Reception and Impact
The major Quake machinima review sites of the day rated Operation Bayshield highly. In a short review, Stephen Lum of The Cineplex gave the work a 9.5 out of 10 and called it "one of the best and funniest Quake Movies ever made"; he saw inconsistent camera manipulation as the only flaw. Rating the film 100% out of 100%, Roger Matthews of the Quake Movie Library pointed to humorous parts of the work in his synopsis, and thought that the last scene was nonsensical. Paul Coates of Psyk's Popcorn Jungle, who gave Operation Bayshield a 10 out of 10 rating and awarded it a Golden Popcorn award, considered the work "very polished" and the most technologically advanced Quake machinima film until Blahbahlicious. He praised the humor, but said that repeated viewings weakened its effect. According to Paul Marino, executive director of the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences, Operation Bayshield received enough attention from the video gaming industry to help to advance Mustaine's career. id Software employee American McGee praised it in his .plan file.
Lowood called Diary of a Camper, Quake done Quick, and Operation Bayshield "the founding trilogy of machinima". For comparison to early film, he placed these works between the 1895 footage recorded by Auguste and Louis Lumière and the 1902 film A Trip to the Moon. Writing for the Houston Press, Robert Wilonsky stated that Operation Bayshield was "a freaky hybrid" of Quake's visuals and of sketch comedy resembling that of television show Saturday Night Live. Ben Moss of machinima.com contrasted the inside jokes in later Quake movies with Operation Bayshield's references to popular fiction, including the 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. In turn, the work's E.T. joke inspired similar mentions of extraterrestrials in in Quake done Quick and other machinima films.
Operation Bayshield helped to attract other artists to use machinima. Inspired by the work, the ILL Clan, a group of Quake players who had recently graduated from college as film and animation majors, further developed comedy in machinima through their films Apartment Huntin' (1998) and Hardly Workin' (2000). Hugh Hancock of Strange Company partially credits Operation Bayshield for his realization that there were "possibilities for Quake Movies beyond a toy". Brian "Wendingo" Hess, co-creator of Blahbahlicious, began work on his film after watching a group of machinima films that included Operation Bayshield. In interviews with Machinima.com, others have stated that the work influenced them.
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