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224 of 236 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Fun but Flawed, November 12, 2005
So Activision decided to jump in on the Sim gaming community and create their own version of the Sims -- Hollywood style. Not bad, but heavily flawed.
The premise of the game is to run a movie studio. It acts quite a bit like the Sims but concentrating more on the community rather than the stars that you create; your goal is to make movies as best and with as much star power as possible.
The Pros:
This game can be fun. You place specific buildings such as scriptwriting, sets, entertainment areas, trailers for your stars and map out a studio lot. You have control over all the decor and can put down grass and flowers to make it look nicer. Apparently if you plant a lot of flowers next to your stars' trailers, it keeps them from throwing tantrums.
The game goes over a timeline. You can start right from the beginning if you want -- I created a "Clara Bow" in the 20s and had fun watching her progress. You pick from a line of hopefuls in order to create actors, extras and directors. All of them learn through being in specific movie genres and practicing on sets. Example: A director who has worked on a lot of Action movie sets is not necessarily good in the beginning but results in a great director in the end.
Stars are picked out of obscurity. (However, when you get popular you can find stars from "other" studios anxiously waiting at your casting door) and you try to mold them from the beginning. Concentrate on making them over during the correct time period (you don't want a star in 50s outfits by the 60s) and you can eventually give them plastic surgery. Nip and tuck is popular in the 50s, but implants and lipo isn't really available till later in your timeline -- but be careful! Give a starlette a big rack too early in the timeline and they might get negative reviews (remember -- buxom wasn't always popular.)
Recruit scriptwriters, janitors, crew and researchers in order to help your studio progress and keep up with the times. Also, they will make "suggestions" by leading a trail of stars. What I mean is, you pick up a screenwriter to drop them into the studio to write, a trail of stars will lead to the genre that is most popular at that time. At my last game, it was the late 50s and according to my news report "the communists" sent a ship into space -- which fuels the want of Action and Sci-Fi from audiences. Get it? If you're filming during the depression, no one wants to see a drama -- they'll want comedy.
But you have to make sure that your stars are trained for those genres. When you're placing people into their correct casting areas, the one thing you need to remember is that an actor good in comedy, might not be good in drama. It will tell you as well. Same with the director.
Sets become available over time. There's whole sections dedicated to say, Sci-Fi, Romance, Action, Westerns -- you name it, they've covered it.
Now the more detailed fun is that you can literally have a hand in the movies. You can custom-write a script (which takes longer to do, of course) and add scenes, backdrops, props and sets. Not only can you do this, but you can also finish them and email them to your friends, complete with your "studio's name" on them, which, quite frankly, I found to be fun.
Now the bad:
The tutorial is an absolute joke. I've literally had to figure out how to do a number of things including deleting old sets (can you believe there's no instructions whatsoever to tell you how to do this?) and I still don't know how to turn the buildings. Their tutortials are so basic that if you know how to run the Sims -- you don't need to run their tutorials.
Interaction between the characters is limited. You want chemistry between stars? Probably a good idea to simply put them in more movies together. Other than that, there isn't any real detail of emotions.
These Sims are just plain UGLY. They're not pretty and for some bizarre reason, they're kinda a-sexual. The women from the 20-s kinda look like guys in drag. Not only that, but if you custom make over any of them and change hairstyles, you're going to get ALL the hairstyles regardless of sex. Why would I pick a balding comb-over for my female lead? Kinda stupid that they didn't distinguish. You can spruce them up with a makeover but it seems that they don't actually look like men or women until you get to the lipo/implant option in the 60s. I mean, were all women built like hulking men in the 40s? Not really.
Movement is also awkward with these sims and there seems to be some crude humor. It'll say when a star is busy and what they're doing and for some reason, most of the time they're always "pinching one off" in the bathroom. Yeah, it's funny the first time, after reading it 40 times you wonder if the programmers are prepubescent kids with a bad sense of humor or if your sims just have serious bowel problems.
You really have to play with this to get the gist -- fortunately, there's a Sandbox option which allows you to really use some liberties -- I'd recommend trying that one first before challenging yourself.
