Customer Reviews
Okay but I got bored with it quick 
2007-07-12
It's like The Sims, yet not. It didn't hold my attention like The Sims games do. Not knowing how to do certain things, not knowing which people have which skills (and from a distance, it's hard to tell who's who), not knowing who should go where and when, and them needing stuff while I'm trying to build something without knowing all the necessities for that type of building... well, it just left me want an update and more info and help.
Stay Away from this Pathetic Game 
2007-01-08
I bought this game just after Christmas. It stinks. This is not a good simulation game at all. Firstly, most computers won't be able to run this game. It installs poorly, has frequent crashes when trying to launch the game, and the customer service is non-existent.
The pathetic help menu is of no help at all, and the game offers you an opportunity, after crashing, to read the ReadMe File. Thanks...big help. Try the BiteMe File, instead.
Once the game is finally installed, you'll find it's a time-consuming bore. Micromanaging everything down to the characters' bathroom breaks is not at all fun, and you'll soon be very sorry you wasted your time, money, and enthusiasm on such a pathetic piece of software.
Keep looking for a fun, simulation business game. It's not here.
This Game Does Have Potential, But It Isn't The Best 2006-12-15
The game fun after the two weeks though you find out how limited you are. When you buy this game you want to make movies but you don't make the scenes the game does. It it hard to make a decent movie. The fun part is running the studio.
A good simulation game, quite addictive and humorous. 
2006-12-15
Hands down, the best and most innovative aspect of this game are the various radio stations that play throughout the game as the years go by. The simulation aspect isn't anything exceptional. It's fun and addictive, and not at the low-level as one of those random "tycoon" games that are spewed out, but it's not at the level of the top-of-the-line Sim games, either.
The best part of Movies is creating your own movie script and then adding dialogue. My friends and I spent more time on that feature than actually building up a movie theater. Often, movies we felt were of higher quality cinematic ally would flop in the game because we had many more scenes that were reasonable and thus the cost would increase greatly and our movie studio would be in the red. Thus, it was often better to use Sandbox mode to experiment creatively.
Overall this is a good game, but my dream game is a "Sim Theater" game where you run a theater and its operations. Sadly nothing has come to this level yet.
LittleOracle doesnt know what hes talking about 
2006-07-22
This guys review is a joke. He has not played this game enough to write a review. And yes the tutorial does explain everything, he obviously was not paying attention. Play this game foe 5 min. and you'll be addicted. I played this game for a month straight and didn't get tired of it; I mean literally played it for a month I slept like 7 hours and got right back on the computer playing. The point is, is that LittleOracle does not know what he is talking about. BUY THIS GAME!!!!!!
It's about the movies 2006-05-06
The Movies Premiere Edition (DVD) PC
Great sims like experience... 2006-03-25
With only a few words, I can say this game is fun, engagging, and well worth the price of admission. However, the only cons I can find are sometimes the advanced movie making techniques are a little linear and making the best studio in the world can be extremely difficult since making high quality films in the game all depends on what the game designers think high quality entials. Besides these little nit picks, this game is fun and when it comes down to it, that's all that matters.
Lights, Camera, Action 2006-03-20
Great Sim for setting up a movie studio and planning all the aspects of making a bona-fide movie.
Great, Fun Game....For Two Weeks 2006-03-15
Back in the early 90's Disney released an obscure little gem of a game called "Stunt Island". The point of that game was to become a movie director on a fictitious "stunt" island off the coast of California and make movies of intense stunts. After shooting the primary footage you would then dissect the film in editing and eventually add special effects and music to make your film more complete. Ultimately you could construct gigantic 20 minute epics in cinematic VGA glory. Disney's "Stunt Island" enjoys a small, but devoted cult following to this day for the immense amount of latitude it allowed the player in crafting thier own home-made cinematic marvels. Until now there has not been another game like it, or even one that bothered attempting giving a player a shot at making computer-movies.
The Movies is a great, fun, and addictive game. From the get-go you will be drawn into the game, incapable of pulling yourself away for hours at a time. You are basically given the task of studio owner/producer, and it is up to you to hire Directors, Actors, and a number of Extras and Crew. When you begin your movie business in the 1920's you have only a very limited number and type of sets, including basic Western locations, and a couple of Flash Gordon-stylized Sci-Fi set pieces with which to work on.
There are 6 categories of movies you can make; Sci-Fi, Horror, Comedy, Drama, Action, and Romance. The trick to making high-profit films in "The Movies" is to listen to the radio announcer spout off the headlines. World events such as wars will put Action films in high demand. The Great Depression in the 30's will put high emphasis on making Comedies, while the Cold War space race of the 50's and 60's will pay off for those wanting to produce Sci-Fi movies. Making movies that are not in demand will get you a *much* smaller profit, so watch the news ticker often!
The movies will hastily slap together short 30 second pieces for the public, and afterwards give critical reviews and show the income the movie has made (these computer made flicks make no sense when you view them, but the public doesn't seem to notice). As the game progresses you will get the ability to make your own movies (more on that later). Based upon how your movies do at the box office every 5 years an Academy-like Award ceremony is held and distributes prizes to different film companies based upon said films. Getting an award will give your studio a sort of "perk", for instance getting Best Film award will grant a nullification of all your actors whining and complaining, as well as any addictions they may have. Obviously something to shoot for since keeping a steadying hand on your actors is an *extremely* time-consuming process, which snowballs nicely into my first real problem with the game.
