The Crowbar

[Grimm]

This is me in my crowbar shirt, which I picked up during the San Diego Comicon at the Gameskins.com booth. I'm sure most of you have seen it before, as I posted it in the 'Post Your Picture' thread as well as numerous times in the days following because I was so glad to finally get it.

Although that isn't why I'm posting it here and now. I am posting it here and now with a question: What does it mean to you? To anyone and everyone who has ever enjoyed the classic sci-fi first person shooter, the crowbar is a symbol of our beloved Half Life. However, it seems that people, usually older adults, who see the symbol see it differently.

Several times during the Convention when I wore the shirt, people would give me odd looks and ask what it meant, or what it represented. Me, being the Half Life geek that I am, explained that it is from "A popular sci-fi Video game, Half Life, in which the crowbar is a prominent tool and weapon". The individuals who made the inquiry would then say something along the lines of "Ah" and wander off, but if they stayed long enough for me to ask what they thought it meant, they would slightly stammer for a moment before replying "I don't know".

Recently, I ran into a situation similar to this with my mom, who asked me what it was, and had the similar "Oh, that's what it means" expression as I explained it. I became suspicious and asked her what she thought it meant, to which she gave the answer "Maybe a theif or something, using a crowbar to break into places" after a moment of thinking. Knowing my mom as well as I do, I knew she wasn't being honest with her answer, and I knew she had something else in mind. She solidified my hunch by going on to say "It's hard to think of what a big, red bent crowbar could mean". First, I had to explain to her that crowbars have always been bent the way they are, before what she had said started settling into my mind.

Taking the encounters from the Comicon and the discussion with my mom, I've come to the conclusion that adults seem to have their minds in the gutter more than I thought and are taking the crowbar as a phallic symbol. There is no other meaning or symbol that would cause full grown adults to stutter and pause to think of a cover-up answer to a question like this.

So now I'm curious as to what you think of the situations, of the evidence, and if you were an adult who had never heard of Half Life, what the crowbar would mean to you. Some of you are adults, so you merely have to think if you had never played the game and seen some random guy walking down the street or through the department store with a 'big red crowbar' on his shirt.

[bacon_flaps]

Crowbars = used for opening doors and stuff for burglary, and then for subsequently bludgeoning the owners of house that said burglars are breaking into.


pfff, Gordon who?

[Slink]

Every day i play halflife modes.  i have a computer quite capable of playing games with much better graphics.  The recent Doom 3 wasn't quite tolerable, by my standards.  And yet, what do i play every day?  Why do i still play CS?  why do i play NS?


To me, that crowbar means that shirt is AWESOME.





(almost as cool as my heavy marine shirt from ns)

[lolfighter]

Yeah. The realization that not only are you NOT the only one on the planet with a filthy mind, but no, even your PARENTS are royally messed up, always comes as a surprise. I mean, these are PARENTS, right? Parents don't have sex.

I remember a story on somethingawful, Comedy Goldmine, "Awkward times with parents." Apparently, somebody figured out that he was born less than nine months after his parents married. Uh-huh. Aaaaand? Heck, MY parents married in late december, I was born in early january. Go figure.

As for answering your question: While I'm not a raging crowbar (or HL) fanatic, I've wittnessed too many of them to ever look at a crowbar again without thinking of half-life. And what is it with that crowbar anyway? I mean, nobody adores the combat knife from CS, do they? Or the shovel from DoD. Haven't even seen Halo's plasma sword anywhere, and even if you didn't like Halo, you gotta admit that the plasma sword is pretty cool (unless you got chopped up with it constantly, in which case you probably loathe it).

[DiscoZombie]

crowbar ftw.  if it wasn't iconic, they wouldn't be bringing it back for HL2 now would they??

