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Rating: T for Teen
Summary: You are a young but rising movie industry in the year 1930 at the beginning of all movie creation. First, build up your studio. Then, hire some stars and start making movies! Well, it doesn't work that fast (unless you WANT to make really crappy movies). If you are into making good quality movies you'll win awards and hopefully find yourself on top of all the other movie industries. As you move through time you unlock to new buildings, technology, and costumes.
Graphics: Oh God damn! Why did they put so much detail into everything!? WHY!? 5/5
Smoothness: Maybe it's a little too detailed... You need a computer more beastly than my own to run a game like this smoothly. 4/5
Camera angles: The camera is a mix between Black & White and Command & Conquer: Generals. You overlook the world like a God (and you can pick people up too) with full camera spinning capabilities, but you can also zoom in and feel like you're walking among the mortals. My only complaint would be that it's hard to find buildings. 5/5
Sound: Nothing much to say here. 5/5
Voices: Very understandable. There's not very many different voices in the game though. 4/5
Music: Pretty good. 5/5
Characters: Most of the people you hire to be your stars have some kind of problem like they get bored or stressed out easily or they like food or boxes of wine. All these problems are treatable though. You are given a hospital (for plastic surgery and liposuction), a place that gives make overs, and the rehab. It's also quite easy to get a star unstressed if you simply put them in the VIP section of the restraunt and let them gorge themselves. Sure it's not a very heathy way of dealing with stress, but it works if you just want your actor to behave, so you can make some moola... I mean movies. If you're constantly having your script writters write and constantly shooting movies I doubt your stars are going to get bored. I've never seen "easily bored" as a bad thing. Don't expect any deep storlines behind any of the characters. If anything they're a newbie, or they came from another movie studio. Once again all the women seem to have one voice and all the men have one voice, and their way of talking is mumbling incoherently or saying "That's a wrap!" really loudly. 4/5
Controls: In this studio the only thing you need is a mouse. Sound complicated? It's not. You can make your own movies, make your actors happy (or pissed off), and build up your studio very easily. 5/5
Glitch count: The only glitches I noticed were in post production and the advanced movie maker. In post production if you try to skip ahead in the movie or go back by clicking of the timeline while the movie is playing your probably going to confuse the sounds and the video. It's not going to freeze up your computer or cause it to self destruct though. In the advanced movie maker if your sliding the timeline back and forth and you stop right on top of a sound cue that sound will play over and over and over again until you move off of it. It's not that serious of a problem. Neither of these glitches are very serious unless your a major video editing geek like I am. Then, the post production tools just don't cut it, period, so it doesn't really matter if there's a glitch or not. 5/5
Fun: When you're addicted your addicted, but once you realize what you've been doing for the past five hours your like "Why the fuck is this so addicting!?" then, the game will remain idol for months at a time. Once you start again you're addicted again. It's a vicious cycle. 4/5
Things liked: I haven't seen anything like this game since 1995. The game similar to this one back then was called 3D Movie Maker. Yeah, Peter Molyneux wasn't the first one to come up with the idea of a movie making video game. In several ways 3D Movie Maker was more open ended than this game but because of the technology we have today I can't help but like The Movies more. In 3DMM you could record your own voice into your movies but only for ten seconds at a time. In this game you can record your voice into your movies for as long as you want and then lip sync what your saying to a character on the scene. Lip syncing is one of the most interesting things I've come across in this game. When you install the game onto your computer it creates a folder of folders that holds your saved games. In other folders you can put graphics, music, and sounds into them and use them in the game. They don't have to be just wav files either. You can take music off a ripped CD and put it in your movies. 3DMM was definitly a limited game with just using wav files. The Movies also can export your movies as Windows Media files, so you can share them with other people without having to load up the game. Speaking of sharing them with other people, there's a website where you can upload your movies to if your registered and all that crap. I'm sure these two features were uncomprihendable to the creators of 3DMM.
Things not liked: Like The Sims games and 3D Movie Maker don't expect many up to date fashion or hair doos. Maybe it's just me, but I can't find anything that looks cool in any sim game... EVER. Then again, I have no sense of style anyway. Every scene you decide to use in a movie has a number of events that can happen in that scene. If you want someone to get shot in that scene for instance that event has to exist in that scene in order for it to happen. Most of the time there is only one camera angle per event too. Many events happen in every scene though so the only problem most people would have is finding that event.
