Welcome BBC readers, and thanks to all who commented! I'm still digesting all of them, but I have a few quick replies:

"I can just picture the message "Crowbar Frenzy!" popping up in Silent Hill 5..."

That's a horrifying thought, but sadly, probably pretty close to reality. Prove us wrong Konami! Prove us wrong...

"I don't take issue with the Steam achievement notifications, but I do find the 360 ones a little distracting. [...] Which makes me glad I played Bioshock on the PC."

I don't particularly keep up with much PC gaming (aside from Steam or GameTap-based games), but isn't the Games for Windows Live initiative bringing achievements to the PC? Halo 2 has them, Shadowrun and, I believe, Gears of War has them too.

"When I first played through HL2, I carried a shoe as far as the game [would] let me in the first level. I did everything I had to, but I always went back and grabbed the shoe. If there had been an achievement for that back when I played it on Xbox, that would have been absolutely stellar."

As an earlier commenter has mentioned, gnomes are your friends! (Although that achievement reminded me of the The Amazing Race challenges where contestants have to carry a Travelocity gnome through an entire leg of a race. Next for achievements: product placement? Or am I too late for that?)