I realize it would be very easy to just look up the film to find out what game it is, which I will do at the end, but I want to record my thoughts first. Many of the games featured in the other films are popular, easily recognizable titles: Super Mario Bros., Tomb Raider, the yearly re-skin of the same NBA 2k game. With machinima’s association with games, a very popular medium, this makes me wonder how outside knowledge of the tools used to make a film can affect it. (Also, I acknowledge that I was late to the screening and that the game may have been talked about during the slideshow. I would’ve bet my soul that it started at 7:30 PM.)
Even without the context of being shown at a screening for machinima films, there are some parts would point to it being from a game, like the constantly repeated idle animation of the main character, bobbing up and down with each breath. Why do other kinds of animation not have similar usage of canned movements? Of course, for games there is a necessity to adapt, the designer may have an idea of the extent to where the player will go, but cannot know where specifically the player and the camera will be at any given time.
To me, the film seems to be hiding the identity of its source. The main figure is completely dark, with no identifiable features. The surroundings are shrouded in a deep fog. Many of the locations shown, like a field and a city, feel like they would be commonplace in a wide variety of games.
There are still things that can be surmised about this game from what is shown. Especially in the shot that focuses on the main figure’s head, it’s easy to see the limited polygon count of the model. I’d say this would put the game around the Playstation 1 era, or more likely at a similar time on PC, perhaps contemporary with titles like Half Life or Deus Ex. At some point, the focus character is riding a bike, which makes me think the game is open world. There’s also a shot where the camera moves towards a fence, which causes it to break into multiple pieces. Those kinds of destruction physics, along with the rain and fire effects, can be appreciated for their technical showings, even without knowing what the game is.
Through the description of a YouTube video of the film, I found that it is from Grand Theft Auto, which was very surprising. How much had to be stripped down to create this film? Does it matter that the game doesn’t have much of its identity anymore?
Another thought:
As an extension of this thought, I would like to bring up something I thought of during the screening, because I cannot pay attention to anything, though I feel that it does relate somewhat. During Super Mario Movie, there is a shot where Mario “jumps” but rather than having an animation, the sprite just moves up. I was immediately reminded of the below gif (pronounce jif,) used to mock how video games are represented in modern media.
Typically, when I see this posted, it’s not long before I see the next gif, Retro Blast, which is rotoscoped from Dragon Ball Z, I believe.
Furthermore, this rotoscoped style reminded me of yet another gif that is frequently shared, of an iron golem brutally killing Minecraft Steve.
What isn’t immediately apparent is that this gif is rotoscoped from a game called The Callisto Protocol, a game in the style of Dead Space that had some ex-devs working on it. Though the visuals were great, many complained that the gameplay was lackluster. This, in combination with the fact that the more widely praised Dead Space Remake came out two months later, have banished this game to the depths of obscurity. I can’t articulate why, but it bothers me that the greatest cultural impact that this game, one that was earnestly worked on by several developers and artists, has is the fact that someone traced one of their animations to make it look like Minecraft.
