From all-new video games to fabulous cakes, the Super Mario Bros. and Castlevania games get lots of makeovers from fans and developers alike. Here are two more machinima renditions to add to the list.

First up is the disorienting and somewhat upsetting Half-Life Super Mario Bros. I guess in a 2D world, a grey haze is all Mario would see for miles around on either side of his orange brick path. But I can’t remember the last plumber I met that uses a crowbar. And guns? Really?

Next up is a Castlevania Half-Life 2 mod that makes a lot more sense in context. But it still has the inexplicable crowbar.

Both videos are brought to us by Machinima.com.

BioWare just launched the Toolset page, touting the ability to “create new adventure,” “stage massive battles” and of course, “be the director,” with a “powerful cinematics editor” offering complete control over the camera, plus voice and lip synching tools.

If you’re fired up enough, check it out at BioWare’s official page.

Dragon Age Origins – Toolset [BioWare via Blue's News]

The festival is happening in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig, Philippines and this looks like the first year they’ve ever had a machinima category in the 11 years the festival’s been around. Voting for machinima films is happening now and you can cast your vote here.

The results will be made public October 20.

Thanks for the heads-up, Joshua!

If you’ve seen war, or if you’re a student of it, perhaps this will merely strike you as a well edited sequence of cutscenes from Empire: Total War. Others might find it strangely gripping, especially because of the music.

Guess first-person combat in the 18th century didn’t include a firing-from-cover mechanism.

The Perfect War – Empire: Total War Machinima [YouTube]

Naughty Dog is finally offering details on Uncharted 2: Among Thieves’ “Cinema Mode,” a suite of machinima tools that lets PlayStation 3 owners replay, edit and tweak saved gameplay footage and share with friends. There’s nothing half-tucked about it.

Justin Richmond, multiplayer designer on Uncharted 2, walks Machinima.com through the finer details of the game’s Cinema Mode in the above clip. Notable are the addition of a green screen mode that will let video editors layer Nathan Drake and crew over whatever background you choose and the option to use a Bluetooth headset to record speech that will automatically lip synch on-screen characters.

There’s a lot more to it than that, obviously, including cool camera control, lighting and environmental effects, video sharing, and even a gameplay mode specific to Uncharted 2’s machinima features. There’s a lot to see in the above five minute clip, something that budding machinima creators and Uncharted fans must watch.

The movie, 6 Days in Call of Duty 4, was created by machinima artists J. Joshua Diltz and Joseph Delappe using both a static and roaming ground cameras for the capture. It’s essentially nine minutes of a multiplayer match with nothing but the visuals, the sound of the game and music that I don’t immediately recognise. They’ve created the project in “homage to the lives, both military and civilian, lost during the Second War of Fallujah.”

I actually got in touch with Diltz because I remember asking a question about Six Days in Fallujah at the conference during the Q&A. Damned if I can remember what I asked, but apparently, it left an impression.

Diltz emails:

The idea for 6 Day originated from the conference. Your question I think actually sparked the concept that Joseph DeLappe conceived. Joseph was curious what six days in a military themed shooter would look like through a static camera. He wanted to see what effects combat would have in a virtual space, particularly how many deaths would occur and how many bodies would be left on the screen after 6 days of game sessions.

I developed the point of view camera concept and also the console panel. I thought it was interesting to see what the conflict looked like from the ground perspective and how it correlated with real life events. The scrolling command console keeps the piece grounded in the virtual world. I found it quite intriguing that all the action on screen was visible in the scrolling data. It certainly separated the visuals which mirror real conflict from the data that was creating the illusion behind the scenes.

Joseph will be showing a more somber version of movie in a gallery installation at the Beijing Biennale. That piece will include only the static camera which is visible in the larger pane of movie.

You can download the video for yourself here.

Thanks for the link, Professor Lowood!

What happens when two of gaming’s chestiest ladies from Final Fantasy and Dead Or Alive go at it? Monty Oum’s Dead Fantasy, that’s what. Part three of the machinima series brings with it more feminine fisticuffs.

In comparison to parts I and II, Dead Fantasy III takes things down a notch, somewhat surprisingly. This is simply a showcase of well choreographed fighting between Tifa and Hitomi, with a few cameos from the latter’s Dead Or Alive compatriots.

We’d suggest watching the first two episodes to ensure you’re up to speed on the plot. But if you’re in a hurry, just know that there’s a lot of punching, some kicking and a heavy dose of fan service.

Almost two months ago, I attended a Machinima Law conference at Stanford University as part of an extra credit assignment. Today, you can watch what I saw for free.

Stanford’s video game research project, How They Got Game, is hosting a series of videos from the conference. They’re kind of small, so you’ll have to squint to watch — but there’s some great stuff in there about Fair Use and end-user licence agreements.

Sadly, you can’t see any of the awesome machinima movies they showed during the food and coffee breaks — so I stuck one in here. Clint Hackleman (aka Myndflame) put together a Slim Jim commercial using World of Warcraft machinima. Hope you enjoy!

Actress Moon Bloodgood will voice Williams in the six-part series.

“From a film maker’s point of view, Machinima provides an incredibly dynamic way to explore live worlds and tell compelling new stories,” said McG, director of Terminator Salvation. “The process allows the writer and director to think cinematically, while at the same time executing certain things that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive or even impossible on a set.”

The series is available on iTunes, Amazon Video on Demand, Xbox Live and Playstation Network for $US3 an HD episode or $US2 an SD episode. You can also sign up for a season pass for $US15 for HD or $US10 for SD.

“Working with The Halcyon Company’s motion picture development team and having produced a high-octane, story driven action shooter videogame using Grin AB’s cutting edge ‘Diesel’ engine, we had an incredible basis to further explore stories set in the Terminator universe,” said Cos Lazouras, president of Halcyon Games, creator of the “Terminator Salvation” videogame. “Re-purposing our game to produce the very first dramatic series in this medium is a fantastic innovation and will become the norm for game makers in the future.”

The series kicks off in 2016 with Blair sent into downtown LA to find and destroy something called The Ghost.