Top Video Game Fanfilms: Feature-Length June 24, 2012

The fans of video games are probably some of the most creative and talented fans on the planet. A simple look online on a variety of different game franchises can be quite a testament to that. While there are a few franchises in other mediums that can generate a large creative fanbase, you can’t do any kind of search online for a video game without finding numerous links leading to fan produced content, be it written stories, artwork, or even fully produced videos. All of this content was created by people with no affiliation whatsoever to (or support of) the original creators of the games. They did it out of the love of the material, and in a lot of cases you can’t believe the quality of the work they have done.

This article will focus on longer fanfilms, both feature-length and episodic series. So without much more fanfare, here’s some of my favorites across the web, in no particular order.

If you’re more interested in seeing shorts instead, check out this article.

There Will Be Brawl

I LOVED this series, and it had me glued to The Escapist every month for more than a year. Well produced, well acted, well written and well-directed all around, this was a series that nobody was expecting and yet fit perfectly with the times.

You can watch all ten parts of the series, as well as some behind the scenes videos and outtakes here. If you haven’t seen the series yet, be prepared to spend the better part of the day watching every episode. Trust me, you’re going to want to see how it ends.

Now that the series is complete, the last I heard about it was that there was going to be a DVD release of the entire series, but its release was delayed indefinitely when the hard drive which contained all the original master video files of the series crashed.

Modern War Gear Solid

The fanfilm, originally released as a series, has now been cut to one complete movie, and I recommend watching it in that way.

If you’re interested in watching the feature-length commentary for the series, you can check it out here.

What’s coming next for these guys? Mario.

Street Fighter The Later Years

I actually got interested in this series after being introduced to it by the Unknown Cameraperson. It had been years since a new Street Fighter game had been released (Street Fighter IV hadn’t been announced yet when the series launched) but like so many others, I had fond memories of playing the game with friends in the mid-90s.

The story told was simple. What were all these characters doing ten years after they had been so popular? They still had to live in the real world, keep steady jobs, and in some cases, raise families. Sure they have powers, but they’re still regular people like you and me.

There was a huge gap between the third and fourth part of the series and with that gap came a large jump in the quality of the filmmaking. The later episodes were shot in high-definition and had a much higher production value, while still keeping the hilarious writing and acting that got me interested in the series in the first place.

You can watch the entire series on CollegeHumor.com, but it has also been officially posted up on sites like YouTube and GameTrailers, although I don’t think all the parts were released on the latter.

The last I heard, they had announced there was going to be a second Later Years series featuring the same cast, but I haven’t heard anything about this new series since the original announcement. If anyone has any new details about that please feel free to comment on that.

Well, there’s some of my favorites, but I’m sure that there are plenty more out there. Your favorite not listed? Post a comment!

Top Video Game Fanfilms: Shorts June 23, 2012

The fans of video games are probably some of the most creative and talented fans on the planet. A simple look online on a variety of different game franchises can be quite a testament to that. While there are a few franchises in other mediums that can generate a large creative fanbase, you can’t do any kind of search online for a video game without finding numerous links leading to fan produced content, be it written stories, artwork, or even fully produced videos. All of this content was created by people with no affiliation whatsoever to (or support of) the original creators of the games. They did it out of the love of the material, and in a lot of cases you can’t believe the quality of the work they have done.

This article was written as a way to show some of my favorite video game fanfilms across the internet. Now what’s important to remember here that for right now I’m only counting short films in this list. I will reserve any feature-length or episodic series for a different article.

Without further ado, here’s some of my favorites across the web, in no particular order.

Punch-Out

This was probably one of the first video game related fanfilms I had seen online. It was gaining quite a lot of views wherever it got posted and I remembered seeing it and thinking it was awesome. Later, when Nintendo released a new Punch-Out game for the Wii, the first new game in that series in years, I had to seek this short out all over again as I was playing through the Wii version. I don’t know if it was the hilarious acting of Von Kaiser, the special effects, the little touches (like the 8-bit picture of Mac and Doc on the table and King Hippo speaking only in text) but it just drew me in and made me want to rewatch it over and over. Also I can’t tell you how awesome I think their version of Rumble on Rainbow Road is.

Pokémon Apokélypse

I saw this fanfilm more recently, and while it is not my favorite of the bunch, it had some staying power with me and made me enjoy it more each time I watched it. I was not a huge fan of Pokémon growing up, but after being exposed to Pokémon ‘Bridged at the Quinni-con I started looking for all kinds of Pokémon content and videos and came across the short.

It’s got some fantastic CGI shots of the Pokémon battling, and it was nice to hear the first few lines of that ominous rhyme to declare Team Rocket was still in the picture.

Contra

Made by the same team who made the Punch-Out trailer, this short was another hilarious look at not just the Contra game but the classic action movies of the 1980s, something that everyone can really appreciate. There were even a few nods to other games in it, like Zero Wing and Bart Vs The Space Mutants.

Before you go anywhere, remember the code!

Legend of Zelda

I had mentioned this video before but I thought it needed to be repeated. Legend of Zelda came out in 1987 and by that point Hollywood was experiencing a renaissance of teen comedies written or directed by talented guys like Cameron Crowe and John Huges.

Had the Legend of Zelda movie been made at that time it probably would have looked like this.

Street Fighter: Legacy

It’s a well made live action movie of Ken fighting Ryu, what more can you ask for?

God of War

This one is Twitch’s doing and while it is not my cup of tea there would be no way I could have created this list and avoid his wrath without including this short. He’s a huge fan of Wes Anderson, the director that the short’s creators were parodying.

This answers the question of what it would look like if God of War was made by the team who made the movie Rushmore

Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you have any favorites of your own, I’d love to hear about them. Please post a comment and tell us all what are some of your favorite short films, and be sure to include where you can find it.