It might not bother most people but for someone who played a game as open ended as 3DMM growing up The Movies just seems to be a tad bit more limited. In 3DMM you could move the characters anywhere you wanted to (they could be flying too). The characters could do anything, anywhere, anytime. There were fewer scenes but more camera angles per scene. There were no events you selected. You placed down the characters then selected an action you wanted them to preform (like crawling). The interface on 3DMM was much harder to use though and I'm surprised I figured out how to use it at all especially at the age I was at. There are some things that I never did figure out though like putting in subtitles. The Movies definitedly exceeds 3DMM with its interface.
Also, the post production. Just imagine a video editing program worse than Windows Movie Maker. Yeah, the video editor is okay, but what if I don't want to play one song through the whole movie? What if I wanted to cut it somewhere and play a different one? Come on! There's more to movies than just the video! Sound editing tools, people!
Overall: I did say I liked this game more than 3D Movie Maker, but I'm surprised at how close a 1995 game is to beating this one. Most people would say I'm crazy and heartless for saying such a thing, but I just wanted to see a great 1995 game be reborn through The Movies. The Movies has some great technology in it, and it's unique. Once I think up some movie ideas I'm sure I'll be making movies with this game like I was with 3DMM when I was a kid. I can't lie. It's a great game even if it came a little short of my expectations. 4/5
Sequel: They made a sequel for The Sims. Who knows? Maybe one days there'll be a sequel to The Movies.
Rating: M for Mature
Summary: You play the character of the Master Chief. You are "woken up" to fight teh evil Covenant aliens just before they invade the base. Convienent, yes? You come across Halo... a giant halo. Humans and Covenant believe that whoever controls this Halo with the Icon will be ruler of the universe or some such. An annoying flying robot thing called the Oracle (in the second game at least) tells you where to find this sacred Icon as you fight off hordes of another alien spieces called Flood. You little holographic girlfriend, Cortana, finds out what the Halo really does which is destroy Flood and to do that you have to kill off their food supply which is humans and Covenant. To keep the Halo from being activated you must destroy it. I know this summary might be off, but I did a better job that I did with Halo 2!
Graphics: Un-Halo-2-like. 4/5
Smoothness: When there are a lot of enemies around (which happens a lot) the frame rate goes way down. 4/5
Camera Angles: It's a first person shooter. If you can't see something, it's your own damn fault. 5/5
Sound: Good. 5/5
Voices: The voices are good when you can hear them. There are times when the sound drowns out the voices. 4/5
Music: Not as good as Halo 2. I miss those guitars, but still pretty good. 5/5
Characters: The few characters that the game focuses on (the Master Chief, Cortana, and the Oracle) aren't really developed well in my opinion. What's up with the Master Chief? Do they just have some dude laying around in hibernation all the time? And Cortana is like a portable computer with feelings for some reason and on the second game she looks so much like another girl who gives the Master Chief orders too. What does the Oracle have to gain by killing all humans and Covanant? Is he like, "Yay! Now I can watch my sentinals fight Flood for a long time until they all die off! Then, I will be alone... Yay... I guess." Still they're pretty well developed compared to most FPS. 5/5
Controls: They're pretty simple and a little customizable too. 5/5
Glitch count: Getting out of a car and being crushed isn't very fun. I can't think of anything else. 5/5
Fun: Personally, I liked the second one better. All the other hard core Halo players I listened to though said that this one was better. I just think this way because the second one was easier, and it's major weapon for making the game challenging wasn't infinite enemies. I found this game very frusterating because of that. 3/5
Things liked: I kind of like only being able to hold one weapon at a time. Then, your not constantly having to decide to go with two weapons or with a weapon and a grenade. I can't think of anything else I really liked.
