"The Tophet Campaign" is my favorite campaign yet! The Roughnecks land on the desert planet of Tophet to establish a base of operations in the battle against the bugs. On Tophet they meet a the Skinnies, humanoid creatures who surprise the soldiers. One of the best episodes in the campaign features Chas, a newly designed robot built to aid the soldiers.
With the exception of episodes 12 and 13, the animation is getting better. Episode 12 and 13 were some of the first episodes done, and were done at Flat Earth and not Foundation Imaging.
Video
Tophet is a bright, dry planet and the video is nice and bright for these episodes. The picture is clean of any imperfections, except the texture mapping problem from "The Hydora Campaign" is present here as well. Objects that appear in the distance shimmer due to the increased resolution of the DVD format, and probably due to some settings used in Lightwave, the 3D program used to animate the series. I noticed one or two compression errors, but nothing too distracting. You may notice some choppy animation in episodes 12 and 13. This was due to two factors; the episodes being some of the first produced and hand animating the characters instead of using motion-capture software. This is explained in detail in the second audio commentary track.
Audio
There are 4 different audio tracks included on "The Hydora Campaign" and the English Dolby Digital 5.1 track was used for this review. Most dialog comes from the center speaker with the left and right speakers used when characters are speaking off screen. There are lots of explosions, gunfire and spaceships that use all the speakers and sound great. The rears aren't used a lot, but you'll hear some nice ambient sounds that help add to the audio mix. Also included on the disc are French, Spanish and Portuguese tracks.
Although the audio is good, I found it was lacking bass. I wanted to feel the explosions, not just hear them. I know it's a TV show, but the audio was remastered for DVD release so I expected a little bit more. It sounds nice, but could have been better.
Commentary Tracks
I'm a big fan of good commentary tracks, and like "The Hydora Campaign", this release features two excellent tracks. Once again, the first track features the "Filmmakers'" talking about the episodes, the production schedule, characters and the series in general. Jokes are cracked often and there's never a dull moment. Featured in the commentary track are: Audu Paden (Producer), Bob Higgins (Senior Vice-President of Creative Affairs), Jay Oliva (Episode Director), Tom Pugsley (Story Editor), Alan Caldwell (Episode Director), Steve Staley (Voice of T'Phai), Robert Duran (Sound Designer) and Bob Pool (Sound Designer). The technical commentary track features animators from Foundation Imaging and Flat Earth and is hosted by Audu Paden once again. The animators seem really excited to talk about their role in making the show and obstacles they overcame to meet the deadline to be aired yet still look good.
Filmographies
Filmographies for Jeff Kline (Co-Executive Producer), Audu Paden (Producer), Tish Hicks (Carmen), Rider Strong (Carl), E.G. Daily (Dizzy), James Horan (Doc), Alexander Polinsky (Higgins), Jamie Hanes (Razak) and Rino Romano (Rico).
Trailers
These trailers are ads for the previous Roughneck releases; "The Pluto Campaign" and "The Tesca Campaign". They're both the same with the only difference being the name of the campaign that's displayed.
Photo Gallery
The photo gallery holds 74 drawings from 6 catagories: Backgrounds, Bugs, Characters, Props, Structures and Vehicles.
Summary
Another excellent release in the series. I only wish Columbia TriStar would add "Character Profiles" and "Bug Profiles" as extras. I'm sure they created "profiles" for the bugs featured in the episodes and it would be excellent to see them added to the DVDs. I'm going to pick up "The Tesca Campaign", the second DVD released but the 4th campaign in the series. Yup, I'm finally realizing what the fan sites have been saying; this is a GREAT show!
