"After a few successful movies and the right research you’ll open up a new world of possibilities."

It might appear on first play that The Movies is pretty linear. You’ll only receive scripts with no real input other than selecting what genre’s the writers concentrate on (westerns, action, romance, Sci-Fi and comedies) and the actors that will star in the film. However after a few successful movies and the right research you’ll open up a new world of possibilities. Around ten years into the game new script writing offices are available to build, allowing you to totally take control on what you want the movie to be about. It’s in these new buildings that you finally get the real power to name the script, select the actors and their costumes and plan exactly what the film will be about. At first glance the whole process can seem bewildering given the level of control you now have at your fingertips but a well thought out tutorial kicks in and guides you through the basics.

The actor’s wardrobe available at the start is big enough, but throughout the game even more packages will open up and add even more clothes into the mix, this in itself allows you to make even more interesting movies and appease actors wanting a makeover. When you have finally unlocked all the available uniforms you’ll have a plethora of costumes at your disposal that would indeed rival Universal. Full marks must go to Lionhead for providing such varied choice in amounts that would take games like “The Sims” countless expansion packs to even come close to. In all fairness we do hope that Lionhead take this franchise seriously and release more additions to this licence in the future, but the amounts you can initially work with are outstanding and certainly generous.

Giving the actors an occasional makeover will calm most of your overpaid, spoilt actors but that won’t be enough for long. Squabbles between actors, lowly paid staff and extras are commonplace and it soon becomes apparent that to get the best from your staff you’ll need to pamper them at every opportunity. You can reward favourite actors with personal assistants, large changing rooms and even VIP access at your bars but in time favouritism will come at a cost. Some actors will not take well to seeing colleagues in superior caravans or getting the best roles. It’s up to you to make sure everyone gets treated fairly or you could see half your staff dropping tools and walking out, especially annoying during filming itself!