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Let's be honest here: if you have a basic understanding of the filmmaking technique known as machinima , you probably eat, sleep and breathe video games.  The intentionally misspelled portmanteau, which combines the words machine and cinema , was invented by Hugh Hancock, the founder of Machinima.com , a popular gaming hub for machinima video, news, and discussion.  To produce machinima, filmmakers use real-time graphics engines - most often those found in video games - to record animation which is synchronized to pre-recorded scripted dialogue.

Easily the most popular machimina ever created is Rooster Teeth Productions' Red vs. Blue , a web series which debuted in 2003 using the game engine from Bungie Studio's Halo: Combat Evolve .  The reception to Red vs. Blue was overwhelming, within one day the inaugural episode achieved 20,000 downloads; within a year that number jumped to between 650,000 and 1,000,000 viewers weekly.  While it's typical in the games industry for developers to protect their IPs and squash fan films (e.g. Nintendo recently crushed the Legend of Zelda homage film), Bungie showed enthusiasm at the project and has supported it since episode two.

Rooster Teeth has gone all out with their latest DVD release, Red vs. Blue – The Blood Gulch Chronicles: The First Five Seasons , offering over nine hours of video, spanning 100 episodes.  Whereas the web series delivered weekly, self-contained episodes running approximately five minutes in length, the six-disc set packages each season on a DVD, and each episode from that season plays back-to-back with a brief fade to black in between.

While the first five seasons were created using an Xbox (or occasionally a PC) and the game engines from Halo and Halo 2 , you don't need to be a fan the Xbox or Halo games to enjoy Red vs. Blue .  Described as a "a parody of first-person shooter games, military life, and science fiction films" the comedy series feels a bit like M.A.S.H. meets The Office.  The premise is simple: five red Spartan soldiers and five blue Spartan soldiers are stationed in a boxed, dessert canyon called Blood Gulch (a multiplayer map taken directly from Halo ) and their mission is to destroy the opposing team.  The catch is, the soldiers all signed up to fight aliens in the Covenant war -- not each other -- and nobody knows why they stationed there or has any desire to engage the other team in combat.  The result is non-stop character in-fighting, botched orders, tactless negotiations, pointless hostage taking and many accidental betrayals.  No doubt about it, this is irreverent humour at its finest.

The visuals have received a significant upgrade with the first four seasons remastered to meet the quality of season five (the first season to use high-definition source files), resulting in a much cleaner presentation.  Still, the Blood Gulch episodes mostly run on the original Halo engine, which look dated in comparison to today's HD games, so expect to see boxy polygon characters, low resolution textures and jagged edges.  The audio is a bit rough too, with voice work intentionally recorded to simulate the characters communicating using a static-filled Spartan com link.  As a result their voices sound scratchy, muffled and faint.  It's a bit off-putting but then again the series has never attempted to impress in the audio/video departments.

The disc set really shines when it comes to bonus features.  There so much extra content packed it'll take hours to watch, and you'll learn everything there is to know about the series.  Exclusive bonus material include: the Xbox LIVE Red vs. Blue miniseries Out of Mind and Recovery One , audio commentary by the filmmakers, deleted scenes and hilarious outtakes, alternate endings, fake PSAs, documentary footage from Comic-Con, and even a showcase of the best fan videos and art from the online community.  It's probably the best collection of bonus material I've seen yet, and that's saying a lot.

From beginning to end Red vs. Blue – The Blood Gulch Chronicles: The First Five Seasons will entertain you with hours of hilarious moments, memorable characters, and an engaging storyline set in the iconic Halo universe.  The six disc set is so full of bonus content, above and beyond what's normally expected, it feels like a love letter to fans.  Whether you enjoy the Halo video games or not, you'll find plenty to enjoy with friends and family.

More information on the Red vs. Blue DVD set can be found on the Future Shop product page .