Things not liked: I don't like driving vehicals. They're sliding all over the place. What kind of vehical does that? Also, I didn't like not being able to highjack vehicals. It's nearly impossible to blow up an alien tank with a ghost and a couple frag grenades, yo. I also don't like the Flood. If they're just in a big group they're find, but when you have an infinite amount of enemies coming at you it's just not fun anymore. Infinite amounts of enemies should be used sparingly if at all. Infinite enemies isn't the only thing you can do to make an fps challenging.
Overall: I say nay. 3/5
Sequel: Well, of course there's Halo 2. Go to Reviews 3 for the review.
Rating: T for Teen
Summary: You play as EX-Soldier Cloud who now works for a terrorist group called Avalanch. Their goal is to save the planet from the evil of harvesting mako, an energy source that is the life of the planet. Barret, Tifa, Cloud, and the other members of Avalanch find out that there is a lot more to saving the planet than blowing up mako reactors especially when there is an insane enemy named Sephiroth who wants to blow up the planet to please his mother, Jenova.
Graphics: I read on the back of the CD case that they were good for their time. I wasn't too pleased with them but what the helk. 5/5
Smoothness: When you're in a battle and your facing a whole bunch of enemies the game appears to be going in slow motion rather than being all skippy and stupid. The same thing happens when the camera is moving and you are moving your character at the same time. 4/5
Camera angles: There is only one camera angle for most areas and you can see almost everything. Anything you can't see you can't really walk into or it works as a puzzle like thing. Sometimes you can't go in some direction because there's something in your way that you can't see because it's blending into the wall behind you, but overall, the camera angles are pretty good. 5/5
Sound: The sound is made up of beeps and boops but I like them. There's something horribly entertaining about them especially during slap fights onto of giant guns. 5/5
Voices: There are no voices. N/A
Music: I love the music in this game! It was even better when they added electric guitars in Advent Children. 5/5
Characters: There is a lot of character development is in this game. A lot! At least a third of the second disc was on reavling Cloud's past and a chunk of the first disc as well. You can sympathize with them and say "Dude, that dude is awesome!" 5/5
Controls: They're pretty easy once you get used to them. Instead of the X button being the selection button it's the O button. Then, you have to relearn that X is the selection button when you start playing a different game like I did. 5/5
Glitch count: Glitches... glitches... glitches... hmm... I can't think of any at the moment. 5/5
Fun: Goddamn! Even cut scenes are fun! 5/5
Things liked: I like the storyline. I like all the things that you can do in this game: snowboarding, motorcycling, squat dueling, slapping, escaping from handcuffs. I also like how Cloud is an insane loser (you'll find out if you've never played it). He's so cool! I like how you can name you're characters. I named all mine after weird animals (Kinkajou, Ferret, Wombat, Glider, Sky Fish, Meerkat, Coon). I've said this once, and I'll say it again. I love the music in this game!
Things not liked: I don't really like Aries. That's about it.
Overall: I can see why it was called "Quite possibly the best game ever made." Loved it! 5/5
Sequel: There's a Final Fantasy XII at this point, but Cloud and the gang haven't appeared in any of them besides FFVII. There's Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts 2 which is a mishmash of Disney characters and Final Fantasy VII characters. The only thing I have to say to KH games is "What the FUCK was Square Enix thinking?!" Not touching 'em. There's Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children which is a movie based on the Final Fantasy VII game. Along with that is an anime called Before Crisis featuring various parts before the game, from the game, and after the game. There is also going to be a Final Fantasy VII remake on the Playstation 3. It looks awesome, but I don't think I have the monies. Finally, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII just came out. In this game you play as Vincent, and it's a first person shooter. The graphics are worthy of the movie, but I've heard some people calling it a love/hate game. It looks cool, but once again, I don't know if I have the monies. Wow! That's a whole lot of sequels! Wait, there's one more. Ehrgeiz for the Playstation is a rare fighting game made by Square Enix. You can play as Cloud, Zack, Sephiroth, Tifa, Red XIII, Vincent, and Yuffie. Some characters you need to unlock, but some are starter characters.
Rating: E for Everyone
Summary: You play as Spyro, of course. He is a young dragon who was the only one spared from Gnasty's Gnork's evil. By that I mean turning all the other dragons into crystal, stealing all the dragon eggs, and stealing all the treasure. Gasp! How evil! You're job is to reclaim the treasure, the dragon eggs, and free the dragon. Oh yeah, there's ass kicking too. You get a little friend though named Sparx. He is a dragonfly and takes the beating for you most of the time.
