Could you ever imagine playing a “gangster” game that included a spaceman riding on a atomic ATVs, beating someone up in the street with a dildo bats, zombies, farts in a jar, and oh yeah Burt F’ing Reynolds. Well your imagination just came true in the “Pimps & Gimps” campaign. Saints Row 3 takes place a couple years after the second game. The Saints are now more then just a street gang, they have become a media empire across the world. The Saints find themselves financially successful, but still have the reputation as a violent gang. The game starts off with the leaders of the Saints planning a bank heist and I will leave it at that.

In the previous Saint Row games, each gang you battled had their own storyline, which eventually tied into the conclusion of the game. In Saints Row: The Third, all of the gang missions are interconnected. If the player makes a decision after doing a mission for one gang it could affect the other gangs in a good or bad way down the line. Most of the storyline missions can be completed in different ways and the decisions will affect the ending of the game. Since Volition wanted to focus on the single player aspect of the game, Saints Row 3 will not feature the competitive multiplayer. They will still have the co-op feature for multiplayer.

Saints Row: The Third releases November 15, 2011 for PS3, Xbox 360, and PC. This post is sponsored.

In Need for Speed: The Run you play as Jack, a racer who has gotten himself into a serious situation. With no choices to make, Jack must enter a cross-country race from San Francisco to New York and earn $25 million to save his life. These insane races involve risky scenarios such as driving up snow mountains during dangerous avalanches to dirt roads with oncoming traffic.

Now this is not the only thing NFS: The Run have to offer. With this new title you can now exit your vehicle, run from cops and jump rooftops in quick time events. This adds more variety and climax to the story. Its also a really good way to get more personal with Jack’s situation.

With Black Box developing under the new Frostbite 2 engine (also used in Battlefield 3), The enviroment and car details are vastly improved. Even gameplay has been revamped to add more challenge. AI racers will act just as dirty as you to make sure you don’t win. Racers will tailgate, swerve the roads and even babysit in front of you to make sure you stay away from the finish line. Not to mention random police chases will occur as well as level conditions to throw off your gameplan.

Multiplayer is back as well as Autolog to share your scores and times among your friends. The career mode will mostly consist of one-on-one rival races. So instead of standard competitions, races are more personal and dirty.

Need For Speed: The Run releases November 15, 2011 for Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Wii, 3DS and iOS. This Post is Sponsored

With this new expansion you can create between low-maintenance pets for simple purposes like feeding, or high maintenance for additional control. The amount of creativity for your pet depends all up to you. If you want your cat to look like a Pink-White Tiger (If that makes any sense) you can do it. Give your pet brown feet with panda-like fur and conjur the ultimate breed! This expansion has also added horses, unicorns and even horses for the dead (ponders). Every animal can be equipped with up to 30 different traits. This includes Gentle, Quiet, Aggressive and so on. You can even control your pets to do wild things like scratching the life of a sofa, or greeting your own when he/she comes home.

With the new addition of Horses, you can train your horse and raise your ability to ride it. Horses can also be entered into race competitions. If your a good enough trainer you can earn more money in races than you would make in your steady-paying job. If your not into racing, you have the ability to breed pets and sell them for extra simoleans.

One of the most notable features for Xbox 360 is Kinect Support. Not only can you control with the device, it also supports voice recognition. Give your a pet a voice command and he/she will listen to your every order. In the create a pet mode you can easily switch between breeds just by saying “Go to Beagle” or “Go to Poodle.” In the gameplay, you can queue commands for a individual sim. If you want a certain sim to do multiple task, you can say “Go to the Bathroom, Eat something, Go to sleep” all in one sentence. Then watch the task stack up. Kinect also lets you switch characters by calling the specific number for each sim.

The Sims 3 Pets released on Ocotober 18, 2011 and is available for Xbox 360, PS3, PC, MAC OSX, 3DS, WII and DS. This post is sponsored.

Hey we’ll take that! Our CampFire video Birthday Nightmare was submitted to a contest by Evil Controllers. The video with the most likes wins and Custom xbox slim case and controller. We came in 4th place and got a giftcard. Alot of people messaged me saying I deserved way more, but I say “baby steps,” and this certainly is a step in the right direction!

Link to Playlist: http://www.youtube.com/user/lvlselect#grid/user/390066CDBA6C49AF

As our ideas for newer episode grow, our workload grows. Making a CampFire episode is not easy. Even with the exclusion of Post Special Effects, it could still take weeks to do an entire 10 minute video. Though this time were going to turn it up a notch. We will be aiming for a 30 minute video!

