#h-l1

Why ? Because it’s fun, there’s nothing more to it.

That being said, let’s talk about the vid :

The video’s intro is a mix of cringe and actual sort-of nice love letter to the original’s intro. It’s a nice idea but it comes out weak in actual excecution, a pattern we should get used to when it comes to his videos. You really don’t need fidget spinner jokes, you made that joke already in previous videos of yours.

Showing Half Life Wikia - I know it’s a stretch but hey, if Mat Pat can do that, then why not do it too ? Combine Overwiki is the only source of info that has updated and confirmed info about the series. Most fans of HL DO know that fact.

Assuming that 18-19 year olds today never heard about the series outside of HL3 jokes.... that’s pretty sad, don’t you think ? I know a content creator has to focus on their audience but assuming things can be ALWAYS left out. Why not just say a sentence similar to “And if you don’t know the series, let me explain”. I know many people who heard about the series outside of the joke, many actually got to know about it thanks to countdowns & top tens, siblings or other family members, or on their own. I got to know about it thanks to Portal 2 being a game in its universe, and I’m 18. Generalizing is a good tool when trying to reach a bigger audience, but come on. Let’s just hope it was a joke, even if it was an unfunny one.

“Gordon [..] experienced the worst first day ever” - It was never stated it’s canon, it’s actually highly implied that it WASN’T his first day.

“Why is his face uglier than others ?” - Good job wasting an argument about gman’s appearance being different than other humans’s. Yep, it’s never really brought back again in the video. His apprearance is meant to be so to show he isn’t a human being. For all we could know he could be a human with superhuman abilities, which is why the choice of making his look, act and speak much different was made. It’s a rather obvious point, but at least I made it.

The way Mat behaves makes it seem as if he’s SUPER confident in what he is showing. “I know the answers”... except we then hear that it’s just a theory.

Sans comparison isn’t bad, but only works as a comparison and nothing more and thankfully it doesn’t come back in the video

HL2 happens around 15-20 years after HL1, not 20. There is no canonical date because of a narrative choice Valve made - Gordon wakes up knowing absolutely nothing and being in a completely different situation than the one he was previously in. The same thing is with the game’s location. We are identifying as him in the game, so we cannot know unless Gordon gets to know it himself.

Combine doesn’t have to adjust as much as most think - they brought many of their resources to Earth WHILE using Earth’s. Yes they were wrecking the planet in order to get them, but if they weren’t dependent on their technology more then destroying the Citadel and the Portal wouldn’t make that much sense. After all, the Portal was the only way to get to their homeworld and get support in case of a major rebel uprising

One thing I can agree on - Gman IS the chess master, and another thing I could agree with - Gman being RELATED to Nihilanth. It’s overall, an interesting skeleton of a theory that could be nicely build upon if there were good arguments for it.

That being said, no Gman couldn’t BE a Nihilanth and here’s the first reason why - how can we know if Gman is even the same species as Nihilanths ? Are there any higher, more evolved races that could fit Gman more ? Can Nihilanths shapeshift ? The examples used in the video could apply to many other alien species that we might not even know of yet.

Vorts were enslaved by Nihilanth, they do not remember him fondly. Because of Gordon freeing them from him, they see Freeman as a messaiah figure, a saviour.

“They are connected !” Yeaaaaaaaaaaaah, they are both “Nihil-anths” (Not men, aka humans). About that, don’t you remember that G ordon  FreeMAN = G MAN ?  This entire argument was a huge and desperate stretch

Another desperate stretch - Same voice actors doesn’t mean the same character. If we go by that logic, does that mean Barney (also voiced by Michael Shapiro) is a nihilanth too ?

“Comes another” is most likely about Gordon being another one trying to take him and his kind down, as other Nihilanths were murdered and or enslaved by Combine.

Third arm on alien’s bodies was on their stomachs, more or less around the chest area in the centre, not their necks.

And here’s the most insulting part to me - We should be thankful for a content creator making a video on a series that was abandoned by its creators. A sentence heavily implied in the video. Just because you’re popular and influencial doesn’t mean you have a right to say that with smugness to a fanbase you were scared to anger. No dude, you could easily not include this remark. What you just did only makes people think that your ego is messing with your head already, and only bad things happen when it’s done with that.

TL;DR - the theory itself is an interesting idea to think about, but the execution of the video is not great. Mat Pat should try to talk about himself less and his already overused jokes and focus on the topic itself.

PS: I never hated or hate MatPat, I’ve been subscribed to him and watching his videos for 3-4 years now. I can still criticise his videos, without doing that in the past. Also I’m not a native english speaker, I may misunderstand some things.

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Anyone interested ? ;)