The Movies

Written by Troy Matsumiya  on October 31, 2005

Final Glimpse: Hooray for Hollywood! That screwy ballyhooey Hollywood!

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Have you ever thought you could do better than Spielberg, Scorsese and de Palma? Well, soon you'll have a chance to show those noobs a thing or two. Peter Molyneux and Lionhead Studios, the brilliant minds behind Black & White and Fable, are giving you the opportunity to run your own virtual movie studio and experience what it's like to live the Hollywood dream with the upcoming game, The Movies.

Blending elements of strategy and simulation, The Movies will let you manage and build your studio to become the best in the industry, manage your stars and crew members, and of course, make movies. The Movies will offer two gamemodes for all of you budding Hollywood producers out there: Campaign and Sandbox.

The УcampaignФ mode is where you build and manage your studio. You will start in the 1920s, right at the beginning of the movie industry. Working with a limited budget, you will build your studio from scratch by placing offices, sets and sound stages, casting studios and amenities like catering facilities and washrooms on your lot. It sounds complicated but the game helps you with pop-up menus, suggestions for the best building and pathway locations, and links to where a chosen character can be dropped off. In fact, one of the biggest goals in developing this game was to make things as user friendly and simple as possible for the player. Rather than have the player waste time trying to figure out what to do or get frustrated with nit-picky micromanagement tasks, the game will do much of the work for the player, allowing him or her to enjoy the game instead of struggling with the interface and mechanics of it all. For example, moving the cursor over an object or person pops up a balloon containing basic information about that selection; hold the cursor in place longer and more detailed information appears. Something as simple as this ensures the player won't be inundated with details, yet still have the information available if needed.

Once you place your buildings, you will have to make them look nice because the more attractive your studio, the more prestige you earn which in turn allows you to hire better talent. You will be able to add a wide variety of decorative items like fountains, trees, flowerbeds and so on. Don't forget to hire janitors to keep the place clean, along with builders to construct and maintain the sets, crew members to work behind the camera, writers to create scripts, directors to make your movies, and of course your biggest asset, the actors.

Okay, so you've got your studio and your talent. Time to make a movie, right? Well, not quite yet. First, you will have to create a script. You can create your own, or let the game make one for you by simply picking up a writer and dropping him off in the writer's building. When you drag someone over a building, the walls disappear and you are left with a floor plan divided up into various rooms. Dropping the character in a specific room causes them to perform that specific task; so for example you will be able to tell your writer to create something in the Western or Science Fiction genres simply by placing him in the appropriate room.

Once the script is complete, you will be able to select your director, stars and extras (the game will choose your crew members). Everyone will then start rehearsing, and when you're ready to finally begin shooting, you move over to a set. You can let the game make the movie for you, but most of us will probably want to make it ourselves.

Now, before you have dreams of creating the next Star Wars saga, be aware that you will not have unlimited freedom to do whatever you want. First, you will start in the 1920s, so at the beginning you will be restricted to making silent black and white films. As you progress through the game, you will eventually unlock new technology like sound, color, improved special effects and many other game features. Second, you will have to choose from a selection of pre-made scenes and string them together to create your movie. That may sound restrictive but there will be a massive catalog of scenes for your perusal; not only that, you will be able to alter scenes by changing character appearances, costumes, props, camera angles, lighting and adding special effects. You will also be able to change the action in the scene by using your Intensity slider; for example, reducing the slider could cause a character to quiver with fright while cranking it up could make them freak out in screaming hysterics. The slider can control things like the violence level in fights (ranging from a simple slap to a wild brawl) and how vehicles operate (cars could drive quietly down the street or careen dangerously around corners). Based on the surprisingly varied and impressive movies we've seen, gamers shouldn't have to worry about their creativity being shackled by pre-made scenes.

After principle photography is completed, you will go into post production to edit scenes and choose from a huge amount of music and voice-overs. You can even use your own soundtracks and record your own dialogue so your possibilities are endless. Cool!

Once your movie is completed, you will then be able to release it to the public. The game will then calculate a review rating for your movie, which is affected by the prestige and experience level of your studio, stars, writers, director and crew members. Needless to say, good reviews will cause the cash to come rolling in while bad ones will keep moviegoers away. But don't worry; even if you release a stinker, the game will ensure enough revenue is earned to let you continue playing. As an added consolation, the more movies you make, the more experience everyone earns, which in turn increases the chance of getting a good review. Heck, the game even has its own version of the Oscars, and winning an award will do wonders for your studio's prestige.

While gaining huge success has its benefits, it also has its problems as well. As in real life, your stars' egos will inflate with their growing fame and they will become increasingly more challenging to manage. They may demand a bigger trailer, start drinking too much, and even fight or sleep with other stars. You will have to keep them happy and deal with their vices in order for them to keep working, otherwise your dissatisfied stars could shut down production. You may need to buy them things like a fancy car, help them lose weight, send them to rehab, or even give them plastic surgery (the selections in the plastic surgery building are hilarious).

Fortunately, you will be able to adjust the stars personalities to try and make them more manageable and generate chemistry between each other. If they hate each other, they will be difficult to work with if you put them in the same movie together, but if they like each other, their onscreen chemistry will help increase your movie's rating. However, you will also run the risk that they may get into a relationship with each other and then go through a nasty breakup, which could affect future productions.

The game's Sandbox mode gets you right to the heart of the matter and lets you concentrate on making movies, and does away with the studio management and strategy portion. You will first create your dream studio and can turn off management options like bad actor behavior, leaving you free to focus on your creative efforts. However, you will still have to play campaign mode to unlock better technology and other features.

The Movies is single player only, but it does have one very cool online feature: you will be able to upload your movies to the official website for the entire world to see. Could true fame and fortune be far behind?