PC Title
Published by: Activision
Developed by: Lionhead Studios
Genre: Economic Simulation
Release Date:
US: October 24, 2005

Quote :

"The Movies Preview It's like the real thing, only with fake people... faker people. by Dan Adams August 18, 2005 - November isn't too far away. Folks that have been waiting for The Movies to release for the last hundred or so years can rejoice in the fact that Activision is saying "definitely November" to us at this point. Thankfully, the newest build shown today was looking very solid. Everything looked to be in and functioning, the visuals are still colorful and fun, and the movie maker is looking expansive. Every time we see the game, more has been added to the package and this occasion was no different. The first order of business in the preview was a quick look at the StarMaker feature for the game that allows players to customize the look and personalities of their stars, which you'll know are a huge part of the game. Those looking to make stars as soon as possible can pre-order the game and get the StarMaker program early as an extra. It's probably easiest to compare the StarMaker with The Sims 2 character building tool. There are some differences in presentation and features, but it allows a ton of customization of facial features and wardrobe allowing for a huge variety of characters. One of the big features unique to StarMaker is its ability to blend two different types of characters together into one using sliders to create a new character based on the looks of two others. Along with the visuals, players will be able to give their stars personalities to make them more interesting. It's certainly possible to make your characters as goodie two-shoes as you want (unhealthy traits are by no means a necessary inclusion) but where's the fun in that? A needy drunk with a penchant for having affairs with his co-stars sounds a bit more interesting to me. They're sure to mix things up a bit more on the lot at least. As shown in the demo today, some stars just won't get along for whatever reason. For instance, when the created Peter Molyneux star met up with the local lush for lunch, he couldn't stop making insults about the smelly drunk. Sticking both of those stars in a movie together might not be the best idea. The simulation will take into account the level of chemistry between the stars (among a thousand other things) in generating a rating for the movie. But like I mentioned, how crazy you make yours stars is really up to you. Those lazy and uncreative players that want no part of creating a character of their own don't have to, even though their friends will laugh and call them names. Any of the wannabe stars that queue up for hiring can be turned into full fledged cimematic heroes without any more work than clicking and dragging. That easy interface is something that Lionhead has paid special attention to. If you've played any recent Lionhead games or read any previews, you'll notice that studio head Peter Molyneux has been pretty up on clearing up the screen of interface to let players spend as much time in the gameworld as possible without having to wander through endless screens of buttons and graphs. It'll probably take a little while to get used to for some players, but I really like what they've done. Anything that is picked up in the world via clicking and holding over the object will have suggestion streams coming off of it that serve as basic guidelines to actions. After picking an object like an actor that actor can be placed in a bunch of locations. Hovering the cursor over a building will pop up a floor plan with different rooms with actions associated with them. For instance, if you want to send a drunken slob to rehab, just hover over the clinic and a room with the word "Rehab" will show up. Drop the actor in that room and he'll go through the works to get sober. Everything in the drag and drop interface is that easy. The second bit of the interface causes bubbles to pop up over objects the cursor is hovered over in order to get info about that object. More bubbles will pop up the longer the cursor is there to provide deeper information. It's an interesting system that really seems to work. We haven't had the opportunity to actually put our hands-on the game for any extended period of time however, so it's hard to tell if it'll be aggravating or helpful. The easy interface will two of the three main portions of play including the star management and business sim aspects. The Movies is at it's base just that, a business simulator. The game will start out with players inheriting an empty and dusty lot in the 1920s with nothing but the lot, a bit of cash, and a dream. From there, players will have to build up their lot by constructing administrative and recreational buildings, actor trailers, and elaborate sets. Each of these is placed like they would be in any other city building type game. Paths and decorations will also have to be placed in order to bring prestige to the studio. More items, sets, and technologies all have to be researched over time. Seeing as the game starts in the '20s, it's not exactly surprising that they don't have the latest special effects. Hell, they don't even have sound. Part of the race through time will be to be the first studio to put out new features in movies. People always want to see the latest and greatest, so you can imagine how people will love the first movie with sound. Of course, all the research in the world isn't going to completely pull a stinker of a script out of the midden heap. Just as with the rest of the game, players can take a hands-off approach to this by assigning script writers to bang out a hell of script based on your criteria like "quality" and other "things" that "people" like in their movies. The only thing you have to do is select the type of movie and then cast it later with the appropriate actors. Of course, if you want to take care of the script yourself, you can easily go into the manual script creation tool and work it over to the Nth degree. When entering script creation, a screen pops up that asks you to pick actors (or at least color coded dummies until you decide on actors), the genre of movie, and how complex you'd like it to be. From there, the fun really starts. Once a set has been picked to complete a sequence, a gigantic list of scenes can be chosen. These are all labeled based on what happens in the scene so you can get the basic idea quickly. Mousing over the scene pops up info about how good the scene is in comparison to others. For instance, when creating an action movie today, the set picked was in the subway and the scene picked was a fight scene. Once inside that fight scene, it can be changed around to suit your needs. The level of violence could be tampered with (from a slap fight to an all out rumble with headbutts and all) as well as the camera shots (which actually can change depending on your level of research). Props and weather effects (also need to be researched) can also be added easily. Small fires and smoke were added to the scene to make it look like the place was really going up in flames. The easiest thing about this process is that everything can simply be dragged and dropped within the editor. This includes actors and all of the props. Actors can also be dragged over to wardrobe to get the best look possible. There are a ton of costumes for this game. Hundreds. Each is set into a specific category that can then be changed around for different detail. The result is plenty of movies without the need for duplicated costumes without problem. This wardrobe is not to be confused with the one on the lot. That wardrobe is for the clothes of the actor outside of the studio for their image. After enough scenes have been put together into a script, the movie can then either be sent to the set for filming (it has to be in story mode) or can be instantly created (sandbox mode). From there, it can go into post-production. This is a low level editing tool that will allow gamers to place their own sound effects, subtitles (important for silent films), music, and voice-overs (better grab some friends) to create the final product. Scenes can be moved around in this editor and cut into smaller pieces as well so if you just want a small portion of a scene, you don't have to take the whole thing. After the movie is as good as it gets, it can be rendered into movie format so that you can view it, send it to friends, or upload it to The Movies website where it can be entered into contests or be judged by other players. "

