More Machinima Contests And Storytelling

Well, well, the contests keep on popping up.

Machinima.com has a new one entitled "AssasiNation" in conjunction with the upcoming "Smoking Aces" movie release. Entries are basically frag video highlights of yourself playing any(?) game. The submission deadline is Jan 19th, the time limit of the video is short, and the prizes are decent, so there's no reason not to get on it (hmm...maybe I have to go demo myself now...except that I suck).

Also, a link from Machinima Premiere on historytelling in games as noted on the HTGG2 site (and originally from UGO) and actually noted quite some time ago at other sites such as Giant Mag and Kotaku. The basic premise is you watch a show (Shootout!) on the History Channel, then go download the Kuma Games episode and 'play' the battle. So you have a combination of educational games, episodic games, and maybe some machinima (I don't have The History Channel, so I have no idea what this is like). Has anyone seen this yet, and/or played any of the 'episodes'? Reminds me of a SF story I read many years ago about video games being used to train children as soldiers...evil.