Machinima’s Mortal Kombat: Legacy, the live action web series rebooting the epic fighting game and it’s universe, has really taken off. Each week, we’re getting more of our favorite characters broken down and retold in new and innovative ways.

Yesterday marked the brand new, fourth episode, and it’s an epic two-parter about the deadly twinsKitana and Mileena. Here’s the synopsis.

Beautiful, athletic, and trained as highly skilled assassins, Kitana and Mileena have grown up thinking that they are sisters. Shao Kahn, Emperor of the Outworld, has tricked Shang Tsung into becoming his servant for Mortal Kombat by making him clone Mileena as a Tarkatan clone of Kitana, out of Shao Kahn’s fear that Kitana wouldn’t love him enough if she ever found out the truth about her Mother and Father.

This may be the first episode where the budget was a bit obvious, as half of the story is told using a classic “storybook” style with animated imagery and a God of War-style voiceover.

Take a look at the new episode after the jump, and try not to get too angry at the cliffhanger, we only have to wait six days for the next episode.

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Machinima has been blowing up over the past 3 weeks with their new original series with Warner Premiere, Mortal Kombat: Legacy. The first two episodes features an utra-real storyline with Michael Jai White as Jax and Jeri Ryan as Sonya Blade. Now we’re moving onto another universe favorite, with Johnny Cage.

Right off the bat, this episode takes a different turn than the previous two, as Cage’s background is a Hollywood action star, the episode starts off as with an Insider feel, delving into the life of Johnny Cage. Here’s the official synopsis.

After unsuccessfully trying to sell his reality television pilot pitch to a studio exec, Johnny Cage, an American action-hero movie star who has fallen on hard times, is recruited by Shang Tsung, a powerful sorcerer who has the power to suck souls from people, to fight in the upcoming Mortal Kombat tournament.

Not as much star power as the previous two episodes, as Matt Mullins is returning from the original Rebirth short to reprise his role as Johnny Cage. There are a few nice potshots at Steven Seagal’s Lawman, so it’s definitely worth a watch.

Check out the episode after the jump, and stick around till the end to catch links to the previous two, if you haven’t already seen them.

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It’s hard to talk about video games and not mention the Halo franchise. Constantly breaking records and taking names, Halo is a system selling behemoth of a property for the XBox 360. It was one of the games so popular, that it would go on to spawn multiple Machinima series, animated shorts created using assets from the respective games. These included everything from Phil to Arby ‘n’ The Chief to what may be the most famous Machinima ever, Red vs. Blue.

Smartly coinciding the release of the 8th season of Red vs. Blue entitled Revalation and the Recollection three disc set with the release of Halo: Reach, Rooster Teeth helps provide Halo fanboys with more Halo than they can handle in the biggest week of their gaming year.

The Recollection contains the second full story arc of the Red vs. Blue universe. Not a part of any official Halo canon, Red vs. Blue takes aspects of the game world never explained like the constant fighting in multiplayer of the different Spartans and tries to explain it. Taken with a grain of salt, the story even gets a little meta and makes a viewer step back and wonder how much applies to them. But for the most part, there is just lots of great comedic moments and swearing over a finely animated and even dramatic story.

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One of the best things about Machinima is the almost limitless possibilities. In addition to seeing your favorite characters given new personalities, Machinima gives the possibility of seeing them in different surroundings as well. Skilled programmers are able to rip sprites from old school games and animate them in new and exciting ways.

Mortal Kombat vs. Oregon Trail is exactly what its title says. Taking the Apple computer lab classic Oregon Trail and its best minigame of hunting and adds Mortal Kombat’s two top ninjas Scorpion and Sub-Zero. Let the fatalities on the poor defenseless animals ensure.

Make sure to also check out other mashup Machinimas like R-Type vs. Space Invaders and Grand Theft Auto vs. Frogger too if you enjoy this one. As always, keep it here for new Machinima every Monday.

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As we have seen over the past few weeks, Machinima comes in many forms. Some is created using video game footage while others are inspired by content in games. Geometry: Everything You Need to Know is one of the latter examples as it takes a look at the modern classic Geometry Wars in South Park-esque paper stop motion animation.

Early in the XBox 360 life cycle, there wasn’t much of a launch lineup to keep players busy for the early months of the system. This provided a great opportunity for XBox Live Arcade games to step up. The one that did it the best was Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2. With a simple two stick control scheme and intense music and beautiful visuals, GWRE2 racked up thousands of players in its online leader boards competing for its top spot.

Geometry: Everything You Need to Know replicates this brilliantly simple formula in stop motion fashion. Exquisitely animated and synched to actual game sound effects, this Machinima does a great job of recreating a low-res game of Geometry Wars for the viewers enjoyment. Take a peek below and let us know what you think.

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Ever wonder what your toys do when you aren’t around? (And no, the proper response isn’t “They aren’t toys, they are collectible action figures.”) Well one Machinimist did and combined it with his love of Halo 3 to make Arby ‘n’ the Chief.

Instead of having someone from the real world voice a video game character, DigitalPh33r took a different approach when he showed the Master Chief is actually an action figure who hops on to Halo every now and then when his owner isn’t around and is terrible at it, as well as completely immature. In addition to flaming of opponents and denial of his own lack of skill, Chief tries to overcompensate with constant failed attempts of LEET speak.