9/27/2005 11:31:45 PM

Quote :

" After the movie has been created, it'll be sent out to the public and will hopefully make some money for the studio and generate more love for the characters starring in the film. Of course, if it sucks, your stars and studio will suffer. So what's the point? To create the best movie studio possible and become the number one studio in the world. Every three game years, an awards ceremony will roll around. The goal is to win awards for your movies and have your stars be as popular as possible. In between each of these three years will be additional goals. Completing these objectives will unlock items for sandbox mode (which only has technology up till the '50s to start) or cause the game to grant a reward in the form of money or prestige that allow complete happiness for your actors for a period of time. Story mode "ends" in 2005 when the Centenial Awards take place. At this point, your studio is judged next to the other NPC studios (which aren't physically present in the game) to see which studio was the best in the business. It's not a game you can technically lose, but you might not actually win either. After that, players can continue on with their studios, but that's no more technology will be available for research. The Movies is looking pretty darn good. Hopefully the ideas will be as fun in practice as they are in theory. We'll have to wait and see when we finally get our hands on the game ourselves. Remember to check out the new screens and movie and check back for more info as The Movies rolls towards its red carpet premiere sometime in November"

Not sure who reads the articles, so here's some stuff i thought was hot from the presentation

- The stars can get addicted to drugs, food, and alcohol. They'll get fat, get drunk, or get wasted, and journalist will take pictures and it's garner publicity (no publicity is bad publicity, however). From there you can send em to the gym to work it off, to rehab to get em clean, or to the plastic surgeon to get em lipo (can also get breast/pec implants, botox, all that to increase their career longevity)

- When you hover over building, they turn transparent into a floor plan with a name. I like this idea as it saves PC resources and keeps a smooth framerate.

