'Gaming at the movies' is a weekly movie review feature which brings you the latest, the greatest and other combinations of gaming movies to stream or download every week. It's been a while but let's get together for another movie night.

The box office for this week brings a consistently good bunch as no movie scores under 6 and four end up scoring over 7. From a movie featuring every markeloff kill you could ever want to see to a trio of Quake movies featuring top players of today, you can be assured of fragging action in this edition. There is of course the classic pick at the end to remind you of some past glory or introduce to you a highly lauded piece.

(Note: if the embedded movies do not display for you then disable adblock or click the "Go to video" link below them, the latter also being how they can be viewed fullscreen)


Name: Andreas "MODDII" Fridh Movie
Editor: aK
Runtime: 4m54s
Released: 2011
Game: CS

Description:

A minimovie starring ESC player, and former SK Gaming stand-in, MODDII.

Review:

MODDII is one of the best Swedish players even in spite of his inability to get into fnatic or SK permanently. As a result I was excited when I saw a movie had been made about him. I can't say this movie, which is more accurately a minimovie, delivered a large amount of exciting action but it was satisfactory. The frags are good, as one would expect, but somehow they don't come off as that amazing. The level is quite consistently good but something about the way movie plays out doesn't blow me away. There is some eco killing and scenes against poor players but they don't hamper the movie too much.

The editing is decent enough, everything hangs together fine. The music is not good but it's not unbearable or even distracting, so it can be overlooked. All in all a solid minimovie about one of the best players outside of the top tier right now. A missed opportunity perhaps in the sense that by including all of his kills from his career an exceptional movie could have been made, but even with that said this is a decent enough watch.

Thorin Rating: 6/10

Download: multiupload
Stream:


Name: Colosseum II - Quake Nations Cup 2010
Editor: ZeRoQL
Runtime: 14m52s
Released: 2011
Game: ZeroQL

Description:

A movie featuring some of the best action from the Quake Nations Cup 2010. Starring the likes of noctis, Krysa, ddk and silencep. From the creator of 'Unagi' and 'The Gate Keepers'.

Review:

Anytime ZeRoQL releases a movie my expectations are high since I consider him to be the best QuakeLive moviemaker. However, this movie left me feeling a little underwhelmed. The biggest thing which stands out to me is that for the majority of the movie I didn't get pumped up. There was no feeling of adrenaline coursing through me or tension as someone is about to make a kill, I felt as though I simply observing the kills in a detatched manner. I think the main factors I can put that down to are the choice of music, the third person camera work and the intros for different scenes.

Firstly the music was that kind of movie soundtrack music which is supposed to accompany action scenes. The problem is that it didn't get me excited or modify my feeling towards the frags in anyway. I've always felt it's important to tie the music to the frags either in terms of how excited it makes you or how it matches the pace of the action. Sure this music sounds cinematic but it wasn't giving me that frag movie feeling where the kills feel special and exciting. It's significant that the two tracks towards the end of the movie, the electronic one and the rock one, both energised me and got me going in a way I hadn't felt for the entire previous body of the movie.

There was too much third person camera footage in this movie, which ties into the third point of the intros. The movie felt like it kept losing the excitement level since it kept cutting into third person footage. Sometimes that would be for a single kill, often at the end of a sequence, and other times it was to introduce an entirely new scene. It always annoys me a little when I miss out on seeing a kill due to it being in a third person view. Likewise the intros were too long so the action wasn't continuous, meaning it couldn't build and maintain a level of frenzy.

The kills in the movie were good and at times very good but the other issues I've raised meant that they weren't appreciated to the same degree they might have been with an exciting soundtrack or editing which flowed better. This movie was perhaps too long for what it is. While I was never actually bored I did find myself aware of how much time was passing and that magnified the deficiences of the movie somewhat. Despite every point raised I don't have a negative view of this movie, but it had elements which meant it could have been a really good movie and so I found myself looking for ways to explain why it wasn't one.

Thorin Rating: 7.5/10

Download: maverick (HQ 50 fps), trance.0f.se (LQ 30 fps)
Stream:


Name: Strenx: Long way to Dallas
Editor: MMd
Runtime: 8m12s
Released: 2011
Game: QL

Description:

A movie about fnatic dueler Strenx's duel and TDM success at QuakeCon 2011. From the creator of 'Strenx 2010'.