The DVD version is only different from the CD version because it includes a "Load of Extras." What that means is, your female star gets a few more hairdo's... that's pretty much it.
This is an EXPENSIVE game, I will say that. I don't think it's really worth over $50 -- I'd say it should be marked at $29.99. It's just not that high tech nor is it that "fantastic" of a game. I'd recommend a price reduction before buying it.
Otherwise, okay. Interesting but complicated, Ugly yet entertaining. Three out of five stars.
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41 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not Oscar's material, November 30, 2005
There're some excellent reviews on The Movies over here, so I'll just keep mine short.
One of the reasons I could never play the Sims series is because of the intense level of micromanagement. The same applies to The Movies. The premise is interesting - a shot at becoming the boss of a movie studio is bound to interest some people. You get to build stage schools, production offices, movie sets, script offices and the likes. You get to hire directors, actors and scriptwriters. You get to invest in R&D for advancement in movie-making. You even get to win awards if you manage to excel in what you do. These features are all fun, but the novelty soon wears off when the micromanagement steps in.
The most frustrating aspect of the game lies in managing errant stars under your care. Stressed. Tired. Drunk. Addicted to food. Temperamental. Unhappy with how they look. You name it. Pacifying them is almost as troublesome of taking care of the bowel movements of your Sims. To satisfy their needs, an array of tools is at hand. It's easy to console a misbehaving staff, for example, by resting him or her in a specially built trailer if he or she is tired, or sending him or her on a makeover session if he or she is unhappy with his or her image. But when five of your staff begins to play games with you, you'll find yourself spending a lot of time calming them down, instead of concentrating on what you need to do to keep afloat in the game. That is, to make movies and rake in the cash from them.
Fortunately, there's a Sandbox option in the game that allows you to turn off the misbehavior. It also lets you toggle how much money you want to begin the game with. These options are more or less cheats that help you go through the game in a smoother fashion, but they're essential nonetheless if micromanaging is not your cup of tea.
Which is why I can still recommend this game if you're simply looking forward to release movies after movies without your director getting drunk in the bar, or your lead stuffing him or herself to oblivion at the snack van. That is, if you can convince yourself that doing so is worth $55.
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great, Fun Game....For Two Weeks, March 14, 2006
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
Back in the early 90's Disney released an obscure little gem of a game called "Stunt Island". The point of that game was to become a movie director on a fictitious "stunt" island off the coast of California and make movies of intense stunts. After shooting the primary footage you would then dissect the film in editing and eventually add special effects and music to make your film more complete. Ultimately you could construct gigantic 20 minute epics in cinematic VGA glory. Disney's "Stunt Island" enjoys a small, but devoted cult following to this day for the immense amount of latitude it allowed the player in crafting thier own home-made cinematic marvels. Until now there has not been another game like it, or even one that bothered attempting giving a player a shot at making computer-movies.
The Movies is a great, fun, and addictive game. From the get-go you will be drawn into the game, incapable of pulling yourself away for hours at a time. You are basically given the task of studio owner/producer, and it is up to you to hire Directors, Actors, and a number of Extras and Crew. When you begin your movie business in the 1920's you have only a very limited number and type of sets, including basic Western locations, and a couple of Flash Gordon-stylized Sci-Fi set pieces with which to work on.
There are 6 categories of movies you can make; Sci-Fi, Horror, Comedy, Drama, Action, and Romance. The trick to making high-profit films in "The Movies" is to listen to the radio announcer spout off the headlines. World events such as wars will put Action films in high demand. The Great Depression in the 30's will put high emphasis on making Comedies, while the Cold War space race of the 50's and 60's will pay off for those wanting to produce Sci-Fi movies. Making movies that are not in demand will get you a *much* smaller profit, so watch the news ticker often!
