The Movies

[JackieChan]

Imagine you could make any movie you wanted to. Imagine you could pluck someone from obscurity and turn them into a superstar. Imagine you had control of an entire movie studio, competing with other studios to create box office hits and predicting what audiences wantâ€â€from epic action films to campy B-movies. With The Movies, you can make it big in Hollywood by building the ultimate movie studio and shooting the ultimate picture. Choose a script and turn it into a major release. Pick or create actors and locations. Control budgets, build sets, hire and fire at will, settle into the director’s chair and film a hit. Customize unique movies within the game, then watch and review them, adding your very own voiceover or sound effects and saving them to your hard drive. E-mail your masterpieces to friends, upload them to the web or post them on The Movies’ official site for the world to see and vote on in online awards ceremonies. Just as you can create or modify unique films, you can create or modify actors, customizing their look and renaming them to resemble anyone you wish. You can even replicate every movie star currently in Hollywood and remake all your favorite films with them. Anything you’ve ever read about Hollywoodâ€â€from starlet scandals to broken box office recordsâ€â€is right here in The Movies.

 

This seems like a REALLY good game. Yet another unique game from Lionhead Studios. I saw some trailers at gametrailers.com and.. I must say.. the variety of ideas you can produce seems huge. I'm looking forward to playing this.

[VooDooPC]

http://www.voodoo-pc.net/files/johann_the_evil_spy.wmv

Heres an awesome movie i made in 1949.

[Penty]

So other than making bad war movies what is your opnion of the game?

[VooDooPC]

My amazing script writers I hired made that movie.

 

The actual game is not really a move making game but more of a tycoon game. You could beat the whole game and not make a single movie yourself.

 

You start the game with a big empty lot to start your movie making empire. You hire janitors, actors, extras, builders, set crews, script writers, and technicians. I noticed there is a bit of an issue with hiring people though. Everyone comes at pretty much the begining of the game. So if you don't hire an extra at the begining of the game your pretty much screwed becuase you won't be able to make any movies becuase almost every movie requires atleast one extra. Alot of times i had to turn my janitors into actors, and belive me, they suck at acting!

 

Each of your actors has tons of things you need to worry about. If they drink to much they become alcoholics and you need to send them to rehab, if they eat too much they become fat and unattractive and no one will watch their movies, when they get old they will be unfit for certain movies, like action movies. They will gain relationships with other actors, the better the relationship the better they perform together. You have to raise their skill in each movie genre, if you take an action star and put them in a romance the movie will flop. If one of their movies is a hit they will demand more money. If you give them more money than your other actors the other actors will become jeleous and they too will demand more money. If you cut their pay they will complain while a movie is being made and seriously slow down production. If you work them too hard they will become stressed out.

 

There are things you can do to reverse these effects though. If your actor becomes fat you can give them liposuction, if they become old you can get them plastic surgery, if they are romance stars you can give them breast implants. There is a number of things you can do to keep your actors happy, including giving them trailers, vending machines, games, cars, fancy lots, phones, mail boxes.

 

Other things you can build are movie sets, theres more movie sets then you can build, literly. Its impossible to fit them all on your lot at once. I had my actors become good in action and horror movies so i concentrated only on horror and action movie sets. You can make any type of movie on any type of set but some are more geared towards certain genres. You also have to make your average tycoon buildings, bathrooms, places to eat, lots of trash cans, ect.

 

The movie making is a bit... odd, but thats to be expected with something so open ended.. You start off by picking which actors you want in the movie, their outfits, the movie name, the genre. Then you go onto the real movie making! You have tons and tons of options, but not unlimited options. Its hard to make a movie make sense when people talk like they are in The Sims. It also seems near impossible to to fit some scenes in. Theres a scene were one actors stabs another in the face, but theres no real scenes to introduce a knife into the movie. Most of my time making movies was spent trying to make them make sense, not thinking of stories or ideas.

 

One of my favorite parts of the game is the time line. In the 1920s you have crummy looking, blurry, silent movies, and you move all the way to high definition digital movies with computer generated special effects and everything inbetween. I seem to be a bit ahead of myself in the game now. I'm in 1966 but have technology from the 90's.

 

If you like tycoon games with lots of managing and balancing i'd say its a pretty good game. Even me, someone whos never been into tycoons games finds it pretty fun. But then again, i have always been a sucker for Lionhead games.

 

Theres no AA options, which is a petpeeve of mine in games. You have to either live with it, crank up the resolution, or do it through your graphics card outside of the game.

 

 

Lionheads community site has tons of player made movies.

Edited November 13, 2005 by VooDooPC

[JackieChan]

Hey, Voodoo, how do you make your actors stop changing clothes EVERY scene? The movie I was making was suppose to be serious turned to be a 5 star comedy because of that.

[VooDooPC]

On the main Movie making screen when you make the title, genre and such. You click and drag the actor you selected for the movie onto the coat hanger to the right. Then they will wear what ever you select every scene of the movie.

 

If you have a scene you want to change their clothes in you can drag them onto the coat hanger in that scene and their clothes will only be changed for that scene and go back to what ever you had them wearing when you changed it at the beginning.

 

 

On the right side at the top of the screen there is a little button you can click for the tutorials. It shows little movies of how you do everything.

Edited November 14, 2005 by VooDooPC

[JackieChan]

Thanks. I'm going to have to remake my movie now...

[VooDooPC]

I found out two things after playing for a bit longer. In the single player game, technology is much more accurate in terms of when it is discovered. And actors from different studios trickle in when you get higher on the charts.