One of the best PC Games of this year!
First off is the tycoon part of the game. It works the same as Roller Coaster Tycoon and things of that nature. You make a studio, progress through the years, and try to become the number 1 studio of all time. As you progress through time, new technologies and events happen, such as (*gasp*) color film, better sound quality. Events such as World War 2 and the rise of communism play a big part in this game, as each event raises public interest in a certain type of movie. If you make that type of movie, you'll make much more money in the box office.
In the tycoon mode, you have to manage "wannabes" that want to work at one of your studio's jobs: Star, Director, Extra, Janitor, Builder, Crew, and Script Writer. People will line outside the corresponding building and wait for you to put them to work. Some people have complained about the few number of applicants, but I never had this problem. While there is a limited number, it's only reasonable - if you could hire an unlimited number of workers, the game would lose any challenge it has. Making movies in tycoon mode is as easy as getting a writer to make you a script, assigning actors/director/etc., and waiting for it to be filmed. Through all this, you have to manage star's moods, which can be a little bit of a hassle, but let's face it - Stars in real life are a hassle anyways. Because of how hard it is to manage the stars, you should not make too many but that's not a problem as you will only want at maximum 2 or 3 movies filming at once - it gets way too tedious to have more then that filming. Anyways, the tycoon mode is very fun, easy at times, hard at others, but very rewarding, as you MUST play through story (tycoon) mode in order to unlock better/more props for the regular movie making mode in Sandbox Mode.
Lastly is movie making. This is an extremely powerful tool in itself. There are tons of scenes in The Movies, mixed in with several different sets and different mood sliders to make the movies you can make "limited only by your imagination." I believe this is true, as the first movie I made I was "wow'ed" by the enormous amount of scenes and customizations available. It is very easy to make a movie that you can show to your friends, or even upload on the internet for the view of people worldwide! I find that to be very rewarding, reading comments that people leave for your movies, and the good feeling you'll feel when you get good reviews, and the urge to work harder if you get bad reviews. All in all, the movie making tool is extremely powerful, fun, and very addictive to use.
While I was playing The Movies, time flew by very fast. I got the game around 2 pm, and before I knew it, it was already 1 am... few games have done that before.
I would recommend this game to ANYONE remotely interested in the following: Tycoon games, Sim-like games, and movie making. I think there is a part of this game for everyone, so go out and buy it!