Previewed: October 18, 2005
Previewed by: Mat Houghton

Publisher
Activision

Developer
Lionhead Studios

Release Date: November 8, 2005
Genre: Simulation
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen

Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
Lionhead Studios is the master of the high concept projects in gaming, Fable and Black & White 2 being among their most recent releases. Mastery of high concept doesn’t mean mastery of delivery, which has given Lionhead a bit of a reputation for promising the moon and delivering moon rocks.

The Movies marks a departure from this though, as what I’ve seen promised in this game is actually delivered.

The Movies features:

  • Become a Movie Mogul of Legend – Design your own studio and run it from the early days of cinema through present day and beyond in Story Mode by managing studio resources, investing in R&D and maximizing box office success by staying one step ahead of the competition.
  • Make your own movies – Make movies that appeal to the masses in Story Mode or in Sandbox Mode you can jump into any era and create your dream movie.
  • Control the destiny of your cast and crew – Fire and hire them, turn unknowns into movie stars, and take full creative control over script selection and the content of the movies you’ll create.
  • Play it again and again - Over 30 hours of continuous gameplay, thousands of exciting movie characters, and limitless options allow you to vary just about everything, including the violence, romance, and realism - all mixed with world events that affect audience tastes and expectations.
  • Show the world your talents – Post your movies to the web for all to see.
The Movies starts off as a simple theme park sort of game, but instead of building a zoo or a park or a railroad you build a movie studio. After about an hour of gameplay you are still building movie sets and making the stock movies that your stable of script writers have been spitting out. Where is the capability to make custom movies?

All in good time, first you have to get acquainted with the other aspects of the game. The studio maintenance and construction aspects are pretty much like any other “sim” game. The departure comes with the movies themselves. In order to make a movie you need a script, a director, and at least one star (a crew is necessary too, but this is a less in depth part of the production).

The script, if it is produced from your script writers (more on custom scripts later) is a selection of stock scenes for that particular genre (horror, action, romance, comedy, or sci-fi) and you can alter very little during the course of filming; mostly backdrops, range of emotion, and angle of the scene. As far as I could tell this has no affect on how your movie is received by the critics or the buying public. What does affect your movies is the experience of your actors and director in the particular genre, how your stars and director get along, and the upkeep of your studio, among other things.

Speaking of interpersonal relations, the actors and directors have more personality than the typical “sim” theme park attendant. They can be high strung, easy going, prone to alcoholism or other addiction, or not work well with others. Not only this, but they all have a perception of their image and a stress level as well.

Image is affected not only by their fashion (clothing, make-up, and jewelry) but also by their physique. Stress is not only work related, but also related to how much they are getting paid, and how much they are getting paid in relation to your other stars. A stressed out star or director is more likely to start misbehaving, or worse pick up an addiction. Addictions mean you have to build a rehab clinic to get your stars back on track.

So we have an in depth “sim” game that runs from 1920-2000 and beyond, with movie awards ceremonies that if you win give you bonuses for the next year (no misbehavior from the actors, etc). On top of all this you have the ability to build custom scripts. A custom script will allow you to select your own scenes (from a pre-made list to be sure, but one which is fairly large), and to decide which of your stars play which part during each scene.

I could go through all of the other options you can toy with (costumes, extras, character names, props, and all of the other options you could alter during the filming of a normal movie. After all of that you can also add custom soundtracks, both music and speech, and even build a post production office which will let you export the movies to be shown outside of the game.

Is this everything that Lionhead promised? I’m not completely sure after only a couple hours of play, but it is definitely enough to build custom movies, send them to your friends, or enter them into film festivals (such as the one that is rumored to be in the works). This game is going to eat your time and hopefully spit out a few amateur film makers, studio execs, or reasonable facsimiles thereof.