Sections:

The Movies

The Movies

Publisher:
Activision
Developer:
Lionhead Studios
Rating:
Teen
Genre:
Simulation

The Movies

Simulation

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.
The Movies Review
Review by: Puppy Kicker
Pros
It may look like the Maxis game "The Sims" but The Movies is more like a resource management game with the goal to build and run a successful movie studio.  It is your duty to keep the actors, actresses, directors and public happy by producing popular, successful films. Starting a studio is fun. Building sets, hiring writers and having them craft your favorite film genre, actually releasing your very own film and watching the money roll in, is fun. It becomes addictive as my estranged spouse will attest. It's not difficult to figure out which movies do well and which don't throughout the decades.

I enjoyed giving people raises for work well done and making the actors feel better by giving them makeovers when their image levels dove.  I built them a bar where they could de-stress after a hard day's work. I built trailers for them-sure they weren't posh in the beginning but as the studio made more money, better trailers could be purchased.  Bigger and better sets become available as well as script writing offices, a detox center and my very own plastic surgery clinic for those who became a little pudgy around the midriff.

 I even managed to save the studio when things started falling apart. I felt like a super hero.

Cons
The game itself doesn't always do what it should do... For instance, when you have an actor selected from the actors list, bubbles pop onto the screen from their photos telling you what they need, their experience with different film genres and stress levels. However, these bubbles can get in the way of viewing other important information during game play. All bubbles should disappear when you click away from them (or right click), this doesn't always happen. Often times when you're scrolling around the studio lot, bubbles pop up (especially at the top of the screen) and again, get in the way of finding people or things.

You should be able to fire employees who aren't doing their jobs!!!  Unfortunately, if your actors or directors are working on a film, you can't fire or replace them regardless of their bad behavior. Prima donnas don't always get their way in the *real* world and in MY world, temper tantrums (by adults) are not tolerated!  You can however, "sell" your actors and actresses to other studios, just not while they're working on a film.

You're supposed to maintain relationships between the director and the actors however; it takes far too much time!  Dragging the two together over and over and over again without results gets somewhat frustrating when all their other attributes are just fine.  Besides, there are too many other things to manage besides cranky actors and directors!

As the game wore on, the lag times got longer-it appeared our video card was overdosing on graphics--my patience grew shorter, how much power does this game actually need??? The actors and director didn't want to work, the company was loosing money hand over fist and I was loosing patience.

Sometimes the game decides to minimize itself but don't panic, just double click on it's icon in the task bar and it'll come back to life without any loss of life or limb.  If your computer isn't strong enough, the game will quit and your computer may shut down spontaneously.

Interesting Info
If it seems your actors won't work for you despite the fact that you've done everything possible to make them happy, try selling one of your scripts (or all if need be). This seems to focus the attentions of your crew to the movie at hand. If you have too many scripts on the go, your actors have too much on their minds, ease up a little. If not, you'll loose a lot of cash!

If you find the game lagging-jerky movements because it seems your computer memory is bailing on you, quit out of it and start again, the lags will magically disappear.

Whoever writes these game manuals should be shot. It's just not this game, its' all games. They're terrible!  Maybe I'll write one just for fun, see if I can sell it.

Just because a new set becomes available doesn't necessarily mean you should buy it. For instance, there are many years where action and horror aren't popular so why would you purchase a horror set when you really shouldn't be making horror movies. Besides, as the times change, you need to get rid of old sets and replace them with new ones.

If an actor or director is bored, have them practice on set with a peer, their skills will improve and they'll build relationships.

If the game crashes your computer to the point where it shuts down, you need a more powerful video card.

Related Links
Average Rating
7.8
Puppy Kicker Rating
7.8

ADVERTISEMENT