Wednesday 15 June 2011

Red vs. Blue - Rounding Error - S9E1 [Halo: Reach / CGI]

Same ol' Blood Gulch, brand new blues...
Rating: *****

Creator: Rooster Teeth Productions (http://roosterteeth.com/home.php)

Watch it here: http://roosterteeth.com/archive/?id=3328



"Hi, my name is Leonard Church, but, nobody calls me Leonard... most people call me Church. Sometimes they call me Alpha and a few people even know me as The Director. But I haven't been called that in a really, REALLY long time..."

So beginneth Season 9 of the largest and most successful machinima of all time, what started out as conversations about the proper name for a jeep and the staving off of boredom while trapped in a box canyon has evolved many times over the years, almost as much as the Halo games it is filmed in. Anyone who has followed the series and felt a tingle in their spines watching the trailer for this season might be mistaken for thinking the opening episode would be big on explosions, CG fight scenes and set pieces.

So it is refreshing and I think totally right that the story starts very low key and back to basics, Epsilon-Church is still trapped in the A.I retrieval device, how long its been and for how much longer is a mystery. Surrounded by simulations of his old teammates in the famous canyon where it all began he has an omnipotence of future events that doesn't bode well considering his impatient demeanour at the best of times (as he morosely mutters: "God I forgot how much this place sucked!"). The rebooted location and time (for everyone except Church at least) means the quirks that made the characters so popular in the first place can be dusted off. So Caboose is determined to make Church his best friend, Church isn't used to being in a human body and Tucker is... still Tucker in all his asshole glory. But things are going wrong or rather, different. The Reds have modified their Warthog (or Chupathingy) to fire rockets, Donut is starting to give orders and the canyon is suffering earth tremors... what this bodes for Church and his memory-construct friends will no doubt be key to the series.

But it's the final few minutes that set the pulse racing, as 'Many Years Ago' the second storyline is set in motion, the origin story of Project Freelancer and the A.Is themselves. How these two distinct narratives will interweave remains to be seen, but if Rooster Teeth can balance the quieter character-driven humor with the mind-blowing set pieces than this may just be the best season yet, if not for first-time viewers then certainly for die-hard fans. Unmissable viewing.

The Machinima Review
"If the critics were always right, we should be in deep trouble" - Robert Morely

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