Bruce Von Stiers

ADV Films has released several DVD titles from the Reboot television series. One of them that I just watched is called To Mend And Defend. It contains four episodes from the third season of the program.

The main characters in this series, at least as far as these episodes are concerned, are Dot Matrix, her little brother Enzo, a young girl sprite named AndrAia and another female warrior named Mouse. The bad guys are Megabyte and his sister Hexadecimal.

Reboot is an animated series. But it is unique in the fact that the animation is computer generated. Each character is based on a 3D model. The backgrounds are also done by computer.

The concept for the Reboot series is that there is a system called Mainframe. There are Guardians who defend Mainframe from viruses. Bob is the main Guardian for Mainframe. His love interest, sort of, is Dot Matrix. She has a little brother named Enzo who wants to be just like Bob. Megabyte is a virus who wants to take over Mainframe. And Hexidecimal is his evil sister.

In the first episode, To Mend and Defend, we find out that somehow Bob was sucked into the Web. Now Mainframe must rely on Dot, Mouse and others to keep the viruses at bay. Not only that, they have to beat Users from incoming games.

It seems that games invade Mainframe in the form of a kinetic column. Guardians and sprites must participate in the games. They must beat the User who is playing the game. If the User wins, then the sprites and Guardians inside the game are deleted and Mainframes sustains damage.

In this episode the game has Dot looking like Elvira and Enzo a Thriller clone. They will need to stop the User from getting the pages of a book in a house at the end of a creepy cemetery.

The second episode is Between A Raccoon and a Hard Place. This features a User game with a raccoon named Rocky. He is Crash Bandicoot, the Roadrunner and Bugs Bunny all wrapped up in one character. Enzo is done up like Elmer Fudd and AndrAia is a tough leather chick with a killer bike. As the two characters try to stop Rocky, Dot and Mouse must try to find a way to stop Megabyte.

Firewall is the third episode. The head honcho of Mainframe, Phong, is trying to develop a firewall that will keep Megabyte and Hexadecimal contained. If they are successful, Mainframe will be safe once again. Then perhaps Enzo can try to reach the Web in search of Bob.

Phong is kind of cool. He has an oriental accent and has a head that resembles a read/write head for a hard drive.

The last episode on the DVD is Game Over. The firewall doesn’t hold and all of Mainframe is once again in trouble. Bob still hasn’t come back and Dot, Enzo, AndrAia and Mouse must defend Mainframe from her attackers.

Some of the extras that the disc has are a Game Guide, an overview of the first two seasons of the show and credits for the DVD production. There are trailers for other ADV Films titles like Monster Rancher and Shadow Raiders. The Game Guide describes how the games are played within the show. Find out things like Mainframer’s don’t have to win the game, they just have to beat the User.

There are also character animation tests, a character gallery that has both pictures of character and their descriptions. Sketches and line drawings of characters can be found in Concept Designs and there are some background animations for season 3 as well.

Reboot: To Mend And Defend is a cool computer animated show. The graphics are superb and the storyline is good. People who don’t know much about computers won’t get some of the in jokes, but others should get a real kick out of them. After all this is a computer animated series with computers at center of it.

Look for this title wherever animated DVD’s are sold. You can also order it from ADV Films at www.advfilms.com.