Update: “When does the work begin” section has been added

What is CampFire?

BlackOps CampFire is episode series using Black Ops Replay system. We provide our own original concepts and stories, and use Black Ops to provide our scenarios. Alot of people like to claim our show as a “Call of Duty version of Red vs. Blue.” Our series was inspired by Rooster Teeth’s series, but I wouldnt say its just like it. We just use the same techniques as them which is called Machinimation!

So far the entire series has been voiced, written, machinimated, and edited by Upside, Merck and Dez. No one outside of LvLSelect has contributed any personal input. Only thing we have not done ourselves was the music. That was provided by Incompetech.com and their amazing royalty-free library. This time were going to do our own music scores. Either that, or use alot less of incompetech music and  more of our own.

The next episode will be a long one. We will be looking for people willing to work proffesssionally in a private match on Black Ops (this is where the recording takes place). We want the room to be full along with 2 producers and the director (myself) in the lobby. So if I am correct, that will be 15 machinamtion actors we will be accepting.

Machinimation

The process is simple to explain, but a little more tough to act. The 15 people will be provided with action script and instructions on what their specific character does in each scene. This also requires tedious details such as: looking up and down to indicate that your character is talking, or walking slowly instead of running to give a more realistic look etc. The Dialogue scenes are slow but easy, while the action scenes will require some tough precision. The only real downfall I can say is that Black Ops will only let you record 10 minutes worth of replay before the file starts to corrupt. Yes! This means we have to be prepared for our roles swiftly, or else we will be doing multiple private matches until the scene is completed! Now dont get me wrong, we love to have a lot of fun when we work on machinimation. Most of time me and merck are discovering potential ideas in a level while friendly firing at each other. We laugh, we learn and we execute.

Voice Acting

Voice acting is going to require a bit more as far as equipment. For those willing to do vocals, you must have at microphone that is at least $100. Preferably a Condenser Cardioid Microphone. Omnidirectional Mics are not really suitable for one-person voice recording as it tends to bring in unwanted feedback from every direction. If you are interested in Vocals, we will personally provide you more information on what you will need as far as software and hardware. Skype will also be a requirement.

Story

Im not going to publicly explain what the story is about, but I will tell you, that it will be a touchy subject among the gaming community and could potentially leave us with a “You got guts” Medal.  The story has twist on a subject that is long overdue for true explanation. We’ve done the research and we know for a fact it needs to be addressed. Once you have been invited to join in the episode, the whole story will be summarized for you and I guarantee you will like it in a shocking way.

When does the work begin

For now there is no set date yet. Were still working on scripting, but if you sign up early, we will keep you up to date and provide a schedule that will not interfere too much with your daily agendas. Do know that more than likely the acting will more than likely require only  2 weekends. This will not be an “all week” type of thing. No. We have a life too. It will just be 2 seperate weekends. Plus the machinimation doesnt take that long to do anyways. As long as everything is prepped, it will go by so fast youd think you didnt really do anything.

References

So have you seen our previous work? if not where have you been? Were not noobs at this sorta thing. We know what were doing when it comes to making creative media. Check out our latest episode and the tons of love we received…

Our Trailer was featured on Machinima’s Respawn Army

Episode 2: Animal was featured on Machinima’s Respawn Army 

Our Video has been entered into Evil Controllers contest. We are currently in Second place. If you want to support, click here and like the video. Thats it!

OpticJ sends a message to Upside on Twitter

Our Second Episode: Animal. Runtime: 14 minutes

Want to Sign Up!?

For Machinimation(action scripts) actors, click here

For Voice Actors (dialogue voices), click here

For others who wish to contribute anything else such as ideas, music or even money (totally up to you), email us at lvlselect@gmail.com

Once you’ve been accepted, more details will be provided to you. If you have open questions, email us at lvlselect@gmail.com, Twitter: Upside27, Skype: Upside27, Xbox Live: Upside27

Latest Episode: Chapter 2 pt.2

Episode list:

1. Chapter 1 Part 1

2. Chapter 1 Part 2

3. Chapter 2 Part 1

4. Chapter 2 Part 2

A Mysterious killer is on the hunt for a weapons facility that develops M16′s. Why does want to steal the weapons? Watch and find out

Join Johnny as he shares a tale of haunting memories from his first birthday party

Directed by: Merck
Machinimated by: Upside and Merck
Edited by: Upside
Music By: Incompetech.com

Researching

Black Ops: CampFire or the “CampFire” Series (whichever you like) are the proper titles, but it remained nameless beforehand. In the earlier days, I was still developing my shy commentary skills through my Fallout series. I was in need of something new; something that was different. In the gaming world of Youtube, Call of Duty videos reign supreme. Commentaries, Weapons Tutorials and of course Montages. Tons and tons of Montages. Now dont get me wrong, I enjoy a really good montage and Tutorial, but the way I work is… how you say, opposite. If you do montages, I want to do something different. Something that is virtually an untouched market.

