Image via Complex Original
There is no fan-made creation as unique to videogames as machinima. Part fan film, part software hack, machinima (a word created by mashing together "machine" with "cinema" into an Internet Age portmanteau) is an animated movie made by manipulating the 3D graphics of video games to cinematic effect. Born of recording speed runs and multiplayer matches, the phenomenon came into its own with the release of Quake. Machinimists—both fans and professionals—have since created scores of movies, from comedic shorts and television shows to full-length films. It's only right, then, that we pass judgement and round up our 15 favorite (and certainly the funniest) machinima videos to grace the intarwebs.
By Stu Horvath
15. Diary of a Camper
Created using Quake, "Diary of a Camper" is largely considered the first true machinima. Although it's essentially just a recording of a multiplayer death match, the narrative element sets it apart. Of course, 15 years later, we can’t really figure out what the narrative is anymore, aside of the fact it involved developer John Romero getting blown into chunks.
14. Make Love, Not Warcraft
Airing during the tenth season of South Park in 2006, "Make Love, Not Warcraft" is arguably the most famous machinima ever made. It chronicles the tale of Cartman & co.’s quest to kill the griefer Jenkins, who has grown so powerful not even Blizzard Entertainment could stop him. It was meant to be a satirical riff on the MMORPG, but looking back, it plays more like a documentary.
13. Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator
...and then there's Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator, a documentary (mockumentary?) made by interactive artist Douglas Gayeton using Second Life. The series, which aired on Cinemax, is a bizarre odyssey pondering the meaning of alternate worlds like Second Life—which seems to be just as weird, frustrating and meaningless as this one. More flying penises, though.
12. Sanity Not Included
The Robot Chicken of videogame machinima. Like its TV inspiration, "Sanity Not Included" is loud, hyperactive and lowbrow. Unlike its TV inspiration, it's actually funny most of the time. [Ed.—Hey, I like Robot Chicken!]
11. Portal
G4TV’s show Portal (it has nothing to do with Valve, GLaDOS, or cake) is part 2001: A Space Odyssey parody, part sketch comedy, part news, and part send-up of gaming culture. It aired for two seasons, reporting on online games as if they were real and developing its own ongoing (and silly) storyline, before being abruptly cancelled. It's still worth your time, even if there's no cake.
10. Time Commanders
With Time Commanders, the BBC created a show that puts two competing teams in the shoes of military commanders charged with recreating some of the most famous battles of the ancient world. But instead of hiring hordes or re-enactors to dress in period costume, Time Commanders used a modified version of the game Rome: Total War to play through the action. While not machinima in the strictest sense, Time Commanders is just too weird not to mention. Stranger still: it lasted for two whole seasons.
9. The Leet World
Take the terrorists and counter-terrorists from Counter-Strike to create a parody of MTV’s The Real World, and you get The Leet World. It plays out pretty much exactly how you expect, but makes up for its lack of surprises with some hilarious one-liners. Smell the badass!
8. Counter-Strike For Kids
Is it wrong that we kind of want to play a first-person shooter where you dress up like a clown and plan tactical birthday parties?
7. Dungeons & Dragons
Hilarious if you’ve ever been anywhere near a 20-sided die, this machinima was put together as a promotional video for the game Summoner. The audio is actually a sketch from a Milwaukee comedy troupe called the Dead Alewives, recorded years earlier. Where ARE the Cheetos?
6. A Day in the Life of a Turret
Portal is no stranger to humor, and neither is the machinima inspired by it. This video gives us a glimpse of what the robotic machine gun turrets in the game were talking about when they weren’t busy turning us into a red mist. Turns out they talk about the same things we do—LOST, video games, and annoying coworkers.
5. It’s a Wonderful Live
The three-episode machinima series It’s a Wonderful Live is a lesson in multiplayer etiquette, complete with the all-too-familiar examples of online douchebaggery that pollute Halo 3. Created by DigitalPh33r, he said he ended the series because he thought it wasn’t very good, but we have a feeling his quickly eroding faith in humanity had something to do with it as well.
4. Combine Nation
Not even machinima is safe from the police procedural, as "Combine Nation" proves. Unlike the civil defense officers in the Half-Life games, however, these guys are about as threatening and well-behaved as Kelly’s Heroes.
3. The Trashmaster
Easily the most ambitious machinima to date, The Trashmaster is an 88-minute movie created using Grand Theft Auto IV that tells the story of a garbage man turned vigilante trying to clean up the streets of New York City (literally). It has some cringe-worthy moments, but is all in all a pretty good movie—and you don’t have to play darts or drive anyone to a burger joint.
2. Red vs. Blue
Red vs. Blue is the first machinima to attract widespread attention outside of the machinima community, and for good reason: Its mix of lowbrow humor, absurdist drama, and science fiction tropes made it accessible to everyone who had ever picked up a controller. Set in a corner of the Halo universe, it tells the story of two groups of soldiers supposedly fighting a civil war in an isolated canyon...except it soon becomes apparent that they're all under the same command. The series is complex, hilarious, and long—running at 100 episodes—and is better than 90% of what you watch on broadcast TV.
1. A Law-Abiding Engineer
There is no shortage of Team Fortress 2 machinima [Ed.—like this one!], but this one takes the cake with its high production values and hilarious premise. If A Law Abiding Citizen, the movie this machinma spoofs, had featured Spy and Engineer, we might have actually seen it.