MatPat's Game Lab

Out of all the YouTube RED shows that are out, this is one of the better ones...although, that's not saying much at all. YouTube RED is a fail when it comes to content that is fun to watch. Anyway, out of the 8 episodes that are out right now, there are 2 that are enjoyable. The rest have boring premises, bad execution, and bad guests! Seriously, where do they find the YouTubers that are guests on Game Lab, the street corner? I have never had the creativity be sucked out of me from watching something that's supposed to be entertainment. It does educate you on some things (hacking, bombs, stealth, etc.); the education is great, but when they try to reenact it in live action it falls short and is mostly boring. Worth watching? Not really, unless you get it for free, and maybe not even then.

While something like taking Youtubers out of their comfort zones and into a situation that's out of a movie/video game has existed for a while now (Especially with the YouTube Channel Mr. Beast) Game Lab was one of the first to do this concept.

You can tell in every episode that was released that Matthew Patrick enjoys every second of the episode, along with his guests. He also has clearly put in a lot of effort into the challenges, finding the right specialists for the challenge, and finding guests.

The Series has a very high production quality, with very few errors or technical glitches that I'm not sure was Youtube Red or the video itself.

Honestly, the only complaint or knock I have on the series is that it's not very available on its current platform.

Despite all of the dislike towards YouTube Red series - mainly because it hides content in a free website behind a paywall - this series really shows why it is necessary. MatPat, from GameTheory, takes his gaming colleagues to different situations that reminisce with the ones found in popular game titles - like Mirrors Edge (Parkour), Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes (Bomb Defusal), Metal Gear (Military Stealth) and so on. It's a good premise, with great production value and a fair amount of enjoyment to be had, despite the awkward humor every now and then (though it gets better with every episode so it might have been due to the host being nervous when it began). This is the kind of series that wouldn't be as enjoyable if made in a smaller scale, so the YouTube sponsorship makes sense and serves it well.

MatPat brings his intellect, creativity, and enthusiasm to bring video game logic into the real world, and crafts an entertaining series in the process!

One of the strongest aspects of the show would be its structure, as host and personality MatPat carefully guides the viewer by first establishing the video game logic that is being applied, followed by the singular challenge that he and his guest(s) would have to solve together. This makes episodes easy to follow, and makes the pace feel like a crescendo, with the more fun and exciting parts of the episodes being in the middle towards the end.

The production quality is also impressive, as the personality is then fully immersed into the experience, and so is the viewer.

Without a doubt, the strongest and most immersive episode would be the one inspired from "Five Nights at Freddy's" and "Five Nights at Candy's", which delivered on the tone and tension from start to finish, creating a scenario that caged the viewers into the experiences of the players of the game.

However, I felt that most of the series were okay at best. For me, the actual game portion of the episodes felt either way too short or way too shallow, with most making me think "Wait, that was it?" when the credits started rolling.

Despite having better structure and more seamless pace than fellow YouTube series "Scare PewDiePie", I felt that the PewDiePie series was able to hit way higher highs compared to "MatPat's Game Lab", with each moment leading into the next and delivering well on the excitement. In the end, "Scare PewDiePie" was able to better capture the feel of playing a video game, with much more challenges to explore and overcome, as opposed to having a singular challenge for a group of people to work against. PewDiePie's series had more twists, so to speak, while Game Lab came out as okay.

To conclude, "MatPat's Game Lab" is a passable watch for any person interested in video game culture!

In my opinion the best Youtube Red exclusive I've seen so far, Game Lab is quite a fun mix of edutainment with nerd culture. Matpat is a great host, who is very enthusiastic even when he says something awkward. The general theme of the show is taking gamers out of their comfort zone in a sense, but also relating each episode to a video game. The first episode is themed around Mirror's Edge, so they went to a parkour school and learned some basic techniques. The latest episode takes the group to get trained by an ex-Navy Seal in some basic stealth techniques. This sort of fusion of gamer fantasy with the real life counterpart serves as a fun and educational way of informing the viewer what it takes to do these things in real life.

The main flaw is fairly subjective, but at times the humour is a little too awkward, mainly due to the unscripted nature of the show. This is fine most of the time for me, but can be annoying for some.