Dealing with the actors is just plain annoying. Things start out civil enough. After being hired (watch the stats on each potential actor closely, and always shoot for the ones that are most patient and have the highest resistance to addiction) actors and actresses can reliably be counted on to make several movies with no major problems, however after the 5 movie-count they begin systematically caterwauling about pay, living accomodations, the clothes they wear, how much time they get to spend practicing, etc. In addition it seems pre-ordained that each actor is going to sink deep into the miasma of addiction of one form or another at some point in their careers, be it food or booze. Giving your actors nice trailers to live in helps, but there's precious little that will stem the flow of whining you'll hear on a regular basis. And there will be times when you'll just want to fire the whole lot of them.
Back to the meat and potatoes of the game, which is producing the movies themselves. If the player wishes they can construct their own movies utilizing a wide variety of sets and costumes. Said player-made movies are essentially put-together by linking a series of pre-made "scenes" and sliding your actors into pre-determined roles within each scene. For instance, constructing a movie based around a simple car chase can involve selecting up to 20 pre-made scenarios and sliding your chosen actors into the right, or closest to right positions within each scene. Due to the limited amount of scenarios they have included in the game your home movies may appear fragmentary and occasionally filled with "bloopers" (characters change positions on the set, a character may start out holding a machine gun, and in the next scene may be holding a pistol instead, etc). This particular nuance of the game is very difficult to describe to someone who hasn't played, however there will be, I suspect, a lot of nods of agreement from people who have played regarding the problems I'm trying to describe.
The Premier Edition, which I am reviewing, only adds a couple of different costumes and hairstyles to the mix. Worth the extra few bucks? I would tend to say that any chance to add to this game is probably worth it, no matter how small. Remember, the more control/options you have at your disposal, the better your movies will be.
A serious ommission from the game is the ability to design your own scenarios or scenes, by placing characters onto sets where *you* want them to be, rather than predetermined by the game. This would fix a great deal of issues with making one's own movies. Another item that would have been extremely useful would be to have a model-shop, so that we could get exterior shots of all those fanciful Sci-Fi sets, see extra-vehicular combat that would bring the actor's actions more into focus. For instance, you can shoot a large number of scenes on a generic Star Trek bridge setting. The actors can have lots of dialog with each other, action sequences of them shooting each other, and even staged ship movement sequences as though the ship was just hit by a meteor or another ship (your generic Captain Kirk flying over a railing, after being "hit" by another ship). However because the program doesn't allow you to cut to an external scene of these actions the player must basically resort to method acting by the principals to bring about the idea of what is going on.
Once you've made a movie you like you can export it to Window's Media Player and send it to friends. I made several movies about my shy, soft-spoken librarian fiance in which she suddenly becomes a Kung-Fu hero, systematically wiping out a clan of giant Easter-colored chickens who stalk her from place to place, complete with music and special effects. Needless to say they were a huge, huge hit and were popular with her family especially. The game itself is great for home-made movies, but there is only a limited number of things one can do with the exisiting program.
The game is addictive (amazingly so) for the period of about 2-3 weeks, after which you'll simply have picked up the limitations of the game and will only occasionally play it. This is not irreparable, however. Activision can *easily* fix this by releasing an add-on game which would give players more control of scene setup and perhaps even a model shop (or CGI agency) where aerial dogfights, tank battles, and space battles could be designed and made. In addition some serious tweaking needs to be made to the Actor's behavior models as well. If you reduce their whining the overall gameplay and fun would increase dramatically.
Very, very fun game and a worthwhile experience, but it still needs some fixes on behavior patterns, and more player control needs to be added. Still, major kudos to Activision for having the guts to try a game as complex as this one is in the first place!
I was sooo excited and it flopped! I feel ripped off! 
2006-03-09
I feel like I got ripped off on this game. I was extremely excited when I bought it and thought the idea was really cool. Then it started glitching! I was very patient with all the bugs. It freezes constantly. If you are trying to make more than one movie at once, it freezes. If you are trying to watch your movie, it freezes. I called customer support and got sent to India. So I emailed and got 3 different sets of convoluted instructions on how to fix it. None of them worked. The other problem is that the game is essentially short. It only lasts for the hundred or so years of movie history. Once you surpass that (into the new millenium past 2005 or so), the dj's go away and there are no interesting history tidbits to try to adjust for. For all intents and purposes, the games literally ends there! You can keep playing and your stars will keep being ugly, demanding little snots requiring tons of micromanaging, but you don't have anything to aspire to anymore. TEDIOUS. Couldn't they have at least made something up for storylines after "now"? What with the bugs and the stupid design decisions, I spent more time angry at this game than anything else. DON'T buy it. I wouldn't have paid more than 10 bucks for it had I known it was going to run like it did. It is so full of glitches they never should have released it!
BTW- customer service hinted that the glitches were something wrong with my computer... MINE. All the research I did showed that other people with older computers than mine were having the same troubles. There is nothing wrong with my computer. What is wrong is that these people should have paid attention in computer design school or whatever it is they do to learn how to make these things!
I know this all seems scathing, but I think (rather like the dyson commercials say), that if you are going to pay good, hard earned money for something, you should expect it to work right.
THIS GAME DOESN'T. DON'T BUY IT.