And did we mention that Chief is voiced by Microsoft Sam, the in-Windows text to speech program, instead of having an actual voice actor? Surprisingly entertaining for this fact alone, it doesn’t end there for the Chief as he gets a roommate in the first episode of the series, rekindling the infamous video game odd couple when his owner receives a package containing, you guessed it, an Arbiter action figure.

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Sometimes we watch Machinima because it tells a compelling story with some of our favorite characters. Most of the time we end up watching it because we appreciate a quick, cheap laugh. Ultrahouse 13: Mega Kitchen comes from an entirely different perspective: amazine visuals. You are probably asking how a Machinima could bring amazing visuals if it is just taking footage captured from a game.

Ultrahouse 13 uses the assets from the Half-Life 2 engine and places them in a real life house. Combine soldiers, no taller than a few inches, storm their way through a home and deal with resistance fighters along the way. The Combine don’t come alone as they are quickly joined by a Strider walker and drop-ship. But the rebels don’t go down easy as they defend their home with a gigantic DOG robot.

The short presentation seems very reminiscent of the style of “Ataque de Panico” which led to director Fede Alvarez being signed to Sam Raimi’s studio. Not to say that a “simple” Half-Life 2 Machinima will bring massive success to an aspiring effects artist, but after seeing what was accomplished here, it wouldn’t a huge surprise to see creator Eddie Smithson’s name in the credits of the silver screen someday soon.

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Back in 2003, a risque Sesame Street inspired musical by the name of Avenue Q featuring puppet leads came out with a shocking statement: “The internet is for porn.” How could this be that a network that enabled global communication and business opportunities could come down to such a lowbrow concept as porn? But as the audience began listening to the lyrics, it was hard to argue that the internet really my revolve around men cozying up to watch various acts of depravity they weren’t experiencing at home.

The truth is, everyone knows that the internet is for porn. The only ones who don’t are just living in denial like Kate Monster does in Avenue Q. And, interestingly enough some of the most frequent patrons of this less than social activity may end up coming from the world’s most social game: World of Warcraft. It was only a matter of time before a mash up of the two came to be.

Using their beloved MMO, a group of players came together and put together an animated version of the song using their on screen avatars. Still in the early days of machinima creation in 2006, “The Internet is for Porn” does a fantastic job of taking the canned animations of World of Warcraft and lip synching the song to the on screen characters. The result turned in to another internet hit as the Machinima closes in on almost six and a half million views up to this point.

Sit back, relax and let yourself open up to some high culture by viewing the following clip. Yes, culture. If it has been on Broadway, it’s considered culture. That’s our story and we are sticking to it.

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It’s not a secret. A good percentage of the Machinima world is created using Halo or one of its sequels. The reason for that may lie in the most popular and successful Machinima series Red vs. Blue.

With its first episode posted by the folks at Rooster Teeth just under seven years ago, Red vs. Blue has a loyal following with some of the most iconic and entertaining characters in Machinima. Subtitled “The Blood Gulch Chronicals”, Red vs. Blue follows the tales of two armies stuck in the box canyon of Blood Gulch.

Each team starts off with only a few members but quickly grows to reveal the eight main personalities that drive the series. These include Red’s miserable leader Sarge and his personal brownnoser Simmons as well as Blue’s lovable Caboose.

Over the show’s five seasons and an astounding ninety-eight episodes, the teams venture in to other worlds and encounter some unreal scenarios such as a never-ending game of Capture the Flag and a love struck tank named Sheila.

Much like Halo on XBox Live, the language of the series isn’t kid friendly. The characters go to great lengths to combine various expletives together in never before seen and incredibly funny ways.

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Starting this week, The Flickcast will be taking our love of Machinima and turning it in to a weekly feature. For those who don’t know, Machinima is real time 3D rendering of graphics to generate computer animation. What that means is people take different video games and their associated mods and create different short films or series based off of them.

This week, we will be taking a look at Phil from Black Light Productions. Named after its main character and created using Halo 3, Phil revolves around a Halo newbie as he learns his way around the XBox Live world with the accompaniment of the standoffish Zack and overly nice and naive Wally. Unlike some Machinima which has the players reacting as if the events of the game are “real life”, Phil, Zack and Wally acknowledge that they are playing Halo 3 and communicating over Live.

Following them through the series’ thirteen episodes, we get to see some of the biggest faults in online gaming portrayed in a very humorous way. Everything gets covered through the series from trash talkers, glitchers, griefers, competition and clans… and even a little bit of romance.

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He has been the face behind 20,000,000 units in video games sales. He was a simple scientist who fought his way through the disaster at Black Mesa and went on to become the face of the resistance against the Combine empire.

He was recently voted by the readers of Gamespot.com the Greatest Video Game Hero of All Time (even beating out Mario in the finals). He is Gordon Freeman of Half-Life and he has been able to do all of this without ever opening his mouth.

One of the key characteristics of Gordon Freeman, aside from being the “Free Man” as the aliens in Half-Life like to refer to him, is that he is also the “Every Man”. He was not a war hero. He wasn’t a super-powered being. He was a person doing his job when a terrible accident occurred and set the events of his life in to motion to lead him to a path of greatness.

Without ever being given a voice, players were given the chance to fill in the blank spots in dialogue during the game with what they felt would be their own responses.

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