War Of The Servers
Enraged goes head on with what is quite possibly the greatest Machinima movie ever created. |
Synopsis:
In 2007, The Gmod servers go to war, from PHWOnline And RS Films comes "War of the Servers", Directed by Robert Stoneman and starring voices from Chris Duggan (PHWRadio DJ), Robert Stoneman (PHWRadio DJ and Slapdash 1 and 2), Richard Biosvert (Slapdash 1 and 2), David Zimmerman (PHW Comic Maker), Nick Bertke, Jordan Brindle and Ben Stoneman. Based on the musical "Jeff Wayne's musical of War of the Worlds" This action/parody adventure follows one players story to get to his friends before the servers crash.
Robert Stoneman is Steinmann, a player who enjoys G-mod server life, building, creating, and having fun with other player's. Being a part of the PHW community, he has met alot of friends online playing in Gmod servers from role play to LUA gamed servers. But on one late day on MJ's serious builders only server, the server begins to lag, he finds out it's not just the server he is in... Its everywhere... and the lag spikes are coming from the new players; GMod 9.0.4 Servers... Moments later during the game, Steinmann and the other players notice a mess of contraptions in the middle of the map, when strangely fog appears. Players gather around this mess and what is seen and what arises from that mess...will change the servers forever. Before anyone can react, it removes everything in sight.
Review:
War of the Servers is a full length machinima film, that manages to remain professional at all times. The moment the introduction begins, you know that this film is not just a complete joke, but serious time and effort has been put into it's creation. Don't be fooled into thinking that this was made using "Windows Movie Maker," because once you begin to watch this film, you will deeply regret even making this assumption.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this entire film is based on the "War of the Worlds" movie, (Similair to the blockbuster movie, it is nothing like the book.) but it does take a genius to take a serious war film, and turn it into a thoroughly enjoyable machinima project, so when PHW gets in on the act, you can expect high quality content that you can sit down on the sofa with, holding a big tub of popcorn.
At first, the movie extremelly confusing with very few things making sense. Steinmann tells us a little about himself, and how he enjoys life on the Garrys Mod servers. He also tells us that the current version of Garrys Mod is actually 9.0.4, even though 10 had already been released in November, 4 months previous to the film. However, if you ignore these small, confusing mistakes, you will enjoy this film a lot more. Another problem with this movie, is how it quickly forces the watcher to keep looking. Even blinking could cause the next hour of your life to not make much sense. However, it is not long before the film really starts to take of, and it does so with flying colours!
The storyline is incredible, and told in an interesting way, through the eyes of Steinmann, and a select few administrators from various servers at rare points in the film. The actors, even though with limited controls of their players, manage to create a marvellous, enticing performance that will keep the viewers on the edge of their seats. Occasionally, especially in the case of close up camera views, the characters manage to actually move their mouths, blink, and perform other motions. (Using SDK).
Not only is the acting superb, and the camera angles perfect, but the voice acting plays an extremmely important role with absolute perfection on the main part! Where people should sound sad, they sound sad. Where they should sound angry, theysound angry. One of the few problems with the sound, is that when you hear 1 of the admins speak about 40 minutes in, you can hear the very faint sound of a fan in the background, but I doubt anyone will hear it unless they actually go looking for it, or have really good hearing! The other problem, was that whoever did the voice for Barney Calhourn, did not sound very realistic, especially in the bit where he describes how they were wiped out. He sounds more like he's out of breath then one of the few suvivors of an extremelly violent battle!
The locations in the film have also been chosen well. Many infamous servers have been named and played in, along with maps such as RP_OVISCITY, HOMETOWN nd CSCDESERT. I suspect that there were also roughly 4 extremelly well made maps, solly for this project. They include the road that was littered with vehicles, the house that he sees the minge's playing with bodies at, the housing area that's been annihilated and the airbase. All look relatively good on camera, but I think a lot more work should have been done here.
One of the few other things that annoyed me about this film, was the tripods. Instead of actually having 3 legs, they were tall machines on 4 wheels. and they really could of made a lot better war contraptions. The UFO model also seemed a bit out of place, but I enjoyed watching these machines structure themselves automatically. Another good point about them, was the melon cannon that shot down the pilots. Again, the orchestration of the flying machines destruction were both excellent, the first better then the second, simply because of how incredibly enjoyable it was to see be destroyed.
I didn't see a point to the green mafia part. I think they could of done a lot more with them at the point where they kill them off. Originally, and I think this is a better idea, that when the admins managed to destroy the green mafia, the mingebags would enter the server. Unfortunately, this was not the case, and instead, all we saw was artillery destroying them, which was only explosives on the ground. An animated model would have been a lot better, but taken more time.
My last point about this film is the music. In all the important places, opera was used, and this worked very well with what was happening in all those related scenes. Unfrotunately, then came the times when hip hop/jaz like music would enter the scene. This was uncalled for and really destroyed what could of been some excellent scenes in my mind. Out of everything, these were some of the worst points in the film.
Overall, I think not only did this film meet my expectations, but passed them with ease. Originally, I had expected a 6/10 movie, but I am rating this at a nice high 8/10!!! This film doesn't have much replayibility, but it is easily the most entertaining Machinima movie ever created. In my mind, this has taken all the points that made the Militia movies a success, and made unbelievable improvements! I hope that there will be a sequel, as the end implied. ;)
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| Published by Enraged : 1 year ago |
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