The movies will hastily slap together short 30 second pieces for the public, and afterwards give critical reviews and show the income the movie has made (these computer made flicks make no sense when you view them, but the public doesn't seem to notice). As the game progresses you will get the ability to make your own movies (more on that later). Based upon how your movies do at the box office every 5 years an Academy-like Award ceremony is held and distributes prizes to different film companies based upon said films. Getting an award will give your studio a sort of "perk", for instance getting Best Film award will grant a nullification of all your actors whining and complaining, as well as any addictions they may have. Obviously something to shoot for since keeping a steadying hand on your actors is an *extremely* time-consuming process, which snowballs nicely into my first real problem with the game.
Dealing with the actors is just plain annoying. Things start out civil enough. After being hired (watch the stats on each potential actor closely, and always shoot for the ones that are most patient and have the highest resistance to addiction) actors and actresses can reliably be counted on to make several movies with no major problems, however after the 5 movie-count they begin systematically caterwauling about pay, living accomodations, the clothes they wear, how much time they get to spend practicing, etc. In addition it seems pre-ordained that each actor is going to sink deep into the miasma of addiction of one form or another at some point in their careers, be it food or booze. Giving your actors nice trailers to live in helps, but there's precious little that will stem the flow of whining you'll hear on a regular basis. And there will be times when you'll just want to fire the whole lot of them.
Back to the meat and potatoes of the game, which is producing the movies themselves. If the player wishes they can construct their own movies utilizing a wide variety of sets and costumes. Said player-made movies are essentially put-together by linking a series of pre-made "scenes" and sliding your actors into pre-determined roles within each scene. For instance, constructing a movie based around a simple car chase can involve selecting up to 20 pre-made scenarios and sliding your chosen actors into the right, or closest to right positions within each scene. Due to the limited amount of scenarios they have included in the game your home movies may appear fragmentary and occasionally filled with "bloopers" (characters change positions on the set, a character may start out holding a machine gun, and in the next scene may be holding a pistol instead, etc). This particular nuance of the game is very difficult to describe to someone who hasn't played, however there will be, I suspect, a lot of nods of agreement from people who have played regarding the problems I'm trying to describe.
The Premier Edition, which I am reviewing, only adds a couple of different costumes and hairstyles to the mix. Worth the extra few bucks? I would tend to say that any chance to add to this game is probably worth it, no matter how small. Remember, the more control/options you have at your disposal, the better your movies will be.
A serious ommission from the game is the ability to design your own scenarios or scenes, by placing characters onto sets where *you* want them to be, rather than predetermined by the game. This would fix a great deal of issues with making one's own movies. Another item that would have been extremely useful would be to have a model-shop, so that we could get exterior shots of all those fanciful Sci-Fi sets, see extra-vehicular combat that would bring the actor's actions more into focus. For instance, you can shoot a large number of scenes on a generic Star Trek bridge setting. The actors can have lots of dialog with each other, action sequences of them shooting each other, and even staged ship movement sequences as though the ship was just hit by a meteor or another ship (your generic Captain Kirk flying over a railing, after being "hit" by another ship). However because the program doesn't allow you to cut to an external scene of these actions the player must basically resort to method acting by the principals to bring about the idea of what is going on.
Once you've made a movie you like you can export it to Window's Media Player and send it to friends. I made several movies about my shy, soft-spoken librarian fiance in which she suddenly becomes a Kung-Fu hero, systematically wiping out a clan of giant Easter-colored chickens who stalk her from place to place, complete with music and special effects. Needless to say they were a huge, huge hit and were popular with her family especially. The game itself is great for home-made movies, but there is only a limited number of things one can do with the exisiting program.
The game is addictive (amazingly so) for the period of about 2-3 weeks, after which you'll simply have picked up the limitations of the game and will only occasionally play it. This is not irreparable, however. Activision can *easily* fix this by releasing an add-on game which would give players more control of scene setup and perhaps even a model shop (or CGI agency) where aerial dogfights, tank battles, and space battles could be designed and made. In addition some serious tweaking needs to be made to the Actor's behavior models as well. If you reduce their whining the overall gameplay and fun would increase dramatically.
Very, very fun game and a worthwhile experience, but it still needs some fixes on behavior patterns, and more player control needs to be added. Still, major kudos to Activision for having the guts to try a game as complex as this one is in the first place!
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