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We've been waiting for a year for the Mac version of this game to come out-it's great!
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This is truly a fun, charismatic, clever game --no complaints on that side of it. Only note: I also had a problem with the lip sync and import dialogue track functions. So just a heads up for those of you who were (like myself) planning to use the game primarily for it's advanced movie making mode to do short films, it MAY run funky.
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this game is a cute way to waste some time, but is not very challenging. i've read reviews that said that the real meat of the game is creating your own movies, but i found this to be a tiresome process, as you need to change costumes, etc. for each scene (there's no way to default to a specific costume for a character, etc.) dressing the sets, etc. is a similarly tiresome point-and-click process of scrolling through available props.
the gameplay makes sense, but waiting for movies to complete filming takes FOREVER. the scarce availability of staff means that it's difficult to have multiple projects going on at once, so you often find yourself twiddling your thumbs placing palm trees around your lot while waiting for movies to finish filming. similarly, processes such as rehearsing scripts and PR take a long time as well. while it doesn't necessarily interfere with game play when your star is in the cosmetic surgery building for a long time, it's frustrating to wait for PR to build up when the number of projects going at one time is limited to 2 at best.
staffing shortages are a nightmare. as the game progresses, it is RARE to find a new staff member waiting on the hiring line. anyone who's been within 2000 miles of hollywood knows that this isn't a reflection of the real thing!!!
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This game is a MUST HAVE for people who want to run a movie studio.... even though that might be a big dream. What you probably want to do is make movies. In that case you need to know that this game doesn't give you ABSOLUTE freedom, as I had thought, but instead has a lot of pre-rendered "scenes", that you can put together to make a movie. You can still do alot, just not everything.
But in the actual game mode, you don't really focus on even what your movies are about! You're too busy trying to run everything and keep your stars happy. Stuff gets out of hand really fast! What I loved about this game is that you start out thinking, "Ya sure, I could run a studio", and the game goes "ok", and just puts you there. And you're like "ummm, now what...?". lol. It teaches you a lesson!
Excellent game overall but you really do need a FAST system. I've got a Mac: Dual-2GH G5 Tower with 2.5GB of Ram, and I was still running into slow reaction times. :-( I guess if you've got the new Pentium Quad Mac.... But ya, like who does...
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For people who play a lot of business sims, The Movies comparatively low difficulty level may seem off-putting. I understand that the sandbox mode is this game's true bread and butter, but the possibility of multiple diffuclty settings for the game mode itself would've been a really nice touch. Unless you're really sloppy it's almost impossible to not end up the top studio in the game by the end of World War 2. And once you get there, it's really not that hard to remain there for the rest of the game.
But that's not what it's about, right? The reason people are willing to shell out full price for this game is not the game mode, it's to make your own movies. And if the PC version was passable in this regard, the Mac version truly shines. With full integration into the iLife series (though if you use copyrighted music off iTunes you can't upload your movie to the Lionhead site whether you had permission to use it or not) post-production has never been easier, and you have the possibility to make movies that PC users could only dream of.
One interesting sidenote for owners of the MacMini and Macbook systems. While the box clearly says "The Movies does not support GMA950 graphics cards with shared RAM", this is not strictly true. They may not officially support the card, but the game actually runs quite well on such a system, provided you have enough RAM.
And that to me was the most impressive thing about this game, the performance. With my CoreDuo Mini seemingly at or slightly below the system requirements stated on the box (though with 1 GB of RAM) the game performs absolutely spectacularly. While UB-patched games like Sims 2 require bare minimum settings and even then experience major slowdowns on my system, I was able to crank The Movies up to a healthy widescreen resolution with some nice effects and the game still never so much as hiccups during play.
It is truly a pleasure to play and if you're looking to play around at making some simple Machinema there is no cheaper or easier way to do so. And if you don't think you have machine enough to run it, do yourself a favor and download the demo: you might be pleasantly surprised at how well this runs on low end configurations.
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