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Genre: Sim

Format: DVD

Developer: Lionhead Studios

Mac Port: Robosoft Technologies

Mac Publisher: Feral Interactive

System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.4, 1.67GHz PowerPC, 512MB RAM, 32MB video card, 4GB free hard disk space

Review Computer: 2GHz 20" Intel Core Duo iMac, 1GB RAM, 256MB ATI Radeon X1600

Network Feature: No

Processor Compatibility: Universal

Price: $49.95

ESRB Rating: T

Availability: Out now

Official Website: movies.lionhead.com

Here's an admission: I'd rather be reviewing movies than Macintosh games. Movie reviews are much easier to write. Just look at Rotten Tomatoes and read some reviews by the people you've never heard of. Most of them are hacks, like me. I mean, how hard is it to watch a two hour movie and whip out a review in 45 minutes. Put in a couple clever insults, compare it to a weird indie film no one's heard of in an attempt to raise your credibility, and bam! You're making money. Can a job get any easier?

Yes. You could be a food critic. You don't even have to go out of your way to be a food critic; you don't have to set aside any extra time. You're going to eat anyway, may as well get paid to decide if you enjoyed the meal.

Video game reviews, on the other hand, take time. Plenty of time. Sure, some shareware titles need only be played for a half hour before you can write up a complete and fair review, but other games—your action, RPG and sim titles, for example—can take away 30 hours or more before you're really able to form an opinion. I mean, look at BloodRayne. A movie critic need only waste two hours of his life watching a movie that bad. I wasted ten times that much reviewing the game.

Now, here I am reviewing a game about movies. The Movies—developed by Lionhead Studios (of Black and White fame) and released for the Macintosh by Feral Interactive—puts you in charge of a major motion picture studio, and pretty much everything else that goes along with it. Hire actors, fire actors and send them to rehab. Assign directors to movies. Research new filmmaking technologies. Decide where on the lot to plant a tree. Determine whether there's more money to be made in comedies, romances or those things where second rate comedians dress up like fat women...I'm not sure into what genre those are supposed to fit.

Of course, the game starts with the basics. It's the 1920s, and you begin with nothing more than a lot full of dirt, a few actors and your dreams. Ah, Hollywood, you were so young. Build a set or two, get a director and a couple actors who's strengths match the type of film you're making, train some crew members, annnnnnd...cut! Your first movie's done. Money starts to come in despite the bad reviews, and things start to grow.

And boy, do they grow. More actors, more buildings, better technology, a larger crew, increased pressure, attitudes...it's a lot to manage. But, of course, that's what The Movies is. It's a strategy sim, and that means micromanagement. Plenty of micromanagement. Getting the right actor for a part is easy, but keeping said actor happy is not. As the movies start to make money, actors' demands increase. If their demands are met, they become unhappy, which translates to bad performances, which translates to poor box office. So, you give them makeovers, send them to rehab, whatever it takes. If they start to cost you more than they make you, you fire them and begin the search for the next young talent.

This part of the game is actually pretty fun, but perhaps only because of my malicious streak. In classic Sims-like fashion, I enjoyed watching my actors drive themselves to self destruction. I even fostered it at times, putting them in outfits they didn't like and assigning good roles to other actors. Bad for the studio, perhaps, but fun for me. What's a sim, after all, if you can't screw with the characters in it? I mean, there's a reason why you can destroy all you've done in Sim City with one giant robot attack, right? In fact, there should have been a giant robot in The Movies. Or even better, a bunch of sword fighting skeletons that break free from the special effects department and rampage across the studio lot. I've always said there's no movie ever made that couldn't benefit from a good sword fighting skeleton scene, and I can now safely apply that theory to computer games, as well.

Unfortunately, a lot of The Movies is mired down in finance management and building placement and other such nonsense. Whereas this type of micromanagement is welcome and necessary in games such as Zoo Tycoon and Age of Empires, it just gets in the way here. If The Movies can be considered a bridge between The Sims and the Tycoon style games, I would've liked to see it lean more towards The Sims, where shaping personalities and handling individual conflicts and goals are more important than making sure you're placing your actor's trailer close enough to the cafeteria.

But, if there's one thing Hollywood is good for, it's escape, and The Movies allows you to escape from itself. Why let the game make your movies for you, after all, when you can make your own? Create an advanced script studio, and you're presented with iMovie-like controls that allow you to drag storyboard elements into a timeline to create your own movie. Add dialogue, insert a soundtrack (from iTunes or GarageBand in the Macintosh version), edit it down (you can even use your iMovie transitions and effects), then export it to share with an entertainment hungry world. Feral includes Telestream's Flip4Mac Studio with the Movies so you can export to WMV, if you have to. A nice touch. Feral deserves their own Academy Award for taking this PC game and really integrating it into the Macintosh digital hub. Would that all Macintosh game publishers cared so much about their audience and had such a strong grasp of the Macintosh's strengths.

Anyway, the ability to craft your own movies isn't really that important to the game. Your studio can be just as successful—and often moreso—if you leave the moviemaking to the experts, but where's the fun in that? Although you never get complete control over your movies, working with the tools provided is still plenty of fun, and perhaps a bit more lifelike than developers even intended. I mean, how many Hollywood writers and directors actually get to see their vision on the silver screen without a bunch of outside interference and abuses of control?

Considering the layers of complexity this game introduces, you'll be thankful the tutorial goes into a good amount of depth (and the manual is well written, too). Still, I often found myself visiting websites that offered other tips and clarified some things, mainly because I refuse to ever spend money on a strategy guide.

If you're the type who only plays Roller Coaster Tycoon to build and ride the coasters, and not to figure out what to charge for a hot dog, you may grow tired of The Movies well before you can get to the good stuff. If, however, you can get through all of the micromanagement, fans of The Sims and creative-types in general will really enjoy what The Movies allows you to do.

And by all means, get those movies online. I plan to become the first critic of movies created strictly by video games. I mean, if Peter Travers can make a living...