WHEN GORDON MET CHELL, An Epic Half Life-Portal Mash Up From The Guy Behind DOOMSDAY ARCADE

Let's get this straight, I know there's some actor with the same name living out in the Canadian boonies, but the only Michael Shanks you should care about right now is the ambitious creator of all things awesome from Melbourne, Australia. 

He's the guy who a few months ago unleashed the amazing Day In The Life Of Max Payne upon the internets, which was the latest in a string of incredible (and hilarious) video game-inspired shorts. Other favorites so far have been How I Play Skyrim, Life And Death According To Zelda, and the completely NSFW video, Inappropriate Portal Gun Use #32. 

Non-game related videos include Shanks' music video for his own band Roadgeek, in which he assumes a Dave Grohl-like role and plays every instrument and sings, as well as does all the VFX. 

Clearly this guy is a one man army. 

This was of course obvious by watching the first thing Shanks ever tried his hand at, Doomsday Arcade, the webseries he co-created with Michael Lund which ran for close to two years on The Escapist - with Shanks writing, directing, acting and again handling FX. 

Now comes his latest video, When Gordon Met Chell, and it's an action epic. Despite a minuscule budget, Shanks is clearly dreaming bigger than ever and has co-opted the city of Melbourne as well as an abandoned railway yard to his purpose, which is basically to deliver an action-jam-packed love story involving two of the most beloved game characters in gaming - Dr Gordon Freeman from Half Life and Chell from Portal, both from the same Valve universe.