- If you have a microphone, the characters in the game will lip-synch the voice

- You have full control over the movie, film as much or as little, make fights as weak or as violent (recreate that Peter Griffin/Chicken Fight) Make silent films, action films, black and white or technocolor, etc.

- It's hot

9/27/2005 11:38:20 PM

Videos of the game

http://media.pc.ign.com/media/482/482108/vids_1.html



































[Edited on September 27, 2005 at 11:43 PM. Reason : ]

9/27/2005 11:40:53 PM

Character I made with the Starmaker demo disc (which I'll be handing out at Campus Cinemas...if they let me)

I name him: Young Hova Old Hova

9/27/2005 11:42:22 PM

damn i want to buy that, when does it come out

9/28/2005 1:39:19 AM

End of this Month - October 24th is the official release date for the meantime

9/28/2005 8:17:10 AM

i'm sorry

what?

9/28/2005 9:17:52 AM

Basically it's Sims 2 cept you make Movies and not digital recreations of your life to make up for your sorry one

Its make by Lionhead (Black & White developer) so I think they can make a unique game well

9/28/2005 10:47:25 AM

How'd you get such a sweet gig, J_hova?

9/28/2005 11:01:31 AM

Wolfbytes TV + Skipping Class + Fruity Pebbles

Some would call it luck

I'd call it fate cause i'ma videogame dork that was looking for an intership

[Edited on September 28, 2005 at 11:03 AM. Reason : ]

9/28/2005 11:03:20 AM

1337

9/28/2005 11:09:35 AM

it looks like he's throwing that Hitman Agent out the window

videogame diss record

9/28/2005 11:11:46 AM

HES GONNA RIP INTO MASTER CHIEF NEXT
BIG BALLIN'

9/28/2005 11:13:58 AM

10/10/2005 7:43:42 PM

god i hate the Sims

10/12/2005 11:41:48 AM

Good thing this isnt the Sims

I
ll be doign movie trivia so you guys can have a chance to win the copy of the game, so be on the lookout

10/12/2005 12:09:52 PM

I'd be more interested, but I'm pretty sure my computer is too crappy to play the game

10/12/2005 12:14:53 PM

its not gonna be a system hog

When you drag over buldings, they turn into blueprints

a la



in order to save resources

One of the few ways their doing it

10/12/2005 12:16:38 PM

but can you direct porn?

10/12/2005 12:18:35 PM

hahah, that question came up, and the "answer" is no, just because that would kill the rating of the game

But i'm sure there will be mods out sooner or later

10/12/2005 12:22:09 PM

It looks pretty interesting. I think I miiiiiiiight get it.

10/12/2005 12:51:02 PM

Well, if my computer can handle the Sims 2, I'm guessing it should be able to handle the Movies.

I'm on the border as to whether I should buy it or not since I'm broke, but maybe I can "con"vince someone in my family to get it for me.

10/12/2005 12:55:49 PM

http://www.themoviesgame.com/

10/12/2005 2:30:40 PM

http://www.themoviesgame.com/scenemaker/

11/9/2005 2:19:16 PM

http://pc.ign.com/articles/665/665338p1.html

8.0 on IGN

Quote :

" The Movies is founded on some terrific ideas. Lionhead could very well have struck gold with this title considering the level of creativity for players (as well as whole families) and the amount of detail involved. The movie-making tools themselves are enough to recommend the game to creative players, but those looking for a hard-core tycoon game should probably look elsewhere. While the studio lots themselves can become wonderful places given the right attention, and stars can be fun to screw with, The Movies is worth your time for its creativity and the sheer fun of making movies."

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/movies/review.html

8.2 on Gamespot

Quote :

"This is a game of high quality, and it shows in virtually every aspect of its execution. Being a movie studio boss is completely absorbing, and there is really no other game, or, really, any piece of software that makes it as easy to build your own little movies. Its best qualities shine through more than enough to make The Movies a game well worth playing."

11/13/2005 6:46:33 PM