A great game that was worth the wait

User Rating: 8.3 | The Movies PC
Must…stop…playing…must…get…air. Ah, that’s better. No! I must become the greatest B-movie maker of all time! And I will damn it! You’ll see, you will all see!!!!!

Thanks to Lionhead Studios’ excellent game “The Movies” I think it is safe to say that The Sims 2, The Sims and all those expansion packs have been put to shame as now, finally we have a sim experience with a difference… that now we actually have something to do! With proper missions and proper goals! Sure, there are things to do in the dominating Franchise but nothing is as emotionally fulfilling and involving as watching your own movie studio flourish from a simple stage school to a full, blown up movie city where you control everything from janitors to actors, to script writing to post production where you tweak the movie and ad voice-overs. How can that not be cool?

Well it is very cool indeed and what makes the game even more spectacular is how Lionhead have managed to get it to work so perfectly. So many Tycoon games have given us the ability to run theme parks, airports and cities, but nothing has been so engrossing as The Movies. It’s such a thrill to work through all the decodes, right from the 20’s of silent films to the year 2000, whilst trying to keep your studio from becoming bankrupt by demanding actors failing movies.

The amount you can do in this game is mind blowing. A shortlist includes: creating actors and directors, builders and janitors for the studio lots, scientists to discover new filmmaking trends and techniques, screenwriters to create the screenplays if you don’t want to try your hand at it yourself, and so much more. There’s building sets, having an on-site bar and restaurant, as well as a rehab centre in case any of your stars get addicted to too much food or drink, a makeover department, a plastic surgeon, trailers for the stars to relax in, entourages to follow the stars around, paparazzi to snap pictures, awards ceremonies, radio DJs, and all this is even before you make your own movies.

Creating your own screenplays is a blast in itself. You get to choose a genre and who’s going to star in your feature, and then put scenes together from a huge selection, and I mean huge (imagine a scene from your favourite movie. You got one? Well in The Movies I promise you can recreate that scene easily!). You can even go in and tweak the selections by adjusting camera angles, close ups, you name it. And if all this sounds like it would be incredibly hard, I guarantee you this game’s easier than any of the “Sims” games right out of the box. You won’t even have to crack the instruction manual, unless you want to. Just be careful not to spend too long creating your screenplays as you might find yourself thinking “haven’t I done this all before?” Yes you have, remember when you made “Baggage Boy 2”

There have been plenty of groovy games released recently but there’s only one must-own-title for all gamers out their and that is “The Movies”. The music, graphics, and animations are all really superb, but it’s that game play – the most important thing of all in any game – that shines brightest here, and will keep players glued to their seats for days and weeks on end. This is undoubtedly the best PC game of 2005 and if it’s not in your collection then shame on you!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a few drunken actors to fire and new blockbuster to create. Goodbye Darlings!