Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Gordon N.
My Teacher
English Class
20 September 2022
Fan content is not a new concept, especially in the modern age of the internet, where
nearly everything is readily available at almost any time. People especially love to create original
content —such as fanfiction, comics, and more— using their favorite characters from various
media. A more niche style of fan content displaying this is called Machinimas. Machinimas are
stories or movies made using video games or other real-time computer graphics for the visuals.
Famous examples of these include: Freeman’s Mind, Half-Life: Full Life Consequences, and
Civil Protection. Freeman’s Mind, being incredibly popular, has influenced many to create their
own first-person style machinimas, a more recent example being: Half-Life VR but the AI is Self
Aware.
Freeman’s Mind and Half-Life VR but the AI is Self Aware (HLVR:AI) are two machinima
productions that have vastly affected the Half Life Community, each in their own respective eras.
Freeman’s Mind was created by Ross Scott and uploaded onto Youtube from December 4th,
2007, to December 31st, 2014 with 71 episodes in total. Freeman’s Mind was created using
Half-Life: Source in a first person perspective. HLVR:AI was created by Wayneradiotv, originally
streamed on Twitch, and then edited and uploaded to Youtube; it ran from March 5th, 2020 to
April 19th, 2020 with 9 episodes. HLVR:AI was created using Garry’s Mod with various add-ons
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These two series have a lot to contribute to the Half-Life community, including their
unique humor and characters. Of course, the cultural significance of Freeman’s Mind and the
still-rising fame of HLVR:AI is nothing short of amazing for content of their caliber. Usually,
they get turned into a joke, rarely anything above becoming a sort of “cult-classic” in the
fandom; but, these series have somehow defied all odds and defined two generations of fandom.
Their unique styles of acting, and the plotlines they both create in their own worlds make truly
one-of-a-kind experiences.
Freeman’s Mind closely follows the original story of the game Half-Life; a young
theoretical physicist, Gordon Freeman, who accidentally unleashes a resonance cascade upon the
research facility Black Mesa when a routine analysis goes wrong. But, instead of Gordon being a
stoic, silent protagonist, Freeman’s Mind turns Gordon into a man with “shifting paranoia,
general.” (Francis 9) While these traits seem like an inherently unattractive way to portray the
protagonist of your story, Freeman’s Mind turns Gordon’s behavior up to a 10, making his
ridiculous antics a driving force of comedy, earning him his own name from fans: “Freemind”.
So, while there isn’t much originality in the way of plot in Freeman’s Mind, the characterization
Freemind’s character doesn’t necessarily change over the course of the series, instead
more aspects of his life get revealed over time, unfolding Freemind’s motivations and personality
in more detail. Throughout the series, Freemind shows that he has a questionable moral compass,
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history of drug abuse, and many counts of racketeering. He’s quick to violence and
short-tempered, often verbally badgering the NPCs for perceived slights against him, and even
killing an innocent guard in a blind rage later in the series. His instability is often written off as
comedic or justified, which can be true at times, but Freemind’s personality often becomes tiring
or even grating. A lot of the jokes in the series feel out-of-place or awkward, leading a lot of fans
to create their own “cuts'' of the series, showcasing the best parts, often cutting down the runtime
significantly.
The acting in Freeman’s Mind initially comes across as a simple scripted act, but in
reality it’s a lot more complicated. Ross Scott reveals in “blooper reels” of Freeman’s Mind that
the series was created by playing through Half-Life while using the record feature in Half-Life:
Source, and then recording voice lines over the footage in post. It took about 7 years for the first
Freeman’s Mind to be completed, and this is because the creator had to balance scripting while
keeping up with the pacing of the footage. Overall, it’s astounding how seamless the final
Of course, the cultural significance of Freeman’s Mind was felt all throughout the
Half-Life community during its peak. It ended up spawning a number of fan projects that were
very similar to itself, such as Shepard’s Mind, Barney’s Mind, and Chell’s Mind being some of
the most popular. Most fans of Half-Life had grown up along the production of Freeman’s Mind,
referencing its jokes, spreading clips of the series, and even inspiring them to create their own
machinimas; which is exactly how Half Life VR But The AI is Self Aware came to be.
Half Life VR But The AI is Self Aware, otherwise known as HLVR:AI, does something
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completely unique with the storyline of Half-Life. Firstly, it adds 7 new characters, and a new
spin on other, pre-established ones. Gordon Freeman is still our main protagonist, but is now a
more emotional individual, neurotic, but not in the same way as Freemind. He does express
frustration at the antics of the other characters at times, but more often than not expresses a sort
of misplaced benevolence towards the core characters of the series. This Gordon expresses
constantly that he doesn’t have friends outside of the other characters, or that he believes others
generally dislike him. He has a strict adherence to his moral code, or rules that society has laid
out, and gets incredibly upset when people stray away from them. His neurotic behavior is less
aggressive than Freemind’s, often his breakdowns ending in tears, or in anxiety attacks.