I really don't think your average passer-by would think it meant something phallic.  I *do* believe they'd have no clue what it means, though, and if forced to guess most would say something to do with thiefly shenanigans...

and, what?  some peoples' parents are married?  I thought everyone was the result of a 3 month fling like me

[Dubbilex]

grimm's mom thinks he's  
:lol:

Anywho, it doesn't really mean a lot to me.  I never played half-life when it was first released - I didn't actually get into it until 1999 or maybe 2000 (where, coincidentally, it was a warezed copy).  Back in those days I was still chugging on that ol' 56k modem, so my multiplayer experience was limited to early CS.  Man, those were the days.

Anywho, if I had to guess what adults think when they see it, I'm sure they'd think "gangs."

[Diablus]

Next time someone asks what that crowbar means, just tell them "it's my favorite weapon to beat old ladies with, and steal their purses" and end the convsersation there. Just walk away...walk away

[Grimm]

Yeah. The realization that not only are you NOT the only one on the planet with a filthy mind, but no, even your PARENTS are royally messed up, always comes as a surprise. I mean, these are PARENTS, right? Parents don't have sex.

I'm quite aware that my parents do have sex, and unfortunately I can find out when on occasional early mornings (or late nights, depending on how you see 1-2 am) if I take my headphones off and listen to the house for a moment. I'm not saying they're 'royally messed up' either; I was born when my dad was 18 and my mom was 21, my sister was born two and a half years later, then they finally got married in '91, and they continued with my other sister in '94 and my brother in '98. So it's no surprise to me that they enjoy their carnal encounters very much. However, my parents aren't usually straightforward about the matter or whatever they're thinking of, and I was guessing at what she was stuttering about.

And no, Dubb, my mom knows very well that I'm not.

[Satiagraha]

Well, the reason that the shovel from DoD and the knife from CS and such aren't on tee-shirts and such is because they're all mods for Half-Life, thus they are still half-life. Also, The crowbar represents HL and everything about it. You can talk about NS and still be talking about HL, so having a crowbar is sort of 'all-encompassing'.

As for what a crowbar means to me? Perhaps big wooden crates, but besides that, nothing. Now if the crowbar is red and has silver tips, that's a different story :p .

I think that most of those dirty looks that you get are because they think it represents crime and burglary. Perhaps you should try to greet those people and show you that you're not going to try to mug them, ok? ^_^

[Geminosity]

The reason the crowbar represents half-life is because it's a rather unusual weapon to have as your primary melee tool in an FPS =P

Before HL it was predominantly knives, feet, swords, chainsaws, etc.
The idea of a conventional tool outside of the traditional likes of a chainsaw was kinda new.  The closest you'd get was a wrench in games like system shock and stuff though that was different =3

Lets also not forget the incredibly satisfying noise the HL crowbar makes when hitting stuff from ringing against steel to the chunky hits on opponents bodies and the ensuing job of gibbing their corpse with it (which is also kinda new-ish) ^^

[Mr.Bill]

oh, the memories of the crowbar on my ps2 1 on 1 mod...
*ching ching ching* *CRUNCH CRUNCH* *ching ching cing *CRUNCH* *KABOOM!!*


The kaboom being the last resort of my friend and his machine gun grenad launcher :-D

The crowbar represents everything good in the world for me.

[Legionnaired]

For the first few minutes of the game, all you had was the crowbar, and maybe a few rounds for your pistol. That crowbar was your best friend, your lover, and everything good about the world, for those first few precious minutes of half-life.

[Quaunaut]

I ordered that shirt about 3-4 months ago. I too love it, and get the dirty looks/stares, and get asked what it means. I always just reply with one word: "Half-Life"- if they inquire further, I explain further.

To me, I can't look at any crowbar anymore without at least slightly thinking about Half-Life. It was just so significant. It wasn't that it was exceptionally useful- hell, it was almost terrible compared to even the pistol. But its grace, its precision, and the fact that it was the beginning of the greatest game in gaming History, the thing that DEFINED the game so much that they (seriously) thought of making the HL2 box be just a Crowbar on front, THAT is something that we will never forget.

I love Half-Life. Long live the King.