Game Gallery Amusements

Would-be film directors worldwide are learning the craft with video games that let them control featured characters and settings. What has become known as machinima, the use of such games for creating movie re-enactments or videos, has grown in such bounds it has been featured in both commercials and videos and spawned an official Machinima Academy of Arts and Sciences, CBS News said Monday. "We're going to see a lot more people creating machinima series based on these games that they spend so many hours playing," Paul Marino, who runs the academy, told CBS. Games such as "Grand Theft Auto" have been used to create alternative forms of popular entertainment media, such as Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson's shouting match in "A Few Good Men." Many of those creations can now be found on the Internet. CBS News said the online world of machinima has expanded during the past few years and has even led one machinima director to a real-life advertising job.