I have only seen a few actual Machinimated Black Ops videos on youtube which is kind of surprising seeing as big producers like Red Vs. Blue show how important Machinamation can be! Plus with Black Ops impressive replay system, its like Activision/Treyarch is just begging that some hero will oneday make a staggering series similar to Rooster Teeths success. Now i may not be that hero, but I want to strive to be like that with my creations. Thats when I decided to come up with the series.

The Purpose

Its intentional purpose was to be a 10 episode series that gave tutorials on a variety of weapons in Black Ops. During the tutorials it also contained parodies and original comedy skits. So while your learning about the recoil of a AK-74U, the scene will be followed by a storyline or skit. Essentially this was very important to the series until I realized a very important detail: Modern Warfare 3 is around the corner. Because of this I pondered for months until I decided to just scrap the tutorial section altogether. Lets face it, Black Ops is becoming dated, and for me to produce a list of tutorials this late is like telling Microsoft that Windows 7 is dramatically better than Vista. We already know that!

After scrapping half the life of my project, I decided to just keep the series filled with original content. The series will consist full of parodies and short films using Black Ops engine. The parody episodes will not have a specific category but rather something that relates to popular news. The short films would consist of original skits while being creative with the game’s engine. The series will also have another section of short films that will focuses more on the community by asking off-the-wall questions. But I wont spoil any further until after its release.

An Example

During the time slaving over CampFire episodes, I wanted to somehow release some kind of small video using the idea of my series. At that time I was being forced to create a video for my partners over at The Elite Gamers channel for its 100th video celebration. I put two and two together, and decided this would be a perfect time to make a machinimated video and find out my audience reaction. Like taking a survey in a sense. Below is the video I made.

The response was very well received among the community. Everyone loved it which was my cue to give this series the ‘Green Light.’ As of May 2011, it garnered around 500 views which is statistically high for their channel. Hey it may not be big numbers to you, but I wont let that discourage my future!

Machinima?

Now what exactly is machinamation? Well for one there are 2 general terms. First you have Machinima (Machinimation) which in my interpretation is: Composing films using video game engines as the animation. Why is it such a popular style? Well for me I find the limitations a fun challenge. Sure i could find a person to create graphics/animation from Poser or Maya, but filming from your favorite game engine and knowing that you can only do so much is the fun part. We may not have access to making the characters lips move for talking or drive a vehicle for that ‘shootout’ scene that we want, but it challenges us to be creative. Do the best recording that you can. After that, we leave the rest to your imagination.

The second term is the actual company Machinima that displays other youtube channels videos. It is very clear that if you want to get noticed on youtube, Machinima is pretty much the way you want to go. Plus it just fits perfectly for what I am trying to complete!

Approvals

Lets take a look at some of the notable people who want to see the series:

Machinima Respawn Army on Facebook have added our series to the Headlines.
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OpticJ from Optic Gaming & Machinima Tweets Upside
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Ken Burton and Ricky from Machinima leaves a comment
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When the Hell is it coming?

The first Debut of episode one will release June 28, 2011. We have been working on this series since November 2010 and I am glad that is finally coming into fruition. Be on the lookout here, or our Youtube channel for the first episode!

Latest Episode: Multiplayer Hunters

This is a small basic tutorial series that I have produced for Minecraft. The game is huge Lego-esque game with no specific goal but surviving and building. Its funny when I have to explain this game like trying to describe LittleBigPlanet.

This tutorial starts off more live commentary-style in the beginning, and gradually adds more Documentary/Tutorial explanation style. It has a big amount of humor,and short storyline. All of the live commentary footage is non-scripted and recorded on the spot.

I only wanted to do 12 episodes to keep it very simple and straight to the point.  The Tutorials will be followed by a Minecraft Adventures.