Nevertheless, his similarities to Freemind have earned him the nickname “Freeware”, which is
an homage to the original Freeman’s Mind series, and referencing the fact that this series does
not make Half-Life a “real” place to the characters, instead establishing it as video game in their
universe. The other members of the Science Team include Dr. Harold P. Coomer, Tommy
Coolatta, Bubby, and Benrey. Dr. Coomer is a cheerful scientist, often acting as a broken tutorial
NPC, giving Gordon incomplete or absurd tips, but ultimately trying to be as helpful as possible
to the rest of the team. However, he does have a hostile streak, especially after he finds out he is
in a video game by jumping outside of the map. He is also known for his superhuman strength
and abilities, due to his various robotic enhancements and the murder of his “clones”, other
NPCs that have the same model as Dr. Coomer, which he releases on Freeware and Tommy later
in the series. Tommy is another friendly scientist, who also shows a great concern for following
rules, however his rules are often just as strange and absurd as the rest of the characters. He is the
son of Gman, and gets a birthday party thrown by his father at the end of the series. He and
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Freeware bond the most throughout the series, especially after Bubby and Benrey betray
Freeware later in the series. Bubby is another scientist in the main cast, but is not as friendly as
the others. He is often egotistical and rude, assuming he knows better than other people around
him. He is, however, a coward when faced with bodily injury or combat, usually panicking and
running away from the threat. This is because he is an artificial human, created by other Black
Mesa scientists in order to create “The Perfect Scientist”. He also has copies of himself, being
the “Prototypes”, which look identically to Bubby, but behave animalistically, attacking anything
they come across. Benrey is the only one of the main group that isn’t a scientist, he’s a security
guard that Freeware encounters early on before the Resonance Cascade. He is often hostile and
aloof to his surroundings, often acting confused or dazed at anything happening around him,
claiming he is “not human”. He teases Freeware constantly, often riling him up just to suddenly
act confused at the rage directed at him. Later in the series, he and Bubby have Freeware
ambushed by the military, resulting in Freeware losing his right hand. He’s even the final boss at
the very end of the series, revealing his inhuman nature, contorting his body to strange shapes,
As the title states, the series mainly takes place from a first-person perspective in VR,
following Gordon as he ventures through Black Mesa. Because of this, there not only needs to be
vocal acting, but full-body acting from Gordon, reacting to and interacting with his surroundings
frequently. Wayneradiotv, the actor for Gordon, is not conservative when portraying Gordon’s
mannerisms, especially in his emotional moments or breakdowns. Though, some of this may be
due to the fact that in the third act, Wayne has a real panic attack while playing Gordon, but uses
it to fuel the scenes further. The other actors and actresses are also incredibly talented, one of
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them, Master Gir, being a professional voice actor. The other actors are not in VR, but they still
convey a surprising amount of body language by just using the pre-made animations in Garry’s
Mod. They all put their hearts into their performances and comedic bits, which pairs incredibly
well with the editing style used to shorten the live streams.
The cultural impact of HLVR:AI is not as large as Freeman’s Mind, but it has boosted the
creators involved into their own niche popularity, with Wayneradiotv, the original poster of the
series, now having more than 100k followers on his Twitch channel at the time of writing. The
Half-Life community puts HLVR:AI into the same category as other Freeman’s Mind fan
projects, but older fans underestimate the draw HLVR:AI has for new fans. The series is similar
enough to Half-Life to get new people interested in the game, but differs enough from the
original storyline that new fans don’t have a hard time getting invested into the story. This has
brought on a whole new wave of popularity for the Half-Life franchise, further boosted by the
These series are both cornerstones of different eras of the Half-Life community, boosting
the original game’s popularity by making it more palatable to new fans. These series are equally
unique in their own ways, both in their humor and their storytelling. They do excellently at
portraying what they aim to do, even if they don’t age well with the times. This, however, makes
way for new creators to try their hand at more new and interesting stories using the Half-Life
franchise as their base. It is commonly believed that without these series Half-Life would not
have survived as long as it has, due to the long wait periods between official content and Valve’s
frustrating management. Essentially, series like Freeman’s Mind and HLVR:AI are exactly what a
franchise needs in order to keep its popularity and to be able to survive many years and between
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generations of fans. As most creators know, the consumers are the lifeforce of their product; they
often need to rely on fan content in order to even grab attention, especially since in this era of the
internet, where advertisements and marketing ploys are severely looked down upon, and often
ignored. Creators help creators, this cycle of art and conception is what humanity enjoys and
thrives upon. Whether big or small, artists lift eachother up, and immortalize their creations in
the process.
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Works Cited
Francis, Tom. “Community Heroes: Ross Scott for Freeman's Mind.” Pcgamer, PC Gamer,
6 Aug. 2010,
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/08/06/community-heroes-ross-scott-of-freemans-mind/.