I’ll be honest with you – I’m disappointed. I expected the new stunts features for Lionhead’s The Movies to be better implemented, more accessible, and frankly, more fun. Alas, for me at least, these things didn’t really materialise. We all know what makes a good expansion pack – they have been a staple of PC games money-making for several years now at least, and generally speaking we expect lots of generous new stuff, a sense of immediacy, and genuine leaps forward in terms of the gameplay of a title we’ve already played and enjoyed. Alas, unfortunately for us, the boys at Lionhead appear to have broken a few of the golden rules.
The basic premise behind Stunts & Effects is hinted at rather blatantly in its title, namely big advances in the number of features regarding the stunts and special effects you can bring to the silver-screen would-be masterpieces the game allows you to create. Whereas the scenes available in The Movies by default were arguably often quite dull, many of which were used extremely rarely or never at all, this expansion offers more convincing and useful explosions, gun battles, kung fu fights, and so on and so forth. Allowing these to happen requires other new features like new and more ambitious sets, stuntmen (obviously), equipment rigs, and more. The enormous cost of some of these features means that your films have to be more financially successful than before in the main campaign mode, putting on extra pressure which only experienced players of the parent game are likely to be able to master.
Every stunt is assigned a difficulty rating, and every stuntman has a condition and ability rating. Weighing up these factors is key to making a stunt go right, and when a stunt is pulled off efficiently, a film can benefit hugely at the all-important box office. Should a stunt go explosively wrong and your stuntman is injured, your film has a much higher likelihood of going down like a lead balloon laden with steel-reinforced concrete. This would seem fair enough, you might say – surely stunts can be re-attempted, merely taking more time, until your celluloid creation limps off the cutting-room floor? But no, the game dictates that instead, if your stunt goes wrong it inexplicably makes it to the final cut, where your unsuspecting audience are disgracefully conned out of their entry fee whilst watching Terrence McCheesegrater fall to a bone-crunching collision whilst trying to hop over a log. It’s all very well having little meters telling the player how likely this calamity is to happen, but when averting it means training your stuntman up in as arduous and time-consuming training sessions as actors needed in the parent game (and still do) it just feels downright annoying.
When they go right, the stunts are impressive. The explosions, smoke, muzzle flash, and old-fashioned man-gets-hit-by-wooden-plank gags are more attractively done than the previous scenes available. There is a generous spread of new sets and costumes, equipment and techniques on offer, too.
Stunts & Effects’ real problems stem from the unsolved ones from the game that spawned it. Micro-management of people’s desires was great fun in some games, but in The Movies it felt, and continues to feel, like some horrific genre-car-crash with The Sims. Minor niggles like being chastised for not putting down enough paving, and too many obstacles in the way of the point of the game, i.e. making films, are deeply unwelcome.
Die-hard fans of The Movies who genuinely enjoyed the main game despite its flaws may find some entertainment here, but those of you who don’t like fiddly micro-management or having to poke around for something interesting to do may think twice about handing over the ticket fee for this particular matinee showing.
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