The Movies Stunts & Effects review

The Movies is one of my favourite PC games of the last year as it offered the chance to make entertaining little scripts while messing around with the pleasing game mechanic. However over time I got bored with the regular game mainly due to the over-emphasis on micro=management.

There are two main problems with the managerial section of the game, one being there are too few human resources to call upon at any time (so people didn't flood to Hollywood to be actors?) and having to grind through a shoot where everyone was arguing or boozing all the time.

The Unknown Stuntman

If the game's shortage of people to recruit wasn't bad enough, the Stunts & Effects brings the added complication of integrating stuntmen into the mix. I have to say I like the way stuntmen have been used - particularly the movie references in their training facilities. Anyone who's seen Sparticus will recognise the physical training post where they have to duck under and jump over whirling swords.

Scriptwriters can now be ordered to write movies with stunts and effects in mind but the added complication does have an effect on the length of the movie making process. You can expect shoots to go on for a year and you'll need to make sure you have some regular revenue coming in to pay the bills.

Stunt Double

Casting a stunt movie allows the player to put stuntmen (and women) as doubles for your actors. When the movie unit comes to shoot a particular stunt it will then use the double rather than your actor. Using an expensive actor without a double in a stunt movie is fraught with danger – though admittedly it is quite funny watching your leading man break his leg in a building fall and have to spend weeks in the hospital.

The Stunts expansion doesn’t really improve the faults of the regular game nor does it make things any worse. I doubt most players really care that much though as The Movies is more popular for the actual custom movie creation. Crafting a great movie seems to have no bearing on success in the regular game and the expansion's many additions are more welcome when crafting a great film in the sandbox mode.

Crafting an Epic

Along with the many stunt and effect elements, which we'll come to in a little while, there are a few changes to the way you can make movies. Perhaps the biggest boon is that there is now a free-cam option. Budding directors can block their own shots now and even add a moving camera with a start and end point. Overlays are possible too such as night vision and binoculars.

The next logical step for Lionhead would be to give us the same freedom for the actors themselves as way too many scene options have continuity errors where it's hard to find a scene section that fits the next. That being said the free camera makes a big difference to the game and should result in some artistic flair on the game's community.

Set Dressing

The original game allowed the player to dress the set with all manner of interesting props. This useful feature was negated by the game's inability to save these dressed sets. So you'd have to redress the set for every shot of the movie. Quite a chore and one most people did without, making for lots of movies with bare sets.

Thankfully Stunts & Effects lets you save the set dressing now and this welcome change should result in adding more variety to the movies that can be created. With a little fair for detail it's possible to make sets look completely different and original even if starting with a fairly plain base.

Stunts & Effects

One of the most pleasing aspects of the original game was that it showed you how some of the tricks of the early cinema were achieved and took you behind the scenes of Hollywood. The moving vehicle set with its rolling backdrops and the wall climb set are both good examples of this.

Stunts & Effects takes this to the next level with some really neat additions. Perhaps my favourite is the miniature city. At the simplest level you can use it to set the scene to a regular move – but add a full size person in a monster suit and it becomes comedy gold.

Variety?

There's plenty to see and do making movies with the new items featured in the expansion. If explosions, alien invasions, car stunts and burning buildings are your thing then the game will help you become the next Michael Bay (God forbid!). There are some surprising omissions though. Given the success of movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean, Gladiator and Lord of the Rings there's a real lack of historic and fantasy sets.

Look at how popular Pirates are among net users. Surely there's a place for a big pirate ship battle set. And where are all the fantasy sets or historic settings? One might expect these kind of sets, costumes and scenes in an expansions of this kind. Yes you can make some interesting movies with the expansion but the omissions seem more obvious than some of the inclusions.

That's a Wrap

The Movies: Stunts & Effects expansion is a very welcome addition to the game. Many might say it is worth it for more manual control of the camera. However the worth of the add-on to you is going to be down to how you use the original game as a whole.

If you like managing the studio then the added complication might float your boat, though for me it just didn't change the core gameplay enough. It's just a shame that Lionhead has never managed to link the movie making to the management game in a meaningful way.

If you're someone who spends hours making movies with the game though the add-on is well worth you taking a look at. A bit more variety in the next expansion is warranted though as are some tweaks to the core gameplay.