Devil's Covenant was one of the turning points in
Machinima. It was, at that time, the longest ever
quake movie (as they were called then), coming in at a nice 2 hours.
Devil's Covenant does seem a bit dated now, but it was created in 1996.
The one main thing that I noticed that can be done better with today's technology was the camera movement.
Quake1
Machinima relys on someone actually being in the level, moving the camera as it happens - rather than having something like KeyGrip 2 which can make smooth camera movements later. This means that some of the panning camera movements do seem a little
jerky at times.
Even though, I found that I forgot all about this after a couple of minutes of watching. The
script is top class - and if you want more, there are three stories based round DC on Clan Phantasm's
webpage (www.machinima.com/phantasm/).
This was also the
film that, if I remember correctly, introduced
Bill Benners,
voice actor extrodinaire, to the
Machinima world. In DC, he plays three parts, all excellently, although one scene, where two of his characters confront each other does get a bit confusing, as it is pretty obvious that it is the same actor voicing both
characters.
I could find no faults with the rest of the voice acting
cast either.
Virtually all of the maps, with the exception, maybe, of the pyramid one, were very detailed, and there were no points on them where I looked at an area and thought that it could do with some more detail.
Those
models which were made specially for the film were, for the most part, good. Sassy was excellent - just how I'd expect the character to look. Angel, on the other hand, just looked a bit strange. I think it may have been something to do with her slightly oversized head.... Two models were used from other MODS - the
helicopter and the
tank, and both of these are excellent, even if they do look slightly cartoony, compared to the rest of the
film.
Skins, what can I say. Brilliant. Again, the only one which I wasn't too keen on was Angel's, but the rest were excellent. Grimjack and Mack's were slightly changed from the base Q1 skins (Read Buddy on the Phantasm page to get some
background on where they came from). The Phantasm's skins were not all identical, as I had expected them to be when I met the first one. Not only are they a group - they are also
individuals.
All in all, a
brilliant film. The only problem some people may have with it is that it is starting to look a little dated now. But, nonetheless, this film should be in every
Machinima watcher's
collection. If you do not own Quake 1, then
beg/
borrow/
steal it (I didn't say that - don't
quote me on it!) and watch DC. I can't remember who said it, but someone once said that if there was one
film that you should show your non-game-playing friends to get them interested in
Machinima, it should be DC.