Graphics: This game was released a year after Final Fantasy VII and it shows. 5/5
Smoothness: I can't remember a time that the game was all skippy and stupid. 5/5
Camera angles: The camera is horrible! It's either a hyperactive camera that loves to look at your back or a lazy camera that just sits there and only after a long while will it move. The camera gets stuck on everything. If you have you're back to a wall it will see you from the side and you will not be able to press the triangle button to look around either. The camera is also kind of sickening to those who get motion sickness easy. 3/5
Sound: The sound is even more beepy and boopy in this game than Final Fantasy VII and it's not nearly as entertaining. Still it's there. 5/5
Voices: There are lots of voices, and they're pretty understandable in my book. 5/5
Music: There's lots of music. It was nowhere near as good as Final Fantasy VII but again, it was there. 5/5
Characters: There's absolutly no character development. Out of the 80 dragons you see you only hear a few words from each and that's it. And the monsters! Why are they so stupid!? Well, I must remember that I am no longer playing an RPG, and I'm not playing Half-Life 2 either (where the monsters are crazy). I'm playing a kitty game where the only thing you need to know is that you're playing as Spyro the kid dragon, and you're enemy is Gnasty Gnork. 4/5
Controls: Simple. 5/5
Glitch count: Sometimes you can see treasure through the floor if it's a step below you. Uh... can't remember anything else. 5/5
Fun: It's challenging enough to keep you playing but not enough to scare you off either. It's doesn't get really hard until Gnasty Gnork's world though. Yeah, it's pretty fun. 4/5
Things liked: I like collecting everything as I go through the lands.
Things not liked: Nothing really stands out.
Overall: It was an okay game. Not ground breaking. Nothing seems ground breaking after FFVII. 4/5
Sequel: I haven't kept track of Spyro that much. I know there are other games for Playstation 1 and 2, but I don't know the names of any of them.
Rating: Playstation - K-A for Kids to Adults, PC - E for Everyone
Summary: According to the Official Strategy Guide before you come to the world of Myst you were looking for a book on photography but came across "Myst" instead. Upon touching a moving picture in the back of the book you are transported to this island. You spend the game exploring this island and four other ages: the "Stoneship Age," the "Mechanical Age," the "Selenitic Age," and the "Channelwood Age." During your travels you learn about Atrus and his two sons Achenar and Sirus. Atrus is a writer who wrote all of the books in the library on Myst Island. You find most of his books destroyed. One of his sons burned them. Both of them are now trapped in the "Red" and "Blue" books. You must decide who is guilty of the crime.
Graphics: The graphics are excellent for it's time. Think Half-life 2 graphics in 1995. This is a picture by picture game though. You do not move freely around the world. The picture quality is brought down a bit since you play the game in 256 colors. Remember computers back then weren't as fast as Windows XP. 5/5
Smoothness: It's as smooth as a picture by picture game can be. Playing this game on the computers of today you can move through the game pretty quickly without much loading time. Playing this game on Playstation is a different story. There's is lots of loading which makes it a lot longer game. Playstation has a lot more transitions between pictures so you're not just snapping through the game like on the PC. 4/5
Camera Angles: The set places you can look at through throughout the game show you everything you need to see. Also, since it's kind of like a first person shooter, it's your own damn fault if you can't see something. On PC especially, though, it can get confusing as to where you are especially in the Channelwood Age since a lot of the screens look the same. Playstation makes it a little less confusing with it's transitions so you can tell it you just turned or if you moved forward. 4/5
Sound: The sounds are mostly made up of simple clicks and squeaks. There's are birds chirping, wind blowing, and bubbles at some points too. On the PC the sounds interfere with the music and with other sounds. The sound is off on both the PC and the Playstation since the sound loads before the Quicktime movie does. 3/5
Voices: Achenar and Sirus' voices are normally over static so sometimes it's ment that you don't hear parts of what they're saying. Sometimes the actors don't speak clearly enough or there voices trail off too much so you can't catch enough of a word that you don't understand what they said. 4/5
