What does this have to do with Halo 4?
Yeah it needs to be moved to Halo 3.
Ok, before you read on, just know that this is all intended as constructive criticism. I have never filmed a machinima of my own, and I cant record and capture game footage. That said, I feel there is a lot you could have done to uplift this preview. First impressions are important. Here are mine:
It’s mediocre and biased.
The humor is dry, and the delivery is weak. One character says he stole a bus to…meet his friends in matchmaking? Besides the fact that we know he didnt actually do that, the idea of just ludicrous. What’s worse is how another character responds, saying how that was the most limited thing he’d ever heard. That line, and the story about the bus, are completely unnecessary. It’s a weak and almost predictable joke; character says he did something crazy to accomplish a simple task, and another character responds by saying how outrageous they think that is.
If you are trying to tell a story about a group of friends having a discussion, you need to make it believable. Often, machinimas like this switch between having the characters as real gamers merely interacting through the game, and actually being characters in the game’s world. This is something Pregame Lobby (if you remember that show) did right; the characters were real players, and their avatars didnt have to bob their heads when speaking, or worry about looking “alive.”
Which brings me to the intro scene. Why are they staring out into the horizon? For cinematic effect? Surely the players would be looking at each other or walking around.
Speaking of which, the camera is stiff and doesnt offer any interesting shots. The angles are basic and static. Besides the opening title screen, which did have a nice pan, there is nothing for us to look at besides torso shots. There is nothing worth seeing here. Have the characters walk around, and get some different shots while they continue to talk. This gives the viewer something to look at while they listen to the dialogue.
My last point deals with the characters off-putting sense of bias; they speak about Halo 3 as if it was the greatest game of all, and that people mysteriously abandoned it for other games, as if to imply those other games and the people who now play them are causing “the deline of gaming.” No one dares suggest that H3 is the problem itself. This is bad because it gives the impression that, since they all agree with each other, there are no conflicting opinions in the group. If they all agree that H3 is awesome and people no longer recognize it’s greatness, whats there to discuss?
The premise of this story seems to be discovering why people stopped playing H3 and then come to some sort of conclusion. But this isnt really necessary, since the reasons are plain as day; H3 is 6 years old, new games have come out, and it is no longer receiving updates or DLC. People stopped playing because they’ve played it to death, bought and played new games (like Reach and H4), and lost interest due to the stop of new content.
So what we have is very so-so dialogue, bad jokes, boring camera angles, biased characters, and a weak premise. Honestly, not very good. We’ll see how this series goes when new episodes come out, but for now, I am not impressed. And judging from the lack of responses on this topic, I dont think many others are as well.