Saturday, December 22, 2007

Quality Machinima I Like

Entertainment these days is a funny thing, you will find more good things on the internet that the actual Television. One of the more original things is the gaming art of Machinima, which turns simple games where you shoot somebody in the head to something more artistic (Or really badly edited footage of you shooting somebody in the head in black and white online).





Like the Silver Age of Hollywood, Machinima has also begun to shine making us laugh, cry or cry wtf?!.





In this entry I am going to list a few notable single Machiis (I'm not sure what the proper term is for more than one, so I winged it) or Machinma series on the web with appropriate links. I'll also vaguely ramble about them enough to make them appealing enough to be checked out.








Rooster Teeth Productions AKA Red Versus Blue:





The guys (And eventually, girls) that started the mainstream modern movement of Machinima should get a little bit more recognition for more than just RvB. They've also done PANICS (A short series based on FEAR) The Stranger Hood (The Sims 2) and a series based on that Rubbish Fantasy Shoot 'Em Up Game.





In fact, they are so good god help any Machinima series where a character has the slighest trait from a character IN RvB (Despite the fact that characters in some Machinma have to act crazy because people don't make subtle animations in most games where you shoot bullets into people) that some fucking idiot will be leave a poorly spelt comment informing other viewers.





RvB is about two teams of Spartan armour wearing Marines stuck in the Blood Gulch map in an alternative timeline to the original HALO, Where they beat the nasty aliens and civil war began. Both teams are full of people who simply became soldiers because they could shoot guns, not because of their personalities. Nobody here is well adjusted. In fact, the characters of the infamous anime Neon Genesis Evangelion are hyper active and friendly compared to these guys.





The writing for RvB is very very good. There are moments that will make you laugh your head off, or nod in agreement. It is also one of the longest running Machinima ever. The series makes a leap from Halo to Halo 2 on the 3rd season and rumours are that RvB IF made will take place in Halo 3 with a different set of maladjusted future soldiers. The success of RvB is pretty awesome, because you can buy DVDs of the thing instead of spending hours on the internet looking for each episode. Which is a good idea, because the quality of the 1st series outside the DVD is pretty poor.





You can find Rooster Teeth's website here, Where they host some of the episodes of most of their machinima and the forums themselves.





http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/home.php





Lit Fuse Productions:





While RvB is the leading Machinima when it comes to Halo, Lit Fuse covers mainly Half Life 2 and several other VALVE games in their little portfolio. Lit Fuse was eventually conceived from several famous Posters of the HL2 GMOD Comic making community, PHW forums. Led by the plucky Michael and eccentric Steinmann, the team work hard to provide some quality stuff to watch.





The War Of The Servers, A two hour long War of The Worlds Parody set in Gmod is one of their best, other quality mentions are the excellent done Ignis Solus in Team Fortress 2 which is simply done easily using the games animations and the simple noclip STEAM console command. They also did Maintenance Man which is an amusing take on the events of early HL2 Episode 1 from the Combines POV and are working on the amusing Civil Protection series.





Lit Fuse Films are long and have a rather majestic soundtrack compared to the usual five minute bites of most web Machinima and are must sees for the obsessive VALVE/HL2 fans out there. Their Website hosts in site flash browsers and links to most of their materiel. I seriously suggest checking out Ignis Solus especially if you a TF2 Pyro fan. Lit Fuse also has a STEAM Community you can join if you want to help out somehow with their projects or just hang out.





http://litfusefilms.com/





The Janus Syndicate:





http://janus-syndicate.com/?page_id=5





While Lit Fuse is the big, bold and majestic son of HL2 Machinima, The Janus Syndicate are a smaller but more original grass roots movements. Old that Lit Fuse (They have been doing stuff since the original Counter Strike) the The Janus Syndicate which has been revived by quite a few FacePunch forum members and help focuses more on the humour spectrum of the HL2 Universe at large.





The JS work on Independent Projects from time to time, much like Lit Fuse but also have several rather interesting Machinma series under their belts. My favourite one of these is HL2 Mod Tod, where a man named Tod jumps plays an online HL2 Mod with his only friend, a mic and sort of reviews the mod amongst planned and accidental improvised comedy. The Janus Syndicate loves to parody things, even more than Lit Fuse as you will see if you watch Dirty Garry (A Gmod RP Dirty Harry Parody) and Dr Strangeman (A General HL2 Universe Pardody of Dr Strangelove).





The JS host all their works on YouTube, all links of which appear on their constantly updated website with a forum. They also have a very friendly STEAM Community you can join if you want to help or just hang out with them.





I also suggest checking out the first episode of The GMAD Squad too.








http://janus-syndicate.com/?page_id=5





Smooth Few Films:





One of the newer studios, Smooth Few Films currently are working on only two series at the moment, the Counter Strike Source based Leet World and something involving Halo 3.





The Leet World is interesting, Because Counter Strike Source is an untouched medium when it comes to long term Machinima. The premise with The Leet Word is quite simply, The Counter Terrorists and Terrorists taking part in a Reality Show. They live in the ramshacke house that is the Militia hostage rescue map. The Counter Terrorists and Terrorists each have a rather unique personality. They Producers use a mix of Counter Strike Source and GMOD 10 for filming, which gives them certain liberties like Lit Fuse and Janus Studios thanks to Mods and other stuff that can easily be put into the game.





I mentioned the Leet World at the start of the blog, but here is the website where you can watch or download most of their episodes. You can also find The Leet World on YouTube.





http://www.theleetworld.com/







The Horsemen of the Apocaypse the guys behind The Fortress:


These guys are quite new but they are also pioneers of independent TF2 Machinima, they have decided to do something quite unique for The Fortress. Instead of the series being about the characters in the game, it is sort of about the (voices) of the players playing the game, sort of RPing their parts in total. The series is quite unique, because due to the fact you will get people that in real life nothing like their TF2 counter parts (For example, A Woman plays The Heavy and amusingly, the guy playing the Scout class sounds just like him!). Sort of hardcore philosphy hidden amongst the witty humour.


The only thing The Fortress needs to improve is time (As well as maybe tone the camp factor down of the gay Engineer. Nothing wrong with being gay I am not at all homophobic, but dammit that sterotype is annoying).


These guys also have their own STEAM Community, as well as a forumsite where you can download their videos. Like The Leet World, most of their episodes are currently on YouTube.


http://www.team-brh.com/thefortress/


No comments: