I’ve been trying to write some thoughts about Infinity Ward’s decapitation, but the sensationalist tone of the enthusiast press has distracted me. West and Zampella were kidnapped? Snuffed out? Those are the logical conclusions to why two people were escorted from their workplace? Activision may have released 9 Hero games last year, and Bobby Kotick probably wears socks weaved from baby hair, but they aren’t an organized crime syndicate. Is the extra traffic really worth exploiting a developing story?

My apathy may be due to my preoccupation with Valve this week. I usually think about Valve and Steam a lot anyway, and not always good thoughts. Sometimes I envision a future where Valve goes public and starts making Actiavellian decisions, such as developing Counter-Strike 2 as an Xbox 360 lead, charging $10 for the Engineer update, or releasing Half-Life 2: Episode 3 as three separate games. All of these belong to a future I don’t want to live in.
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Sometimes fan fiction sucks. Correction, most fan fiction sucks. [editor: fan fiction sucks] However, this fan fiction, written by a nine year old going by the name of squirrelking, was so bad that it motivated another guy (blind51de) to visualize it using his l33t Garrys Mod skills for all of us to enjoy. This was the result.

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Today I have a double-feature for you. These gems from Feisar have gotten little to no attention from any of the sites that I visit, and it’s only by luck that I ran across them and am now able to share them with you now. Neither of them would qualify as a typical machinima short film. They’re both thoughtful, emotional and delicately paced. If you think you can handle that, then enjoy a couple of what I think are great examples of this art form’s potential and richness.

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Lit Fuse Films is a machinima group that created some great films such as “War of the Servers” and “Ignis Solus“, which you may be familiar with. Here is a lesser known short that they produced in Garry’s Mod called “Vitamin Orange” that I consider a classic. Perhaps you’ll disagree, but at least you’ll get a laugh.

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