1. Basic Tools
2. Night and Shelter
3. Home Safety
4. Advanced Crafting
5. Caves & Item Hunting
6. Enemies & Sacrifice (Favorite Pick)
7. Lost Riches
8. Lost Riches Part 2
8.5. Planting Trees (Bonus)
9. Wheats N’ Hoes
10. The Nether
11. Multiplayer Hunters

Latest Episode: Ant Misbehavin pt.1

Fallout New Vegas is Upside’s first playthrough ever recorded. What started off as a simple tutorial and playthrough, turned into a bright idea to change the boring “Lets Play” into a creative series.

Whats the Difference?

What stands out from the other Fallout videos you see on youtube is that Upside plays the actual role of his character instead of talking about the differences in “Armor strength” in every video. Since the character has no voice dialogue, Upside fills that blank spot by doing his own voice acting making the series more entertainment than a tutorial. Even Machinima employees loved the idea and thought it was very creative!

Lets face it, playing Fallout is an amazing experience, but watching someone else play it can be extremely boring. This series fills that void!

Episode List

–SD Quality only–

1. Aint that a Kick in the Head
2. Exploring Goodsprings
3. Ghost Town Gunfight
4. On our way to Primm
5. They went that a way
6. Exploring Nipton
7. Traveling to Nipton
8. Come Fly with Me part 1
9. Come Fly with Me part 2

—Start of HD Videos–
10. Traveling to Boulder City
11. Boulder City Showdown
12. Flags of our Foul-ups
13. Meeting a Companion (Veronica)
14. Welcome to New Vegas
15. Wang Dang Atomic Tango Part 1
16. Wang Dang Atomic Tango Part 2
17. Wang Dang Atomic Tango Part 3

–Better Microphone Quality–
18. Debt Collector
19. GI: Blue Part 1
20. GI: Blue Part 2
21. GI: Blue Part 3
22. Welcome to the Strip
23. Beyond the Beef Part 1
24. Beyond the Beef Part 2
25. Beyond the Beef Part 3
26. Meeting Mr. House
27. No Respect
28. Can you find it in your Heart?
29. You can Depend on me Part 1
30. Volare Part 1
31. Traveling to Vault 22
32. There stands the Grass Part 1
33. There stands the Grass Part 2
34. You can Depend on me Part 2
35. Pressing Matters
36. Bye Bye Love Part 1
37. Bye Bye Love Part 2
38.How Little We Know pt.1
39. How Little We Know pt.2
40. Ant Misbehavin pt.1

Recognitions:

Machinimas own Optic J and Ricky loves the series

Latest Episode: Buyer Beware pt.2

1. Upon Reflection
2. Armed & Dangerous
3. Warrants Outstanding
4. Buyer Beware pt.1
5. Buyer Beware pt.2

Latest Episode: Speed Drug

Episode List

1. Meeting Wheatley
2. Tutorial Test 1-5
3. Glados!
4. Test 1-3
5. Test 4-6
6. Test 7-8
7. Test 9-10
8. Test 11-13
9. Test 14-16
10. Test 17-18
11. Test 19
12. The Escape
13. The Escape Part 2
14. Defective Turrets
15. Fighting Glados
16. Betrayed
17. Repulsion Gel
18. Silly Putty
19. Silly Putty 2
20. Tables Turned
21. Speed Drug

Latest Episode: Barnyard Friends

Episode List

1. Intro
2. Hangover
3. The Duct Tape
4. Gregg the Grim Reaper
5. Barnyard Friends

Latest Episode: Chapter 3 pt.1

Episode List

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2 pt.1
3. Chapter 2 pt.2
4. Chapter 2 pt.3
5. Chapter 3 pt.1

Latest Episode: A Sasquatch Tale

Episode List

1. Love in the time of Plague Part 1
2. Love in the time of Plague Part 2
3. The Townsfolk
4. Flamer Fuel
5. Mr. West Dickens
6. Gone but not Forgotten
7. Graveyard Cleansing
8. Dis Grace
9. Saving two Idiots
10. Seth’s Hoedown
11. Who Won now
12. Another day saved
13. I hate Spitters
14. Sasquatch!!
15. A Sasquatch Tale

Latest Episode: Dark Heart pt.1

Episode List

1. Second Chance
2. Persona Non Grata
3. Sudden Impact Part 1
4. Sudden Impact Part 2
5. Sudden Impact Part 3
6. Road Rage Part 1
7. Road Rage Part 2
8. Lab Rat Part 1
9. Lab Rat Part 2
10. Lab Rat Part 3
11. Gate Keeper Part 1
12. Gate Keeper Part 2
13. Dead Man Walking Part 1
14. Dead Man Walking Part 2
15. Seat of Power Part 1
16. Seat of Power Part 2
17. Dark Heart

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Source

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