I’m not a fan of machinima – what little I have seen has a tendency to consist of crude jokes and internet memes filmed in the medium of Half-Life and Halo. But this week, however, someone brought my attention to something that completely changed my outlook on what combining filming and gaming can do.
It emerged on the Steam forums a few weeks ago that there was a mysterious project known as ‘Ravenholm’ or ‘Return to Ravenholm’ that was being worked on by Valve and Arkane in 2006/2007. To put a stop to any wild theories about what this game was, Valve’s Marc Laidlaw spoke to Lambda Generation to clear a few things up about the title. Read on for more details.
After seemingly hours spent fighting my way through Combine Metro Cops and manhacks I was glad to see those cute little headcrabs launch themselves up towards my face. It was something of a relief to see these, the most basic of alien life form you find in the Half-Life universe. By the time they made their first appearance in Route Kanal I was tired of the usual Combine tricks of throwing exploding barrels at me and sending manhacks down tunnels…
The Purchase Brothers have put together a 6 minute film set around a group of rebels escaping City 17 after Good Ol’ Freeman blew up the Citadel. The really interesting thing about it, is that this video is mind-blowingly well produced. Allegedly only on a $500 budget, I hate to think how good these guys are with their CGI knowings to be able to do most of it for free or through favours. What they did for those favours I…
Dystopias have been around for a long time. The idea wasn’t even all the new when George Orwell first thought up Winston Smith and the rise and fall of his freedom in 1984. Or indeed when Aldous Huxley told the tale of the plight of John, the ‘savage’, in Brave New World. There is something very alluring about a dystopia, despite the very nature of the word. And we’re seeing a rise of them in games, from classics such as…