Origano’s latest Achievement!

It’s a comedy! I like comedies: Comedies make me laugh. I also like Machinima: Machinima if full of community rich references! So I’m happy to see this Machinima, as it’s sort of a return to the classic Warcraft Comedy, y’know, a comedy set in the World of Warcraft game’s setting, and not come bizarro world.

A few months ago I said, “Wouldn’t it be nice if there were WoW Machinimas that took the mickey out of the WoW Machinima community? Also, don’t my antlers look nice?” Well I was absolutely right, but I’ve missed the likes of the classic comedy, things like The Grind and Snacky’s Journal. The Achiever is very much in that vein, and is much welcome return to the format.

As for the comedy it’s self; it goes up and down. Some things I didn’t find funny, some things I smiled at, and two things were so funny I got to do my rarely heard “Belly Laugh: It’s pretty loud” laugh. Origano announces at the beginning of the film that the comedy is very silly. That’s true; things constantly flying through the air and crazy things happening in the background.  But there were other great comedy points: there where game jokes in there some were; Origano managed to mock his own dramatic techniques at times and the jumping-jack level of seriousness is the core of comedy: If you try to be serious in a comedy, no doubt it’s for lolz.

So the comedy comes in at different levels, you might find some of it disinteresting, but it’s worth sticking to for the gems. It wasn’t all as funny as it could be though, because Origano is still shaky on his editing skills. There were patches of silence, the comedic timing was often off, and the music was good hit/bad miss at times. Having talked to Origano he admits that his comedic effect needs work, but I think at the moment it’s only because he’s limited by his Machinima experience.

The editing lets the movie down at times. Voice acting wasn’t as clear as some people would like and subtitles are a certain must for the next movie (Although Almighty Farseer’s voice was so good I wish he could voice act for blizzard, because Jaina really could do with a new voice actor) the camera was so shaky it made me picture a tauren holding a cam recorder and running through Azeroth going “Zoom! Zoom!” And general sound would love some more attention.

This is my favorite part of the review, the bit where I get to talk about me!

A wonderful thing is happening in Machinima; me! (Someone PLEASE tell me when I start taking this vanity thing too far ^^) I’m suddenly appearing in a raid group of machinima. As we can see from this typical scene of Baronsoosdon’s Sex Gnomes And Videotape:

I think Origano’s target audience for this movie was actually me; I laughed so hard each and every time I saw myself it came very tempting to vote 5/5 on warcraft movies (Something I never do, you should be proud of your 3.5/5!) But there’s something odd. Now I’ve appeared naked on the internet many a time Erunno can confirm this but never, NEVER without my shoulder mounted moon wells and antlers, when I saw that I didn’t even have the right hair I almost raged my typewriter into my monitor!

But Origano assured me that this is all part of the plot, and that I would make a heavy presence in the 4^th movie where I gain my iconic clothes and film star smile! What I’m picturing is an over the top super-hero-getting-dressed montage just from me getting the Shave and Haircut achievement, only to interrupt myself when I see my reflection and start signing “I’m too sexy for my Antlers”. But let it be known! No other Machinimarist will get away with presenting Whowho without antlers or Moonwell shoulders!

 ... apart from Paus’ red Whowho.

What the Achiever 3 had and Achiever 1 through 2 didn’t have as much of was plot. I was happy to see an A and B plot! A being the quest for the achievement and B being the Over Achiever’s exploits, the trouble is I don’t think the two plots where stitched together all that well: Once oregano was looking for the big jump the Over Achiever got completely forgotten. I also think the transitions between the two plots needed more editing magic juice: Almighty Farseer is ramping up the into for their star, he points, and we see a Titan night light, and I think “Huh, how is that thing going to be able to do the Hallow’s end achievements?” and then I completely forgot that I didn’t know who the Over Achiever’s star is.

What I would like to see from the next one.

First of all: 100% more antlers. 

Secondly, people being waaay to dedicated to Achievements. You know how people take our game (Haha you just lost it) too seriously? I would love to see this represented in the Achiever; incredibly over the top Achievement pep talks, people shouting “For the Achievements!” before rushing to their doom, people really taking some time consider if the “Cut off your own arm” achievement is worth doing.

With this big movie Origano has secured his self (Although uneasily) on the spot of some one that has a promising Machinima series. I give you Origano a thumbs up and say you should certainly stick with this and make sure I have many more cameos.