All Aboard the Hype Train: "End of the Line" update arrives for TF2

[mauve]

You know what? Up until now, I totally would've been okay if James McVinnie's fantastic End of the Line trailer ended up just being a fake trailer. It had fantastic animation, wonderful atmosphere, and the believability of being a real movie trailer. It was so good that I was kinda worried an actual full movie of the thing wouldn't do it justice. I loved it, the internet loved it, and for the two of you who didn't know, Valve also loved it. The company was just as impressed by the trailer as the rest of the internet and supported it fully, coyly hinting at an entire update for Team Fortress 2 based on the fan film, which would be released when the entire movie was finished.

Today is that day, ladies and gentlemen. It ISN'T just a fake movie trailer, and it is fantastic. The End of the Line is live, bringing with it the obligatory cosmetic items and taunts (the purchase of which benefits the creators, so that's nice), some kind of rubber ducky collecting thing, and most importantly, the completed End of the Line film. This puppy clocks in at a whopping THIRTEEN MINUTES with a ton of custom textures and models. Now we know why it took a year to complete.


In which I ramble about plot/animation/ things.This is pretty fantastic. It's funny, has some beautifully animated action scenes (dat train wreck!), maintains the same amazing mo-capped posing as the trailer, pulls off some great thrills and moments of suspense, and boasts an original soundtrack (although I'm sure that was a prerequisite of being featured as an official TF2 update, since the trailer used the copyrighted Seven Nation Army as its theme song).

But, to be a fair review I have to put in a few negatives with the positives. Really, the only nitpicks I could possibly have with this film are that some of the quiet moments are a little clumsy or heavy-handed (no pun intended), but not to a degree where it detracts from the film. I also found it a little odd that the trailer and movie poster have Scout and Sniper as the main characters, when Sniper disappears from the film about five minutes into the story. Again, this isn't a sin big enough to take away from the overall experience.

All in all, I'd say this film is pretty much on par with anything Valve's done themselves, and McVinnie's team manages to pull it off with very little dialogue. Thirteen minutes with only a handful of spoken words from Valve's standard issue TF2 audio library is very impressive. McVinnie's already proven himself a fantastic animator (I believe he is/was a professional animator in the video game industry?) with past SFM short films like Practical Problems and No Mercy, so I guess a longer film is just the logical next step.