Rivals- First Impression

Created By: Gasm Media

Authors: Tony & Adam

Cast: Benjamin Mitchell, Lexi Blevins

Those of you who are familiar with our drunken work (link to about us) know that we like to crack open unhealthy amounts of beer and give out about films, sometimes we even review them…

Well this week we’ve stumbled across a web series that delves into a world in which we know nothing about; E-Gaming, more specifically, League of Legends. But what enticed us about this 12 part series is not the sport itself, but the story unfolding of two rivals in the world’s biggest competitive online game. We thought it was refreshing to see a story unravel about the people behind the keyboard and gamepad as it breaks the usual web series format based on games that we normally come across (and violently skip past). As dinosaurs from the age of the first Xbox, ps2 and the Gameboy colour, a challenge we have set this web series is to see how much it can pull us into this world while still being accessible to all audiences.

From first impressions we are filled with an inebriated sense of potential for this series.

What we can say after watching the first episode (link) is that the exposition, something that really infuriates us when done badly, is actually done very well- we are subtly told with no hand holding who Jason is, what he does, and that he is clearly very good at it. Interesting and clear character dynamics are touched upon in a very natural way and we are excited to see how it plays out further as the series unravels.

There is an awkwardly funny conversation that plays out between what we assume to be the two main characters that we actually think is a textbook play out of a honeypot maneuver where one rival mines information out of the other in the form of seduction. I was actually really surprised to see that happen in a series that I thought would be focused more on the game than the people. The honeypot scene in question is actually well paced out and rationalised- Jason goes through this ego journey as we walks through the party and has everyone tell him how great he is, suddenly he meets someone who doesn’t agree and she uses this to get some valuable team Intel out of him, as he gets cockier and reveals more she fully takes advantage of his ego.

Another thing we’re intrigued by is the budding theme of gender roles being challenged that starts to play out and how this might play out with the overall idea of e-gaming having an element of anonymity about it.

In terms of a rating, it’s too early to tell, but for now we’re happy to keep drinking to this.

Web series are usually pretty awful, badly acted, badly written and very amateurish, but this has a streak of professionalism about it that is making it very watchable.