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The Movies
by Cyrus Baetz
Wednesday, August 11 2004
The creator's of Black and White want to put you in the director's seat.
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Title:
The Movies
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Platform:
PC Windows
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Publisher:
Activision |
Developer:
Lionhead Studios |
#
of Players: 1 |
Genre:
Strategy
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Origin:
U.K
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Expected
Release:
Fall 2004 |
Grapevine:
Any self-respecting movie fan should hope with all their ticket stubs that The Movies will become a great video game. |
Close your eyes and visualize what would happen if you combined the best of both worlds: video games and movies. You may be inclined to envisage Enter the Matrix, but when you see The Movies, such a predisposition will be wiped clean and replaced with a different definition. In this case, it’s a game about producing films, not a game based on a film (like many a mediocre title before it). The game is shaping up to be a terrific feat on the developer’s end, breaking the boundaries of separate media and displaying the sheer entertainment that can result from a thoughtful assessment of unexplored territory.
Why has no developer attempted a full-fledged movie-making game before now? Perhaps because it would take so much time. To create an immersive experience and a game of this magnitude worth playing, a lot of ingenuity and effort must be involved. It appears Lionhead are just the right people for the job. While the game’s release date has yet to be specified, a late 2004 release seems plausible. Considering The Movies is so early in the development process, it has shown solid progress despite its lack of strong media attention or acknowledgement.
With any luck, The Movies will not be as simple or straightforward as it potentially could be. There are many novel gameplay mechanics that differentiate it from being a linear bore. Not to mention the absurd timeline – the game will begin during 1900, the silent era, and gradually bring us to the near future, 2010. The game consists of three essential in-game elements: constructing your studio, making your main men and women to star in your production, and in point of fact, piecing together your movie masterpiece.
The sets featured within the game will have plenty of details including crews, and props.
The process of the game all revolves around one central factor: money. The more you earn, the faster the game progresses and the sooner you will become the next big thing. Your success or failure in the virtual industry will depend on the player’s personal ability to wisely manage their currency. Borrowing its creation style from the likes of SimCity, players will be able to assemble a movie lot. Piece by piece, your studio will be formed.
There are many sub-factors contained within looking over your precious territory, such as a research lab that serves as a home base in which sets, outfits and new movie scenes can be accessed. Another aspect of the studio is how and what you research; you can formulate a well-rounded company with average specs in all departments – or, like George Lucas, could be famous for a specific type of filmmaking, such as sci-fi, comedy, or just flaunting astounding costumes in your movie ala The Last Samurai.
Pick-and-place is the basis for constructing your ultimate fantasy world, as you gain admittance to crucial rudiments in making it. The methods the player will use resemble RollerCoaster Tycoon, with a simple selection bar at the bottom of the screen containing all the fundamental options, and at the top right-hand corner of the screen are your funds and the current date.
Without the actors, we would have seen Peter Jackson play Frodo in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. As you can imagine, each person involved in making a film mustn’t wander outside their designated forte – the stars of the films being no exception. In The Movies, there are no real-life entertainers to pacify your reliance on licensed material in video games nowadays. In perspective, this should prove to be a good thing; it would probably be lame if Lionhead only had the rights to a bunch of B-list actors or even worse, a couple of widely popular ones, which would likely prove to wryly lack variety.
To give players a complete feeling of control, you create your own talent with a neat create-a-character function that may remind you of The Sims. Its total customizability, with almost every feature you could want put into the character creator. To put it simply, the player will customize their stars’ appearances, and give them names. Parallel to ‘identical cars minus the hood ornament’ in games like Midnight Club 2, with a bit of mental creativity you could easily make an actor or actress that bears a striking resemblance to their real-world counterparts.
When looking to hire a performer, it should be easy to pick up the nearest Joe Nobody – and even if you’ve hit a born star, the box office will likely yield lackluster payouts. However, in divergence to real life, a quick zoom around town will show top actors with a conduit of flowing money above their noggins, representing their high social stature. These are the people you must hire if you want a shot at calling the shots in town.
Perhaps the most satisfying, pleasurable aspect of the game will be watching the finished movie. Of course, movies don’t make themselves – and naturally, it’s your job to do so. It’s a straightforward process, but everything can and will be tailored to your needs. It is in this order: select a set, choose your stars, pick out their outfits, choose your scenes, adjust sliders, film the actual movie, and finally fine-tune audio and text.
In The Movies, almost every taste and genre of the silver screen will be covered. There are all sorts of sets to assure that you find the appropriate one for your movie, ranging from science-fiction to boppin’ beaches and even Big Ben for your Italian Job remake. Once you’ve selected your set, identify your stars. This point in the course of action is more important than you might think – if you choose a big comedy star to act in a thriller, and you probably will not be as successful as Jim Carrey was in his transition from one genre to another. However, if you pick a talented lesser known actor or actress, your movie won’t make opening weekend records, but as word spreads like wildfire it’s sure to take off in coming months. Last but not least, clothes are a necessity (well… not always), and the bigger the stars’ egos are, the more you’ll have to work to get them the garments they need.
Perhaps the most time-consuming aspect of making your movie would be perusing the long list of over 2,000 scenes The Movies has to offer. To give you a sense of direction on this epic quest, the scenes are listed under subcategories. For example, choose “fighting” and you’ll see bar brawls, knife fights, gun battles and many more. Naturally, some scenes can only be used in certain sets – it wouldn’t be right seeing a sword duel on a beach, right?
Once you’ve set these foundations, all that’s left before you film the movie is adjusting the sliders. This is a new feature not used this way in any other game, and here’s how it works: during the scene, you can adjust the intensity of a certain character’s action by moving the slider back and forth. For example, during a fighting scene, one could have two buddies pushing and shoving at the beginning of the slider, and at the other end mortal nemeses in full-blown wrestling. After the sliders are set, you can shoot the movie, and you’re all set for post-production. You simply adjust all the audio to your liking and add in any subtitles you may want to apply.
You will then watch your product rise or fall – but this doesn’t just depend on the amount of effort you poured into the development of your film, it’s truly about the thought you put into it. All the actions you take throughout (i.e. actors chosen, scene chemistry) will affect how well the public receives your creation.
The visuals are revamped from previous attempts in the genre of economic management. The colour palette is extremely diverse, and it’s early in the game too. It wouldn’t be fair to the player to have blocky characters and shoddy sets when the game revolves around movies, which are designed to appease the pupils. I have seen the game in full-motion; the movie studio assembly is looked at from a three-quarters view, but it still looks fairly sharp and vivid. The movies themselves are The Sims-cutscene reminiscent, but with more fluid animations and smooth character models.
In The Movies, surround sound probably won’t be utilized to full effect. Lionhead doesn’t have a huge opportunity to incorporate rich audio; if they layered constant dialogue, the game could potentially become a mess. Luckily, this isn’t the case – the occasional speech occurs, but usually the characters’ exaggerated motions are sufficient to relay the purpose of the scene to the player. Funky sound effects and appropriate music litter the movies, allowing them to be actually enjoyable instead of merely compensation for all the sweat and blood you will put into making it.
Any self-respecting movie fan should hope with all their ticket stubs that The Movies will become a great video game. It has many things going for it: character creation, editing tools galore, drool-worthy graphics, resonant sound, and most importantly – nonlinearity. With such varying predilections when it comes to movies, it needs to be made to order. Keep your eye on The Movies – it might serve up more than you’re prepared to stomach.
--- Kit
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