Halo Red vs Blue: A Review

A few months ago, while I was home for Winter Break, I began searching for something to watch on YouTube. Somehow I managed to stumble across the Roosterteeth channel and discovered their Halo: Red vs Blue series. Now, generally speaking, I'm not a huge fan of machinima videos; as one person said (and I don't remember who), they're generally hastily thrown together and aren't very interesting or good. Halo: Red vs Blue, however, is different.

In this series, you follow the escapades of two Halo teams in the "Blood Gulch," remote box canyon in the middle of nowhere. One team is red, and the other- you guessed it- is blue. Both have a hatred towards the other, but other than that, they have no clue why they're fighting.

The red team starts off with four main characters: Sarge, Grif, Lopez and Simmons. Sarge is the the Sergeant, the highest ranking person in the canyon. He's got a blind hatred for the blues and often concots psychopathic battle plans to take them out. He is a true military man and throughout the series, he speaks with a heavy Southern Accent. An interesting addition to his personality, Sarge is somewhat of a mad scientist, having built a robot. His armor color in the series is red.

Next we'll look at Private First Class Dick Simmons, who's referred to by his surname in the series. Simmons is one of the first two characters we see in the series (the second one being Grif). He is basically the second-in-command for the Red team and constantly sucks up to Sarge, playing the role of the team syncophant. Simmons generally plays the level-headed and sensible guy in the series. When Sarge and Grif come up with some crazy theory or plan, Simmons is usually the one to tell them that they're wrong, only to be told he is uncreative or just flat out wrong. Though he can be seen as the most stable character on the show, he does have his faults. Simmons has been known to breakdown and behave irrationally when things go wrong. During the series, Simmons wears maroon armor.

In the beginning of the series, we also meet Dexter Grif, who is almost like a polar opposite to Simmons. Grif is loud, lazy and at times, cowardly. It is safe to say that no one on his team likes him. He's indulgent (he enjoys eating bacon flavored marshmallows and "smoking in his helmet") and seems to thrive off of melodrama. Grif is brash and doesn't hesitate to insult someone who could easily kill him. Also, he tends to join Sarge in concocting ludicrous theories. Many of Grif's less desirable traits cause problems for the Red Team. Because of this (or perhaps despite this) Grif ends up being the scapegoat for the Red Team. Sarge ends up blaming him for everything that goes wrong, whether it's Grif's fault of not. In the series, Grif is shown wearing orange armor.

Finally, we meet Lopez la Pesado, or Lopez the Heavy. Lopez is a robot built by Sarge. In the beginning, he is completely silent. However, he eventually gets a voice card installed in him. Unfortunately, Sarge neglects to ground himself when installing it, and a static shock damages the card, resulting in Lopez being able to only speak in monotone Spanish. His armor in the series varies, going from brown to cobalt.

Private Leonard L. Church is one of the first members of the Blue team that we meet. From the beginning, we learn that Church is angry. He doesn't like his teammembers, his job or where he is. He frequently expresses frustration with another teammate, Tucker. At times, he can be extremely vulgar. He tends to have little patience and can get upset over almost anything. During much of the season, Church is a ghost, having been killed in the first season. He frequenly possesses the bodies of others, and has been known to be "scared out of his body." In Red vs Blue, he is shown wearing colbalt armor, but is white when he is a ghost.

When we meet Church, we also meet Private First Class Lavernius Tucker. Tucker tends to have many characteristics similar to those of a teenage boy. He is sarcastic, rude and obsesses over women. Like Grif, he tends to be lazy, doesn't enjoy his job and will often stall to avoid going into battle. He often jumps to conclusions because he seems to lack common sense. Tucker's armor is Cyan.

Now, while this series would probably be entertaining enough with the two teams blowing each other to smithereens, we all know that probably wouldn't be too entertaining. Therefore, in the beginning of the first season, we're introduced to three more characters.

