By I have to admit when Neill Blomkamp said he was going to be releasing a bunch of new short films for free through both Steam and YouTube I was skeptical about the quality of them or how much I would enjoy them. This is not to say that I don’t trust him because ever since Blomkamp did the advertising campaign for Halo 3 I’ve been a devoted follower of his work, except for Chappie which looked pretty crappy. Despite the shortcoming of Chappie I can honestly say since the release of the first short film Rakka I have been loving everything that has come out and eagerly waiting for the next release. Thankfully they seem to be on a weekly release schedule of at least micro-shorts and boy have they been weird. so let’s take a look at all of the shorts that have been released so far.
The first one to be released was the first of what would become a series of faux infomercials featuring an 80’s duo and a heaping dose of comedy-horror. In the first Cooking With Bill segment, the titular Bill with the assistance of Karen shows off using the Damasu 950. The absolute antithesis of the Alton Brown shunned unitasker, but is it too much of an omnitasker for our feeble human hands? Things get a little bloody in this one so if you’re the squeamish type then I might suggest skipping it.
The second short God: Serengeti happens to be my favorite one of the lot, not just because we see the return of Blomkamp’s favorite actor Sharlto Copley but because it reminds me a lot of me when I play god-games and make my little civilizations work for my amusement. The CG at work here is great and the dialogue although minimal is pretty snappy. Judging by the fact that the Cooking With Bill segment got three more videos after this I do hope this isn’t the last that we see of God.
We’re back with another Cooking With Bill segment and this time we are going to find an easy way to make the best sushi in the world using the MagicBlend 200. Bill’s hand is back to normal so this is either before the dreaded Damasu 950 incident or they just don’t really give a damn about continuity. I’m gonna go with the latter part and just enjoy the ride.
The next Cooking With Bill segment is perfect me since I’m a vegetarian and a home cook and would love to cut out all that pesky time preparing my ingredients and cooking so that I have more time to sit on my lazy ass and watch more TV like every red-white-and-blue blooded American should. Thank God (AKA Sharlto Copley) for the PrestoVeg, just put all your vegetables in the machine, wait a minute and then see the horrors it produces. But oh that taste. Mmmmm MMMMM, scrumptious.
The final short is another Cooking With Bill segment and it’s for an item that was featured before but now we get to see another feature of the MagiBlend 200. Before we saw it produce some hair-raising sushi but now we’ll see just how good of a smoothie that it can produce. Perfect for those after workout hungers, or making that girl you’re really not into leave your life forever. The MagiBlend 200, it does everything, terribly.
And there you have it, you’re all caught up on your required viewing. While it is nice to get stuff for free, the studio has made it known that if you like the stuff they are putting out and want more then to purchase one or more of the supplementary packs available on Steam. The packs are neat as they come with models and various assets for you to use if you so choose to make your own short films. The next short from OATS is expected to be one of the longer varieties and will be here this Wednesday on both the YouTube and Steam platforms.
