The Movies: Stunts & Effects Review

Somewhat ironically Lionhead's least hyped title of 2005 actually turned out to be one of their better offerings. Marking a return to the sim genre that Lionhead's Peter Molyneux virtually put on the map, The Movies rekindled the same level of enjoyment as the likes of Theme Park and Dungeon Keeper, challenging players to run a movie studio from 1920 to the present day but with the added dimension of players creating their very own movies.

Despite the awards and accolades (TVG Nov 05: 10/10), The Movies failed to ignite gamers passion in contrast to the typical glutton of movie adaptations and blockbuster action titles released around the Christmas period, failing to make a splash in the UK All-Format Top 20 chart. Plans to take the title to the consoles were quickly canned as Activision quickly lost confidence, though Lionhead were quick to counter such talk with claims that the consoles were still in the pipeline - a comment that TVG has since learnt to be way off the mark, signalling the final nail in the console coffin.

Struggling with big budgets and a lower then expected demand for key titles, Molyneux once again found himself under the safety of the corporate wing in April 2006, selling Lionhead Studios to Microsoft and presumably sealing the long-time fate of the Activision published franchise The Movies.

In the face of commercial adversity The Movies did, however, find strong support amongst a loyal group of fanatical followers, who were keen to support the community aspects of the game, uploading their own movies and supporting features such as The Prop Shop. To reward the dedication Lionhead have one final offering in the shape of the first (and presumably last) expansion pack for The Movies, in the shape of The Movies: Stunts & Effects.

Cramming your movies with enough explosions, falls, crashes and fires to make even Evel Knievel wince, The Movies: Stunts & Effects introduces several major new concepts, a large chunk of new content, several improvements and one major overhaul that will keep the fanatics making movies long into the future. The expansion fits seamlessly with the original game, allowing players to carry on saved games with the new features; start from the beginning or select the quick start option which commences from the 1960s.

Most of the focus is on the introduction of stuntmen which occurs during the 1960s, adding further fuel to your film's fire with stunt doubles leaping through windows, falling from buildings, emerging from smoking buildings and much more. Stunt skill and condition govern the capability of your stuntmen, which serve as doubles to your main actors, so you'll want to ensure their likeness is similar; however, the actors will carry out their own stunts, often with amusing consequences, if a stuntman isn't around. Stuntmen have been implemented into the overall game with the typical style and conviction that you'd expect from Lionhead, slotting in seamlessly and adding an extra dimension to a game that already offers so much. In a similar fashion to the rewards that govern progress through the main game, stuntmen have their own set of criteria to perform to, gaining bonuses from accomplishments such as successfully completing a particularly difficult stunt.

With stuntmen come several new buildings, such as training facilities to improve their skill and hospitals to improve their condition when stunts go wrong. Creating scripts that involve stunts is as simple as dropping a scriptwriter on the stunt icon in a certain genre, or designing your own stunts in the Advanced Movie Maker by choosing from a list based upon the overall difficulty. In the typical tradition that you'd expect from Lionhead, watching stunts go wrong is often a humorous occasion, as bones make a sickening crack and stunt doubles lie bandaged head-to-toe in the hospital - it's a shame there aren't any "Alright on the Night" style awards for when things go wrong.

Somewhat of an oxymoron given the decline of stunt work in light of CG in the real world, Stunts & Effects also adds a wide number of special fx techniques to dramatise the action. New particle effects add more conviction to fire, explosions, smoke and steam, whilst miniature sets help to create an epic sense of scale to your creations that was sadly missing before.

The two major introduction make Stunts & Effects an essential purchase for fans of The Movies, however, Lionhead have also thankfully seen fit to include a plethora of additional content in the shape of new scenes, sets, costumes and much, much more. Blue and Green screen sets open up a new level of freedom for the player to create scenes specifically to suit a purpose, though the option to include your own images as a backdrop would have been appreciated.

Arguably all of these introductions pale in significance to one of Stunt & Effects most noticeable features, putting total directorial duties into the hands of the player with an all-new Free-Cam option. Responding to the communities' demands the Free-Cam provides players the chance to put elaborate fly-bys, pans and zooms into every scene using extended first-person-shooter controls to set start and end positions.

Finally Lionhead have tidied up a handful of niggles from the original that streamline the experience even further. Players can now watch the film in its entirety via the Advanced Movie-Maker along with further plot construction options on the timeline; age and weight options are amongst a number of improvements to the makeover screen along with a more accessible prop system.

If there were any areas that could be criticised then it would have been nice to see further options and scope for the player in the Post Production office, where scenes are trimmed, along with the inclusion of music, sound effects and dialogue; although you wouldn't want the depth of something like Adobe Premiere, you're often left wanting for that little bit more to turn your creation from middle-of-the-road into a masterpiece.