Gnomey from his eternal imprisonment. I was successful. You may call my success hollow, but I've rescued Gnomey enough times since then with different people on harder difficulties that it doesn't really matter. The gnome always escapes. Always.

While I may never know what happened to Gnome Chompski on that fateful day, my theory is that a boomer exploded and sent him flying to an unreachable part of the level. It happened to me during one of my later attempts, at least.

So, what's next for my gnome-based achievement adventures? Why, placing Gnomey in that rocket in Half-Life 2: Episode Two, of course! He always said he wanted to fly...

Michael Fassbender

Criteria: 1. It had to come out in 2011.2. I had to beat it.

Criteria:
1. It had to come out in 2011.
2. I had to beat it.