Reviewed: November 12, 2005
Reviewed by: Tyler Whitney
Publisher
Activision
Developer
Lionhead Studios
Released: November 8, 2005
Genre: Simulation
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen
9
8
8
9
8.7
Minimum System Requirements
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
The Movies, from gaming genius Peter Molyneux( Black and White, Fable), is one of the most innovative games in years. With his talented crew at LionHead Studios, and veteran publisher Activision, they bring us an amazing in depth game, sort of a Sims meets…well no one has seen anything like it frankly. I noticed it months back at E3, and I am glad to say I snagged an exclusive copy to review.
"Imagine you could make any movie you wanted to. Imagine you could pluck someone from obscurity and make him or her the hottest star in Tinseltown. Imagine that you had control of an entire movie studio, competing with others to create a string of box office smashes. Imagine being able to use your judgement alone, deciding whether success lies with epic action pictures or lots of low budget, hammy 'B' movies. "
Like I said before, it’s a film lovers dream to be able to craft their studio from day one, let alone entire short films. You start out in the 1920s with a weed-infested plot of land, and you go from there, with a very helpful voiced tutorial explaining the basics, which can also be left on throughout the game.
You have to hire janitors, builders, actors, extras and more, as you drag and drop everyone around (not unlike the hand of “God” in Black and White, too bad you can’t hurtle them…. or drop boulders on their trailers…). The planning of your layout is everything too. I had one section devoted to production of movies, scripts, editing etc, while another was just a massive collection of sets, and finally an area for the stars to relax, complete with trailers, lawn chairs, a basketball court and more. I even had a quaint little fountain, surrounded by palm trees, benches, and drinking fountains, for a nice spot to reflect.
As you progress in the game, new technologies are opened up, from spiffy new sets, facilities, props/costumes and so on. You must also monitor the daily finances and maintenance of the studio, everything from having enough restrooms, to keeping your stars happy. The latter borders on annoying, as you must constantly attend to every need. If they want a bar or nightclub, or a fancy new car, well you better deliver or their performance will be spotty.
You also can give them much needed makeovers to stay with the current fashion, draft some assistants, and even drop paparazzi close by for some juicy media exposure. But be careful, your cast can get addicted to many things, from food to drugs, so having a rehab close by is always a good idea. I had a director for a certain penchant for Jack Daniels, and would often wander off set to visit the local saloon. I kept having to yank him into the rehab place, but he would still meander around in a drunken stupor. Nearly fired the poor sap, but man, could he make an awesome horror flick!
Later on this micromanagement can get pretty hectic, keeping track of a large array of personnel, and a sprawling lot. Your eventual goal is to make your studio number 1, and garner rave review and attention from press and rival stars alike (they will come over eventually). There is an award ceremony rewarding you for achieving certain benchmarks, like making 5 movies, or being worth over a 1million, which I myself hit around the year 1939.
Speaking of making a good movie, your cast and directors can get better as they make movies, and you can even train them in the off days to hone their craft. Early on I wanted to go for a kick ass horror studio, but be wary of the audience approval. As you send off scripts to be auto-written by the writers, you get a graph showing the hottest movie genres of the day. And for some reason action/romance was huge during the 30’s, leaving my fledging studio in a lurch with it’s assortment of weird, low cost, horror films and production areas.
The movies themselves are actually just randomized scenes, but you can go in and adjust a thing or two, like tone, angles and whatnot. You can even place a post production building to further edit your movies, replacing props, changing scenes- there are so many options it boggles the mind!
If the tycoon mode doesn’t do it for you, you can always just jump into the movie “sandbox” mode. You can have a lot of auto functions to just jump into play, make stars behave, everything is instantly built, an era to start in and more. Here you can focus on the other chunk of the game- hands on movie making. As I mentioned before, you can tweak everything from different types of camera, to sets, props and so on.
You can use some pretty streamlined controls, such as slider bars to adjust how ferocious fight scenes are, but the amount of options is pretty mind numbing yet again. Heck, you can even add voices and custom sounds from outside the game! Then you can upload them to the main website for other fans of The Movies to enjoy.
Visually, it’s basically cartoony, 3D sprites, very similar to Sims, even down to the buildings and objects. This ain’t no system hog thankfully, despite all the onscreen action. It truly has a very warm and inviting feel, and best of all, you can zoom right down into the action.
The movies themselves use the same graphics, but come stock with all kinds of different technological innovations; cuts, angles etc, along with a wealth of sets/props. Everything animates fluidly as well, especially in the post-production scenes. As you gain more fancy sets, you really see how awesome they begin to look, like the large, war torn WW1 battlefields, to the haunted forest shacks, all of which can be viewed in first person 3D walkthroughs.
The characters meandering around the lot will do some pretty funny things, from making odd gestures during conversations, to shooting some hoops, or just getting plastered in the bars. The variety of articulations is really vast. Your staff will also morph and change with age, from getting gray from the stressful jet set life, to gaining a few pounds eating luxurious meals. Worthy of note is the campy visual humor throughout; as they progress through the various ages, they make light of many pop culture references.
The Movies has quite the background soundtrack, that morphs from era to era. At first, it’s a lot of big band, jazzy stuff, then progress into more modern themes later on. Then of course you have a wealth of musical tracks to lay into movies and scenes, I’m talking too many to count. You also get your random stuff, like on the set the loudspeaker will ring out to keep you informed of events and needs.
All of it really matches the hustle and bustle of a real Hollywood studio. Going along with the graphical sarcasm, you also hear plenty of it over the virtual radio, things like the war effort during the 40s, or the “Red Scare” starting in the 50s.
Best of all, you can add your own custom sound files, either .wav or .ogg, and create some true hilarity. This can range from dialogue, to background themes. The ease and functionality of this feature is really top notch, nothing like most 3rd-party editors needed to mess around with games. Well done LionHead, well done.
This game has IMMENSE value and replay ability. The main story mode takes several days of non-stop play to get through, and you can always start again and try your hand at a different approach to fame. Maybe make your studio more efficient this time, or focus on a certain movie theme- it’s up to you.
Add to this the limitless sandbox mode, and you can spend months interacting with the community at large, learning the intricacies of the editor, techniques, user created content (read: mods) and so on. Not to mention any additions from LionHead studios, and if Sims is any indication, we could see new sets, clothing, props and other features released in expansions.
Aspiring moviemakers can upload and share their motion pictures created with The Movies on The Movies' Community Website. You can be sure that nominations and award ceremonies will be following.
While The Movies will certainly go down as one of the most unique games in recent memory, it’s not without it’s flaws. From the obtuse system of management, to the lack of total control with the movie making, this game will disappoint somewhat. However, on balance, The Movies contains some remarkable features, that could only be spawned from the likes of Molyneux. In this day and age of reprocessed games, sequalization and general lack of creativity, this title breathes new life into the industry.