Recently, there was a BBC News Online article (here) about something called "Red vs Blue". But what exactly is it?

Why are we here?

Red vs Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles is a series of short videos that have been made using the Halo game engine by a group of people that call themselves Rooster Teeth Productions. Rooster Teeth began life as a website called drunkgamers.com. They played and reviewed various videogames whilst they were drunk. However, they found it difficult to obtain games from publishers, which put paid to the site. A popular item, though, was a weekly Halo gameplay video. This idea was taken and turned into Red Vs Blue, with the help of a few guys from LA who worked with some of the drunkgamers.com team on an independant film in the late '90s.

Red Vs Blue is essentially a Halo gameplay video played to a script and with voices added by Rooster Teeth. It is based in the most strategic box canyon in the middle of nowhere, the popular multiplayer map Blood Gulch, and is set in the period after the events of the game. Civil war has broken out between two human factions, the Reds and the Blues. However, the units stationed at Blood Gulch seem to have forgotten this fact, and spend most of their time standing around talking to each other about anything and everything. This leads to some classic one-liners that will have you laughing out loud.

Don't ph34r the reaper

Not that there isn't any action, though. From the Warthog that thinks it's a puma to Sheila The Tank, there are plenty of things to supplement the hilarious dialogue. There has even been death!

For anyone that feels like spending a few quid to help out some poor gamers, a whole array of extras have been provided for RVB's highly-regarded sponsors. From getting the episodes two days earlier than everyone else to getting high-resolution versions of each episode, and even receiving a DVD at the end of the season, this will be one thing that you won't regret spending money on.

I am not a cockbite

All in all, Red vs Blue is the best example of Machinima (creating movies using existing game engines) that you are likely to see. It's well worth downloading all the episodes (and specials), even if you only have a lowly 56K modem. If you don't, then you're missing out (cockbite). Season 2 is now out, but if you missed Season 1 then fret not - a rotating archive is available at the site, or old episodes are available from FilePlanet (even though they make you queue for hours!).

Watch Red vs Blue here