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Gia Nieto

Mr. Gonzales

ENGL 1301 NCE

20 September 2022

Inside The Mind of Half Life Machinimas

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 installed, and was filmed in a first person perspective in VR.
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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,

egomania, mild schizophrenia, over-aggressiveness, petty motivations, and immaturity in

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

of Gordon more than makes up for it.

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,

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
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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

production is, considering how complicated the creation of it was.

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

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
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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

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
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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,

but most often settles for a giant version of himself.

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

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
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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

release of Half-Life: Alyx.

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 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/.