The Red team gains a new member, Private Franklin Delano Donut. Donut tends to be quite gullible, being sent on a fool's errand in the first episode he appears in. He tends to sometimes creep his other teammates out (ex: by calling shotgun's lap after someone calls shotgun for the Warthog... jeep... thing) and often his sexuality is questioned. When he first appears, Donut wears standard issue red armor, but it is later changed to pink (or "lightish red" as he calls it).

The Blue team also gets new members: Private Michael J. Caboose and Tex. Caboose is seen as the most awkward member of the Blue team. He seems to be constantly detached from reality, often making random comments that are only vaguely relevant to the topic at hand. Over the course of the series, Caboose's intelligence (or lackthereof) only continues to decline as several unfortunate events plague him. He wears blue armor during the series.

Tex, however, is significantly more bright than Caboose. She's a freelance mercenary who's not officially a member of the Blue team, but is associated with them. Generally speaking, Tex is the meanest character on the show, and is completely lethal. However, there are also times where she's nice, though those moments are rare. In the series, she wears black steel armor.

Like I said before, watching these two teams blow each other up would be relatively interesting for maybe two episodes, but then it would get boring. This is where Red vs Blue comes out superior over all other machinimas. Red vs Blue actually has a complex plot, and while there is some senseless killing in it, the bloodshed isn't the main focus of the series. Instead, we're sent into an adventure that includes an evil AI named O'Malley, a slightly annoying medic named Doc, a few bombs and another canyon that contains two equally zealous teams of soldiers. The entire series is a parody of first-person-shooter games, military life and science fiction films. The humor is dry (which is fine with me) and the running gags ingenious.

And speaking of the running gags, personally, they are hilarious. One of the ones first seen is Sarge's ability to build robots, and the Red team's reliance on that. However, even the Blue team eventually begins to rely on that ability, as seen when Tucker asks Donut to get Sarge to build him a new body after he gets wounded. Donut even acknowledges the gag, stating, "we can't. We're out of parts because we overused that joke."

Another running gag seen in the show is Caboose's lack of intelligence. Quite often, he asked questions about things people assume others know (ex: the importance of a flag). This lack of intelligence often leaves him as the scorn of the other characters, and Sarge puts it best when he states that O'Malley (the evil AI who gets in Caboose's head) "took some of the furniture when he left… and the carpet… and the drapes… and I wouldn't expect to get that deposit back, if y'know what I mean."

Various other running gags are seen throughout the series, and essentially each character has one. They range in size and subject and are seen in almost each episode. If it's not Donut's and his armor color, questionable sexuality and lack of a sense of direction, then it'll be Tucker's dislike of the teleportation machine (it covers his armor in what seems to be soot and is apparently painful) or his innate ability to get knocked out by friend and foe alike. Or perhaps it would be Grif constantly questioning Simmons's ethnicity, Church's inability to shot anyone with a sniper rifle, or Grifs armor color (is it yellow or is it orange?). Regardless, the running gags in the show are rather amusing, and are used in a way that they don't get old.

Another thing that I enjoy about this series is how it's done. During the first few episodes, the opening was a bit boring. However, Roosterteeth soon had "The Blood Gulch Blues" playing in the opening credits of each episode. And yes, the voiceovers in Red vs Blue is a little rough compared to the other spinoff series, but all things considered, I think the acting more than makes up for it.

Now, I'm not going to give away the entire plot of the series. Why? Well, because
1. That would ruin the show for you
and
2. I don't know the entire plot.

"Why?" you may ask. Well, Roosterteeth has only released 3 of the 5 seasons on Youtube, and between you and me, I'm not going to pay to see the other two seasons. I'll patiently wait for them to release those as well. From what I've seen, though, it's a very good series. I've even gotten my brother into it, and that's saying something.

If you want to check out the first 3 seasons and the PSAs/Extras, head on over to Roosterteeth's Youtube site at http://www.youtube.com/user/roosterteeth?blend=1&ob=4 or at their website at http://www.roosterteeth.com.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_vs._Blue

Also, if you want to see some of the funnier quotes in the series, head on over to the Wikiquote page! :)