Janus Syndicate

What’s up everybody. It’s almost Holiday season and I’m going to be taking another hiatus for a short time as I’m moving out for a college semester starting in a week-ish. Don’t think I’ll have internet there for starters and it’s going to be occupying a vast majority of my time these next couple of weeks, and then after that it’ll be Christmas and New Years, so it’s a safe bet to say we won’t have anything in the works until after January.

We do have a couple of gems straight from Stev’s Youtube Channel though. I got a lot of silly flack for uploading two videos I made for my media production class with Jack and I on my personal channel, and since Stev and I appear in this one, we wanted to put it on his channel. Check it out:

And since we won’t probably be making anything video wise for a month (our last was the CS For Kids Extras video if you haven’t seen that one yet), I thought it would be cool for me to make little “for fun” blog-type posts.

Here are what I would say now are the top three machinimas that inspired me into the machinima making scene – all vastly different from each other. Only two different games though, as the majority of what I played back in the day was Counter-Strike and Battlefield, so naturally, my favorite pieces are from those engines. These videos have seemingly been forgotten as of late, too, as they are relics from the 2003-2005 period. Keep in mind that the links that follow are reuploads from another source – you can find higher quality direct download links probably by doing a little searching.

3. PUBMASTERS by TechWarrior (CS1.6)

A clan in a competitive environment from CS1.6 back in 2005 makes it’s way up the ladder to only pull pranks and do outrageous maneuvers on opposing clans in actual league matches for reactionary purposes. The video essentially is highlights from the season in a music-video/replay like format, and is edited with special effects and music for extreme effect. Not technically a machinima, as the majority of footage in this video is from actual CAL-M CS1.6 league matches (the fact that this joke-clan made its way up the ladder just to pull stuff like this makes it even funnier and more real), but it’s just too damn well choreographed on the maker’s part for it not to be mentioned here. A hilarious outing, incredibly well edited and made, and just too damn interesting. Another CS1.6 video very much worth mentioning that goes hand in hand with this is one entitled MONSTROUS: Counter-Strike Gone Bad. If you’ve seen Pubmasters, but haven’t seen this, do so now. You’ll probably find it even funnier.

2. OURS AGAIN by MuNansen (BF1942)

Back when the “Requiem for a Dream” music wasn’t so cliche, and back when seeing an effectively shot and edited piece from the Battlefield engine was a rarity (it still is, even with Battlefield 2’s replay features and onward). Very well put together action video about a U.S. group defending a small town from an impeding German force set to Clint Mansell’s music. It’s a bit long and a little too overdramatic with the music, however it goes without saying that it’s very effective. How the director was able to choreograph beginning-to-end action sequences is really impressive, and something that isn’t easy to pull off in an engine like Battlefield 1942 with virtual actors. Seriously. How many headaches did it give ‘em. I got horrible ones just doing half-assed, two day efforts on Source Mod Todd videos. BF’s engine would be a pain in the ass to make a video like this for. Mu’s hard work paid off for him though, as this video eventually got a spot on television.

1. CLAN WARS – CLAN VS NOOB by tfg (CS1.6)

This, in my opinion, is the grand-daddy of all grand-daddies. A clan made up of “noobs” wants to hang out with the “best of the best”, so by baiting them with a false pretense, they don’t exactly get what they hoped for.. Released right around the time that CS: Source debuted (even includes a scene that’s funny now just to see the old original Phoenix model), this has production quality unheard of for a CS1.6 video. Clan Wars is full of hilarious scenes and is simply worth watching solely for how well it was made. Even features an original soundtrack that’s superb. I miss directors like TFG. He really knew his shit and filmed in a setting that people like I can compare to. It takes mad balls to try and film something that isn’t a Source-SDK choreographed effort (which also takes mad balls), but rather, one that designs very clever sets, deals with in-game actors, and effectively uses the game engine to his advantage all the while pulling off shots that make you go, “how the fuck did he do that?” (especially at an extensive, entirely custom animated fight sequence near the end). For something like that to yield an amazing outcome is awesome to see. Be sure to check out TFG’s other work too – he made a few other excellent machinimas in Counter-Strike and even a couple documentaries. Back in the 2004 era, machinima had some prime fucking directors that were all in their twenties and early thirties. This elite machinima-making crowd eventually all moved on with their industry jobs. Then Youtube came along, and now it’s mainly just a bunch of kids.

What happened.