The Movies (PC DVD)

A smoothly run studio lot produces better films - keepn the crews, stars and directors moods high and they produce better work to make a better movie, which will in turn make more money. There is even an Award Cermony that takes place with the best studio's awarded for thier good work. The graphics in the game are amazing - really bright, colourful and vivid and watching back the movies your studio made is always alot of fun. The game isn't a system hog either - it will run well and some of the more modest styems out there. I play on an Intel Celeron 2.8GHZ with 1.25GB RAM and a GeForce 6600GT - the game runs at a perfect 60fps most of the time with drops in speed only a couple times.

This is a really great, fun game with so much to offer. You can even make your own films with the powerful Movie Maker, without worrying about running a studio. Movies you make can be uploaded to the website and shared with others. "The Movies" is a totally slick product from Lionhead, and if you love to watch films or just want a great new Business Sim, you'll find it in "The Movies".

After you've played the game for a while, you get the option to make your own scripts for movies. This is by far, the best function in the game. It sounds restrictive when written about, as you have to pick a scene such as "Shoot Gun 1", and then you add which actor you want. However, the seemingly restrictive scences, allow you far more freedom then you would think. There are options to change almost everything. You can change the time of day, weather, actor, actor's clothes (you can even dress them as aliens, monsters and even a giant chicken!). The advanced movie making tools are fantastic in short, and with the option to subtitle the movies afterwards, you can have hours of entertainment!

You can also upload your movies online, and download or view other people's movies, which is a nice feature.

All in all, its a great game, and its clear a lot of thought has been put into it.

I however, HAVE played the game and can safely give it 5 stars.
Pre-release, I was little confused and intrigued as to how you would be able to create such different and personal scenes and movies. Essentially, most of the work is done in the "script" phase, where you basically decide where, who, and how things happen - There are preset animations for every scene - e.g. "Two people enter the room, shivering", or "Three people are having an argument" etc. The possible roles are represented by wooden mannequins - to assign an actor to that role, you simply drag them onto the relevant mannequin, and then they will act it out when it comes to shooting.

If this sounds restrictive, be assured that there are dozens and dozens of these preset animations - enough to create a truly unique and atmosheric film every time.
The best way to think of it is not "I must make a film around these animations" but rather "I'll think of a film how I want it, and see how I can use these tools to make it look good".

You really get the chance to be infinitely creative with this game, and soon you will be spending all day at work considering your next big blockbuster!