The Alexandrian

Monty Oum – Made of Awesome

October 5th, 2008

These have been around for awhile, so it’s likely that some of you have already seen them. But Monty Oum is made of awesome, and therefore I must share him with all those who have not seen his work.


Each video is just a no-punches-pulled, wall-to-wall blitzkrieg showcasing of awesome fighting. It reminds me of XKCD’s lament of yet another summer passing without a tmindless big-budget action movie. In Random DM Tips: Running Combat, I talked about taking a really great fight film and narrating the action on screen as an exercise for developing a larger descriptive repertoire at the game table. If you’re looking for some truly epic gaming, Monty Oum’s stuff is a great place to start.

Since I’m a compulsive quibbler, I will point that:

(1) If you’re going to use the Burly Brawl music from The Matrix Reloaded (in Haloid), I probably would’ve steered clear of actually reusing some of the fight choreography from the same movie.

(2) The fights can get a little repetitive in places. The result can feel a little bloated, with bodies just flying around without much purpose or result. But this more than made up for in the major set-pieces, some of which are incredibly clever and very well done.

(3) In the Dead Fantasy videos, some of the choreography ends up feeling like screen-caps from a fighter game — repetitive combo moves and the likes. Obviously Dead or Alive is a fighter game, but it’s not like the Final Fantasy characters are lining up for turn-based combat.

2 Responses to “Monty Oum – Made of Awesome”

  1. Justin Alexander says:

    ARCHIVED HALOSCAN COMMENTS

    “John Lee”
    At around 1:16 in Dead Fantasy I, I’m not quite sure why the weapon is returned. It doesn’t seem to be a particularly wise tactical move.
    Sunday, October 05, 2008, 1:17:50 PM


    Altair
    Good stuff: difficult to do that commentary, as it’s a bit hard to see what’s going on most of the time…
    BTW: There’s 2:21 minutes of falling in Dead Fantasy II – that’s a drop of 7.1 miles assuming normal terminal velocities. Big building. I can just imagine my player group asking “And are we *still* falling..?”
    Sunday, October 05, 2008, 11:34:12 AM

  2. Justin Alexander says:

    Re-watching these, I think my favorite part is definitely the long fall of Dead Fantasy II. But I’m amused by the fact that the building appearing to generate a sufficient gravitational pull to make them fall back towards it whenever they jump away from it.

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