Music: The team normally wasn't going to have any music in the game but when they found out that music didn't have to be all Mario-like they decided to put some in the game. The music is mysterious and dark sounding during the few seconds it's played at one time during the game. The problem is on computer the music will only play in one or two rooms, but you're normally zooming right through those rooms knowing how fast the computers of today go. I'm sure this wasn't a problem in the old days though. On the Playstation it's takes a little for the music to load and by the time it does you'll probably be heading out the room already. The Playstation with it's transition craziness has a little problem when it's fading out the music. It will fade out come right back up then turn off. Not to mention the problem with sound interference on the PC. 3/5
Characters: There are only four characters in the game (including you) and they are all men. I have a feeling some characters are played by the same person too. A little bit of trivia here. All the characters were played by members of the ten person team. This game was made in a two story garage. The characters are pretty well developed if you care to look at Achenar's and Sirus' room or read Atrus' few surviving books. Families were ment to look the same anyway. 4/5
Controls: You move through the world by pointing and clicking on certain parts of the screen. As you can imagine this is a little more complicated on the Playstation without a mouse. Normally the mouse will change to point sideways when you can turn or turn into an open palm when you can grab something. This makes navigation easier when you have a computer that works well with Quicktime. I played this game on two computers on one computer Quicktime 7.0 was installed a little too well so I wasn't able to install the 32 bit version provided with the disc. The game didn't work very well so the hand was always in the form of pointing up. A little hard to navigate. Sometimes when you want to press a small button or zoom up on a small device you end up doing something different (like walking past it or backing up). Also when you're hold a page it's hard to tell what you're over (making it hard to press small buttons again). A little more on Quicktime. I'm pretty sure the only way I got this game to work at all on either of my Windows XPs was because one of my computers didn't have Quicktime installed very well. I'm not sure if this game would work very well on your average computer of today (that isn't full of Spyware and Viruses). 3/5
Glitch count: Even when I played this game a long time ago on a Windows 95 and a Windows ME I had this same problem. Sometimes the game would come up with all the colors all crazy and weird. I also can't remember a time when the imager on the ship dock worked properly on the PC. Of course Playstation in it's perfect little world doesn't have any of these problems. 4/5
Fun: It's probably more fun if you solve all the puzzles on your own without the strategy guide. It's very possible to figure them all out on your own, but really, who today would be entertained by games like this in our society? This game is based around books as well. There are four books in the library that you can read in an hour or two. I don't know a gamer who would want to read for an hour or two on a video game except me (I like books). The quicktime movies of Arkenar and Sirus telling you to do stuff in their books are way too long! Way too long! I don't want to watch two minutes of static! 2/5
Things liked: I like the books in the library. They're pretty interesting. I like solving the pipe puzzle at Channelwood. That's the only puzzle I figured out on my own. I like the unique idea of the game. What other game is based around books?
Things not liked: I don't like the controls. At all... Even when you can see where you click to turn or walk forward there needs to be more forms that the mouse takes so you can tell when you can press a button. I also hate listening to my Playstation grinding away at the disc trying to get to places as fast as it can.
Overall: The game is a unique one, and the graphics are awesome. The sounds a little off, but that's the only downside... if this were 1995. In today's society this game just doesn't work very well anymore in technial and game interest terms. I'm not sure if Quicktime really handles games anymore. If you're an oldschool gamer and a bookworm this is a game for you but for everyone else I don't really recommend it. 2/5
Sequel: I know there's a Riven and a Myst 2. There might be more. I haven't really kept up on this game either much like Spyro. I do have several other puzzle games like this that were made after Myst. They are not based on the Myst story though, and they are much, much harder. Sometimes I wonder how someone could beat those games on their own.
The Strategy Guide: The strategy guide is one of the most interesting guides I've ever seen (then again it's the only guide I own). The first part of the book is written like a journal and tells you how to find out how to solve the puzzles. Later of course it solves them for you, but it lets you know that this game isn't impossible to figure out on your own. The second part of the book is a quickguide that tells you exactly what to do with no extra words put in. The last part of the book is an interview with the two brothers that created the game.
Last Update: 2-24-07
Created by: Emily Palmieri