Customer Reviews

The Movies (Mac)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

For people who play a lot of business sims, The Movies comparatively low difficulty level may seem off-putting. I understand that the sandbox mode is this game's true bread and butter, but the possibility of multiple diffuclty settings for the game mode itself would've been a really nice touch. Unless you're really sloppy it's almost impossible to not end up the top studio in the game by the end of World War 2. And once you get there, it's really not that hard to remain there for the rest of the game.

But that's not what it's about, right? The reason people are willing to shell out full price for this game is not the game mode, it's to make your own movies. And if the PC version was passable in this regard, the Mac version truly shines. With full integration into the iLife series (though if you use copyrighted music off iTunes you can't upload your movie to the Lionhead site whether you had permission to use it or not) post-production has never been easier, and you have the possibility to make movies that PC users could only dream of.

One interesting sidenote for owners of the MacMini and Macbook systems. While the box clearly says "The Movies does not support GMA950 graphics cards with shared RAM", this is not strictly true. They may not officially support the card, but the game actually runs quite well on such a system, provided you have enough RAM.

And that to me was the most impressive thing about this game, the performance. With my CoreDuo Mini seemingly at or slightly below the system requirements stated on the box (though with 1 GB of RAM) the game performs absolutely spectacularly. While UB-patched games like Sims 2 require bare minimum settings and even then experience major slowdowns on my system, I was able to crank The Movies up to a healthy widescreen resolution with some nice effects and the game still never so much as hiccups during play.

It is truly a pleasure to play and if you're looking to play around at making some simple Machinema there is no cheaper or easier way to do so. And if you don't think you have machine enough to run it, do yourself a favor and download the demo: you might be pleasantly surprised at how well this runs on low end configurations.

This game is fantastic, combining the aspects of a Tycoon game where you manage and run your studio, pay attention to your employees behavior, and build what is needed with the aspects of Directing and creating your own movies!

Game runs great! only issue I see (not sure if anyone else has this Issue) is in the post production I can record my dialog and should be able to have the actors lip-sync to my voice. This feature works Great in the PC version. But the Mac version I cannot get it to work. Even after a clean install of my Machines Software (running on 10.4.8 Intel 2.16 Duo core Macbook Pro 15" 2GB Memory, 256 MB video)

Great Game! Even with that one small glitch!

(anyone else have the lip-syncing issue? anyone have it work?)

This game starts off great. Like most Sim-ish games, it eventually becomes tedious. The best part is the sandbox mode. If you are creative and love to micro-manage things, this game is for you.

This is truly a fun, charismatic, clever game --no complaints on that side of it. Only note: I also had a problem with the lip sync and import dialogue track functions. So just a heads up for those of you who were (like myself) planning to use the game primarily for it's advanced movie making mode to do short films, it MAY run funky.

This game is a MUST HAVE for people who want to run a movie studio.... even though that might be a big dream. What you probably want to do is make movies. In that case you need to know that this game doesn't give you ABSOLUTE freedom, as I had thought, but instead has a lot of pre-rendered "scenes", that you can put together to make a movie. You can still do alot, just not everything.

But in the actual game mode, you don't really focus on even what your movies are about! You're too busy trying to run everything and keep your stars happy. Stuff gets out of hand really fast! What I loved about this game is that you start out thinking, "Ya sure, I could run a studio", and the game goes "ok", and just puts you there. And you're like "ummm, now what...?". lol. It teaches you a lesson!

Excellent game overall but you really do need a FAST system. I've got a Mac: Dual-2GH G5 Tower with 2.5GB of Ram, and I was still running into slow reaction times. :-( I guess if you've got the new Pentium Quad Mac.... But ya, like who does...

I won't comment on the game's mechanics or details. You know it by now. It's movie studio simulation game and it does what it does fairly well.

My problem is with the vast difference in price between the Mac version (45) and the PC version (20). Why am I being asked to pay more than twice as much for the same game on a different operating system?

Because of this, I don't recommend buying the Mac version. Buy the Windows version and run it in Boot Camp, instead. If you already have Windows installed on your Mac, this runs great in Boot Camp, and it will cost a lot less.

We don't have to take this sort of blatant robbery. I may pay a little more for my computers, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to get ganked on the price of software. Offer it at the same price for all platforms if you want to be taken seriously.

The Movies is a great game for people who are interested in the film industry. You can make your own unique movies and watch them as well; this game may be of interest to people who like to write stories also. The only problem is that you cannot write your own movies at first. You must hire people to do it for you, and then later on you can write scripts. But once you get going it is amazingly fun to watch your own movies, win awards and expand your studio. Before you start the game, i would suggest you do the tutorial because it really does help.

This game is probably a tolerable business simulation. I can't comment much on that aspect because I don't usually play that sort of game and I generally didn't play that part of this game. I bought this game to make movies, and the thing that really sets this game apart for making movies versus the less pre-scripted machinimation you can do in other games is the lip-synching feature. Well, the lip-synching feature doesn't work. At all. Others have reported sporadic success, but I never had any. I used to run the game on an unsupported machine, which I thought might have been the problem, but Feral's tech support did not respond to my email, in which I offered to run it on another computer that did meet the specs if they thought that was the problem. They didn't even have the courtesy to send a response explaining that my machine was unsupported. Moreover, many others have reported this issue and as far as I know, gotten no response from Feral. In addition, since buying the game a few years, I have purchased a new and much faster machine; in fact, I am writing this review on my MacBook Pro, purchased brand new from Apple just nine days ago. The feature still doesn't work.

In sum, if you are seeking a business sim, this may be your game, but if you want to make movies, it probably is not. Either way, don't expect much help from Feral if things go wrong.

This is probably the best game I have ever played on my mac. It is much better than the Roller Coaster Tycoon series and other games of that sort. I highly recommend this game.

It's all I've every wanted to do, make my own little movies, and this game provides me with a good foundation for that. It's like Sims, but a much cooler idea, at least in my opinion. I don't use the mogul bits of the game, so my review might not be suitable to help everyone who reads it. I go straight to the Sandbox mode where I can have ultimate control and make my little films. The trouble with the game is it's so very limited in terms of sets, costumes, etc, though there are forums with lots of great user created content to draw from. I'm currently on a Mac, so there are a few things that don't work as well or as smoothly as on PC. My original actors don't hold their features on my computer, sadly... so I'll be inheriting a PC laptop soon and start to create all of my films there instead. This will also open up the loads of great user content that I can't utilize on my mac either. The export feature is so easy!!! Overall, I do love this game and just wish the developers would release a nice updated version with lots more stuff and capabilities included.