Review:

This was a fun movie and when the action got rolling I really enjoyed it. The TDM section was significantly more exciting than the duel section for me, as Strenx showcased his impressive aim hitting a ton of consecutive shots, from rails to lg tracking. Having the duel section after that was maybe a mistake since it couldn't match that level of pure action, being as duel is a lot of single kill sequences. The use of out of game footage was done quite well, hopping in and out depending on the moment.

The music was well chosen and fit the tempo of the action it was aligned with. I liked that the moviemaker didn't try to force a lot of synch moments, so there were a couple but they weren't in your face. This movie did feel a little short since when you take the intro and outros off there is only about four minutes of action fragging action. Nevertheless it was a good movie and is recommended for frag movie fans.

Thorin Rating: 7.5/10

Download: MegaUpload, narod.ru
Stream:


Name: Markeloff: Fragshow
Editor: Spirit_LN
Runtime: 15m57s
Released: 2011
Game: CS

Description:

A movie starring all the markeloff, from Na`Vi, kills imaginable in one file.

Review:

This movie isn't any kind of editing masterclass, doesn't feature great music and has a number of eco kills and kills against bad players. But what it has to counter all of that is pretty much every good kills markeloff had ever done in a match prior to this movie being made. This editor really did his homework and went through every single demo, even as far back as DTS and HellRaisers. That's admirable and as a result even for all of the flaws this movie has it has so many good kills I can't help but enjoy it and be glad it exists. I've always wondered why guys like REAL, f0rest, ruuit and zet never had movies like this from their entire careers so it's nice to see someone finally make one.

Thorin Rating: 6.5/10

Download: MegaUpload, narod.ru
Stream:


Name: The Spart1e Show
Editor: mouse*
Runtime: 6m08s
Released: 2011
Game: QL

Description:

A minimovie starring former fnatic dueler Spart1e.

Review:

This movie was a lot of fun to watch, the whole package was right up my alley. The movie is all about the frags and they are of a really high level. There are a ton of great shots in this movie to keep the viewer entertained. The editing keeps the flow going and you get to see kill after kill in quick succession. The actual smoothness of the movie was the one area I could raise a criticism in as it didn't feel as smooth as most modern movies are. In that respect it reminded me of the Jibo movie.

The soundtrack of this movie is great and really works well with the top notch action. All around a really nice movie production. This is one of those movies where I'd like to give it a higher score but it isn't really long enough to warrant that.

Thorin Rating: 7.5/10

Download: MegaUpload
Stream:


Classic movie magic

Name: eve
Editor: cRZYFST
Runtime: 4m05s
Released: 2007
Game: CS

Description:

One of the most famous CS movies of the latter part of the 2000s, created by much loved fan favourite moviemaker cRZYFST.

Review:

I always found cRZYFST to be overrated and it felt like some of his movies which I thought were just ok had other people going crazy over them. That said I always did think eve was a really good movie, though after rewatching it has dropped a bit in my rankings. I still think this is a really good example of editing but mainly if you watch the movie as a CS music video, rather than a frag movie. If you try to just watch the frags and enjoy the movie then the experience will be a little frustrating.

The frags in this movie are good throughout. The Connolly sequences, which make up most of the movie, are the best and he was an underappreciated player in terms of how many really entertaining POV demos he put out there. The editing works well a lot of the time as it ties together kills, effects and difference sequences to give a special pacing to the movie. The movie is built around the music and not the action, so that everything moves to the speed of the section of the music it is lined up with.

Some of the effects were a little annoying and distracting, such as the eye which is overlaid on the screen during some kills and especially the overlaying of more than one sequence at a time towards the end. That even results in a final clip where no matter how many times I rewatch it I'm unable to see more than the last of the three eGene kills. To me that seems a little pointless. I think at times this movie tried a little too hard to be something artistic and fell foul of being a little pretentious. It's also quite a short movie, which works in terms of the theme but means I can't go crazy over something four minutes long like I would something 10 minutes long which was also good.

With all of that said if you watch it with the right mindset going in then this can be an enjoyable and entertaining watch. Still one of the best editing showcases in CS movie history.

Thorin Rating: 7.5/10

Download: Megaupload
Stream:


What rating would you give each movie? Leave your answers in the comments section.

'Gaming at the movies' will return next week with another batch of movies to excite, infuriate and entertain you.