Spaces without characters

The White Room offers ominous, depopulated spaces. These were made using the game Max Payne 2, so it's a form of machinima:

By transforming the game environment into a ready-made urban studio space, the objects and interiors were altered using the in-game weapons with the gore from dead enemies being used to 'paint' the sets before being unceremoniously blasted out of view and the scene captured.

(via Boingboing)

Comments

[zephyrin_xirdal]

Thanks a lot for that hint -- I posted the news at MPHQ, one of the main pages of the Max Payne modding community. We shall see the reactions of the community -- if there will be any.

[Bryan]

Thanks for that. This is the first time I've looked at the game, so I'm checking out a demo.

[zephyrin_xirdal]

Bryan, check out Max Payne 1 first, and then the sequel Max Payne 2. Only then you will get the full noir experience.
A Max Payne 1 demo should be available here:
http://www.maxpayneheadquarters.com/dlfile.php?file_id=142

This may be interesting, too:

DAVIS, GALEN. 2002. Game noir: The construction of virtual subjectivity in computer gaming. An Honors Essay for the Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, Stanford: Stanford University.

"This essay will demonstrate the transposability of noir storytelling into the gaming medium. The first task is to identify the major characteristics of that noir storytelling and demonstrate its existence in the two games I have selected. Next it is necessary to elucidate the features of the gaming experience and distinguish those that are specific to the medium and not particularly germane to cinema. Finally, with these features in mind we will see what game noir truly is, and how it both conforms to and extends beyond the compositional elements and the goals of film noir."

The two games selected are Grim Fandango and Max Payne.

Available for download at Gamasutra:
http://www.gamasutra.com/education/theses/20020821/davis_01.shtml