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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Misses the Mark, July 17, 2006
Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars
The movies by Lionhead Studios, was a better then average game. The game allows you to take the role of a Movie Studio manager to build and operate a Movie Studio. The game also allows you to make movies and this feature could almost be considered an additional game in its own right. The original game had a few flaws. One of the most serious was a lack of employees. There is an un-official patch witch corrects this but the patch can seriously bog down a slower computer. On my computer (Pentium 4, 3.20 Ghz.) the game is literally un-playable after a few hours with the patch in operation. The reason is that the patch simply provides an unending stream of employees which is too much for the computer to handle. Other problems with the game were minor. The lot is too small to build all that a player probably wants but a player can tear down buildings they don't use as often to build other ones. It is a bit "simmish", by that I mean the player is expected to provide a slew of comforts to the NPCs in the game and address their "needs".
The original game had most of the best features of a tycoon style game with the added feature of making movies you can view and share online. My complaint with the expansion, Stunts and Effects, is that it really added very little to the game. You now have stuntmen and your actors can perform their own stunts as well. You also have more effects you can add to your movies. So the movie making side of the game has been improved a little. The problem with employees has not been corrected. The studio lot has not been expanded so you will not have room for every building you may want and the expansion gives more buildings to try to place into the relatively small lot. A larger lot would have been better. If this has been an optional download then I would have nothing negative to say about it but I am disappointed in Lionhead for making this an expansion. For those who use this game to make movies and are not overly concerned about the building and managing side of the game, this may be a worthwhile purchase. For those who want to play a tycoon style game, this expansion adds very little for the cost. My opinion is that Lionhead should address some of the flaws of the game before they go about adding expansions. The studio lot is too small and the employees' problem should be fixed. A good expansion fixes any problems that patches missed and adds at least 50% more features and game playing time to a game. You're not quite purchasing a new game but you expect to add substantially to your old one. This expansion adds a little but misses the mark to justify its price.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
If you have the movies GET THIS EXPANSION, November 7, 2006
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
THE MOVIES works best with this accompanying expansion pack STUNTS and EFFECTS. Do not buy THE MOVIES game without it. It makes ones life far easier in creating their own custom movies as it includes "free camera movement." This mode allows one to take a single "scene" and do many creative things with it. I'm not sure how many people are playing the game, but if the message board at LionHead are any indication, a large number got THE MOVIES primarily for "sandbox" mode prinrily setup to create films bypassing much of the tycoon mode.
The game includes a fair amount of canned scenes sets and costumes and it's not hard to come up with something western, science fiction, modern or something else entirely. The canned scenes, two actors conversing or a guy in a chair smoking or two people whaling the living daylights out of each other plus maybe some 50 more can be combined together with voiceovers, subtitles and music to form very interesting stories. Head over to [...] and one can see how marvelous and inventive some of these moviemakers actually are.
There are limits and some users complain endlessly about them For example: the actors in the stock scenes cannot be moved around on the stage and only follow preset paths. But fortunately the " freecam mode" allows a variety of shots to be created from that one scene and strung together in a variety of creative ways that allows deviation from the preset view to make that scene fresh and exciting. One should also invest in a three button scroll mouse to get the most out of the freecam. Freecam can be "emulated " via the keyboard, but in my opinion, a "poor" emulation.
I started the game in 1920, then switched to sandbox but was overwhelmed by the sheer amounts of choices. I decided to go back into the tycoon game and edit the "scripts" that the game automatically generated for the movie shoots. These generated movies tend to be small, 3 scenes or so but once the custom script facility is obtained, provide fertile ground to manipulate and learn the basics of THE MOVIES filmmaking style without being flooded by too many choices.
Finished films can be uploaded to LionHead's site for viewing by others or shared on other websites as they can be readily viewed in Microsoft's Media Player.
Mods, that is, user added content, can be also supplement the supplied stock art---a low end modder can take a picture, scanned it in and place it as a backdrop for a stage to set up a different location, currently not in THE MOVIES maybe Paris, London or one's own personal corner of their apartment. An artist might seize upon this to place their artwork in the game and use it as a commercial for an upcoming art show or explain their piece, as a backdrop is flat and projects on a wall surface. High end modders have gone so far as to create entire sets from retextures or scratch and added additional props and costumes to the game, all available for download.
I've had problems with the copy protection scheme of the game, and unfortunately, this did not go away with the expansion STUNTS and EFFECTS. When I tried to run the game, I got the perennial message that read something like "DVD emulation software in use. Please disable any DVD emulation software before proceeding." Unwilling to take up any of the typical tech suggestions offered for this sort of a problem -reinstall video drivers, cd Rom drivers, directx, Windows, get bios updates replace CD drive, processor, motherboard computer etc, I got a "no cd" file for the game from one of the "no CD" sites and the game ran fine without further problems. If it weren't for these sites, I could not play the game.
5 stars minus- 1 for the showstopping copy protection issues (I'd give it 0 stars if it weren't for the "no cd" sites)
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Fun, but gets boring after a while, April 13, 2007
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
I agree with a lot of the reviews on this and the main game page. I think I spent more time playing it than most of the reviewers - long enough to figure out how to work around the various annoying quirks of the game play. My wish for future expansion packs or versions of the game would be to make the characters better looking and include year changes after the alien contact. I played the game well into the future and it got REALLY boring once the new outfits, radio, announcements, stars from other lots, etc stopped. It became a tedious routine of writing and making the movies, getting my stars to relax and interact, and releasing the flick in hopes that I'd get a high enough rating to get that last award and finish the game. Overall it's definitely worth the current price, and here's one reviewer patiently waiting for the next (and hopefully improved!) release.
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