The Gonarch

[awsgames]

@Level

I’m afraid you’re wrong.

Oh well, it doesn’t matter how many testicles he has, as long as her nose is still pretty.

[KMCA]

@Ramirezoid

You’re a bunch of pussies if you’re afraid of a giant testicle with crab legs.

ball has crabs

[Frankminimia]

@CTID

There are a few things in Half-Life that were designed by Valve to make guys uncomfortable.

In Raising The Bar, they talk about how the man who came up with Mr. Friendly said that he knew the game would sell the most to teenager boys, and Mr. Friendly was made to make them more uncomfortable.

Sry but who is Mr. Freindly, is this a joke that im not getting? :fffuuu:

[Sitten_duck]

@Frankminimia

Sry but who is Mr. Freindly, is this a joke that im not getting? :fffuuu:

It was a cut enemy nick-named Mr. Friendly who apparently would knock down the player and rape them to death or something like that. I don’t know too much about it personally. According to Combine overwiki :

Mr. Friendly’s model is the size of a small horse. It was to be a crawling creature walking on hoofed legs on its back and spurs on its front, moving in a very awkward, shuffling manner and making a noise resembling “fingernails on a chalkboard” as it moved around.
One of its proposed attacks was to pound the ground and knock the player’s weapon out of his hand. It was even suggested that Gordon’s glasses fly off and leave the player stuck in combat with blurry vision, a feature that would have been challenging to implement considering the game technology available at the time.
Its most recent attacks in the game’s development are shown in the model animations. They show it standing on its rear legs and slapping the player with its front arms (one being a double whip), as well as vomiting, probably in the vein of the Bullsquid or other spitting enemy.

According to the book Raising the Bar, Valve member Ken Birdwell had a friend whose 12-year-old brother who use to draw. Ken had always liked his work so he asked him, several years later, to do a couple of sketches of possible monsters. He presented sketches of several very sexual-oriented monsters to him and Gabe Newell, managing director, the kind of stuff Birdwell didn’t expect. Among them was this “Mr. Friendly”, with something that looked like a penis. The creature was to literally “rape” the player, holding them with its tentacled arms until the point of fatal copulation. Birdwell was quite disturbed by the concept and wondered if Newell would like it; it turns out he did. They then chatted about possible psycho-sexual alien behaviors and their relation with disturbed teenager sexual fantasies. The sexual themes of some of the enemies were intended to appeal to the innate homophobia of 12 year old boys, the targeted audience for the game.

I personally think they should have checked with the local Police Department and seen if there were any unsolved rapes or child molestation cases in the area this guy lived in o.O.

[_rot_fodder]

but srsly, how do you think the gonarch feels? next time your on the crapper, imagine a six inch tall dude jumping out of the water and beating the hell out of your balls with a miniature crowbar.

[Frankminimia]

@ what Mr.Freindly is - wow wtf lol. I remember the model from the theme park stage of Half-life: Redemption. I think i would have been very disturbed by a monster doing that, at the age i first played.

[DansonDelta40]

I think it’s a cool monster - would love to see it in the mod (if the idea wasn’t scrapped already).

Of course without the raping part. I just like the monster model. It would suffice to have it strangle/slap Gordon to death with the tentacles.

[Ramirezoid]

No no, rape is much, much more interesting than a typical pimp-smack.

[DansonDelta40]

Rape might be many things - but INTERESTING?! :fffuuu:

My best friend is a rape victim. It happened in her childhood and again in her puberty. She is 28 now and still wakes up in the middle of the night, screaming like crazy, then going limp and crying like a little girl. Sometimes when I try to soothe her she doesn’t even recognize me and tries to escape me like I am some vile monster trying to hurt her. Then she stares at me with total panic in her eyes, clearly not knowing who I am, until after a while a curtain before her eyes seems to lift. I don’t wanna imagine what she sees in such situations.

Rape certainly can be called many things. But “interesting”?! Sounds a little bit too positive for me, but maybe I am too subjective about that. Someone who doesn’t know shit about rape might be more “objective” about it - I don’t know.

Whelp - but this thread was about Half-Life monsters, so I am sorry to have interrupted. Carry on! Don’t mind me!

[Floyd]

We’re talking about raping in a game rather than real life. Of course it’s horrific and impossible to condone, but in a game it’s hardly something to get worked up about. It’s interesting from a player’s perspective certainly. Nice job derailing the thread.

The Gonarch was always meant to be disturbing. Changing it to make it less so would ruin that particular part of the game. It’s an extremely clever design of Valve’s to induce fear by way of homophobic response or disgust, and one that I haven’t seen in any other game that I can think of. That’s part of the reason why the zombies are so good - one developer compared the player’s fear of them to watching maggots devour a corpse - they’re not scary, but somehow it’s the most horrific thing you’ve ever seen.

[Mont_Blanc]

Can’t say zombies are so scary or horrific, even valve didn’t try to make them scary but more disgusting, same thing for exemple about stalkers. But I do fell scare when one of those fella pops up in front of me from nowhere, especialy a poison zombie ; not because of its design but more because I’m affraid of the damage it will give me, even if I know it’s not so terrible. Happened the same thing with bullsquid in HL1.

To return on the gonarch subject, you’re right. Its design is clearly for disturbing people than anything else but the devs could make its behaviour more sexualy oriented to maximize that kind of feeling.

[Aze]

It didn’t intimidate me… I see a giant gonarch every time I look down when having a shower…and that gonarch is much moar hairier when im reckless

[iKy]

my gawd ! , are you having shower above a glass which is leading to your basement where you keep a REAL GONARCH ? MY GAWD , pix pls

[_rot_fodder]

poor aze, he thinks its natural to have crab legs and one testicle. :[

[Lolipopman]

And small shiny headcrabs flying out of it every minute.

[Aze]

@iKy

my gawd ! , are you having shower above a glass which is leading to your basement where you keep a REAL GONARCH ? MY GAWD , pix pls

OHEMGI how did u figure that out!!!Darn now I’ll have2 find her a better place because of u…Well done :’( :fffuuu:

@(rot)(fodder

poor aze, he thinks its natural to have crab legs and one testicle. :[

Is it not?! CURSE U MOMMA AND DADDY!

[raw_bean]

[COLOR=‘Red’]Topic, fuckers.

[Jack]

@Lolipopman

And small shiny headcrabs flying out of it every minute.

not to mention it spitting acid sperm

[Assassin]

@Aze

It didn’t intimidate me… I see a giant gonarch every time I look down when having a shower…and that gonarch is much moar hairier when im reckless

you have one ball and no penis?:aah::fffuuu:O_o

[Level]

@(rot)(fodder

poor aze, he thinks its natural to have crab legs and one testicle. :[

@Assassin

you have one ball and no penis?:aah::fffuuu:O_o

ITT, we repeat the same joke with different wording.

Wow, Aze only has one testicle and a big hard shell on top of it?