A new calling....

When I was young I used to think war would be the ultimate rush, going into battle killing bad guys and all that shit. Turns out that war is not that much fun after all. It's terrible, I don't care about ideals anymore, or victory, I'm tired Mary, I just want it all to stop. The death, misery.... I just want peace.

     What is it that people yearn for the most? Money? Sex? To be famous? This is the question I was left pondering after watching Exitium's Vae Victis, it is a machinima made using the models, sounds, and maps of a game called Half Life. Truth be told, I wasn't too fond of Half Life
machinima* until watching this five part series. Truth be told, if this were
to be strung together it could very well pass off as a trailer for a Half Life Sequel, it has everything one could want in an Acton movie, Drama, suspense, an underdog fighting a losing battle, the characters are ones that you get to know throughout and grow attached to, So much so that you even feel a sense of sadness when one is lost. The saying goes, A picture's worth a thousand words, if that is that is the case there are not enough pictures in the world to describe how amazingly detailed the story is in Vae Victis. From the effects to the breath taking sound track this is one of the best machinima I have seen, taking advantage of programs that allow you to view character animations, models, and maps from this game has, beyond a doubt, given Exitium a leg up above the rest. I often find it breathtaking the type of beauty that can be born from, as parent's say, "Violent video games". It makes you wonder, do games that tell you not to kill better than games that's main objective is to kill? Sure games of the prior have a god message however games of the latter genre tend to have more of a positive message to it. Taking Vae Victis into account, most "violent video games" have you fighting for a reason, not just "go kill this guy, for the lulz" no, it's not like that, you often have to fight for peace, or to protect something or someone. Here you have humans fighting against the Civil Protection and the Xen* all just so they can live in peace. Now I don't want to post any spoilers here so I will finish by saying if you want to see machinima making at it's best, see Vae Victis.





*notes:
Machinima -  the use of real-time three-dimensional (3-D) graphics rendering engines to generate computer animation.

Xen - Aliens from another world