Much like Lionhead's previous games, The Movies is a fun but lacking innovative adventure.
The game breathes new life into the tycoon genre that was pummelled into oblivion by budget developers ever since Roller Coaster Tycoon shook up the industry. The Movies puts you in the position of a Film Studio owner who has to run and manage his own studio. You need all the necessary buildings, such as Casting Offices, Writer's Buildings and sets. You are responsible for keeping your stars happy, hiring new and better stars while improving old favorites. You have to keep your place neat, tidy and still pump out profitable and critically successful films. Which can, as you'd imagine, be quite a handful. The game begins in the early century when film first became a big hit. You begin with silent, black and white films that are a mere minute long and as you progress so does technology and profitable genres.
The game gives you an option to make your own "script" which is basically shooting your own movie, once complete, you let the actors act it out and your creation gets sent out to the games critics. You can even post your creation online, a neat feature. The problem with this is the lack of creative control the game gives you. From the previews, I was always lead to believe that you could do basically anything you wanted to, light the sets as you saw fit, etc. Turns out, you have to pick shots from a list, a big list but sometimes it can be frustrating to find the one you want. There are some big restrictions with items the characters have as well as inconsistency in different shots in the same scene because you can't just place characters where you want, they have preset locations.
Some shots only allow you to shoot from one angle, others give you an option of usually three angles. The lighting sometimes gives you a choice of only three different intensities. There is typical bright light, dim light and foggy. That's all I have seen thus far.
The game does introduce an interesting timeline which gives news clips that influence the public's genre interest and gives you a nice glimpse of the future and what movies to make at what times. The timeline also shows you when scientific breakthroughs will occur and when the Movie Awards take place which can earn your studio reputation and bonuses.
The game pumps out some nice "The Sims" like graphics that are pretty cartoony but work for the light, fun atmosphere of the game. The game does'nt require a very powerful machine, thankfully, but with lots going on in the game, it would be a good idea not to run many applications in the background.
The sounds in the game are busy as you'd expect in a tycoon like game. The characters in the movies speak like Sims which speak a whole lot of non-sense. The other sounds in the movies are sometimes non-existent when there should be something there or are sometimes dull or boring. The in-movie sounds rarely wow you, though in the studio, there is enough to please the ear. From silly "whoa" or sucking sound effects when picking people and objects up to the lovely sound of cash when your movie is making big bucks. The soundtrack is pretty generic though.
While being an extremely good tycoon game, The Movies, like most Lionhead games, fails to deliver all of its promises. The Studio aspect of the game is fun, though sometimes difficult, but the Custom movie-making is lacking. I often got frustrated, bored and irritating when making my own movie. Which disappointed me because that was the biggest reason I bought the game. Never the less, the game has a fast paced tycoon spirit that is tough but quite a bit easier than expected from Lionhead. Tycoon freaks rejoice, your game is here. Everyone else, check it out just for the sake of it, it's decently fun.