The Movies was definitely one of the most novel games I’ve seen released over the last couple of years, primarily as it brought back waves of nostalgia from my pre-historic days with 3D Movie Maker, except combined with a real-time management setup one would expect from The Sims or Rollercoaster Tycoon. However, the game in itself was lacking some elements – in particular, the custom movie-making aspect was somewhat crippled by the pre-canned animation and script sets which basically meant that while you could insert custom actors and props into scenes, the actual motions and locations were hard-coded and in most cases couldn’t be changed (for example, if you choose a scene where a group of people burst in through a door, you couldn’t choose WHICH door exactly) – so while this led to much more detailed-looking animations, the inability to choose location would mean you’d end up with awkward scenes of combat in one corner of the room, then one of these people running through a death animation in a totally different area. The game also enforced a great deal of micro-management upon the player in terms of handling the employment of your actors and directors and their respective relationships – so the question lingers: Would an expansion pack serve to address these small issues, or instead find ways to expand the insanity further? Read on to see how the following analysis of The Movies: Stunts & Effects actually accomplishes a little of both.

To begin with, there are primarily two major features added by this expansion pack: Stunts, and a free-camera mode. I’ll go into the most interesting addition first – the free-camera mode allows players to set up their own custom camera angles for a given scene, rather than having to rely on the pre-scripted options. Adjustments can be made to the camera’s field of vision, and by using the WASD and mouse inputs an exact angle can be set up. Once established, simply “mark” the position, then optionally a second angle can be set up for the camera to shift between. This system works pretty well for plotting out basic scenes at your own unique angles, but I found it generally lacked the flexibility to put together a scene with some of the somewhat more advanced camera angles and cuts used by default in many of the pre-built scripts. A novel addition regardless however which can add some better creativity to the fan-based movies out there.

Secondly, and more importantly, are the “Stunts” and their respective Stunt-actors. Stunts & Effects has the benefit of adding several new scenes to each set, specifically in terms of wacky (and often incredibly dangerous) stunts which often prove to be the perfect round-off for movies of just about any genre. This in turn results in three new types of buildings: a Stunt School, Stunt Training Facilities, and the Hospital (an obvious requirement for any movie requiring people to hurl themselves out of multi-story buildings). After these are in place, new icons will appear in the script-writing facilities – players can either drag-and-drop in the usual area to write a standard script, or use a new icon in the corner of each genre slot to request a stunt-oriented script instead. Once appropriate stunt-men are hired (whom effectively act similar to extras, with a focus on the “Stunt Skill” and “Condition” stats), players must begin training them to get their skills up, and can begin using them in their movies. One thing to also note is that it’s possible to make your main actors also perform the stunts, but there’s a much higher chance they’ll bungle the job and end up maiming themselves, which could be a costly mistake for any fledgling movie studio.

After playing around with the new options the stuntmen provided, I found I could combine this with some of the newly added special effects to create some truly zany and impressive stunts. For those who get a kick out of spending all their free time creating movies in this game and showing them off, the added benefits of stunts and stunt-men are indisputable. The only downside is that even if a stunt ‘fails’, the end result will still look perfect on the camera from a visual standpoint – it’ll only impact the player’s ratings on the movie’s release. For some players this won’t matter, but it just reinforces the same feeling I got from the original game that success isn’t really about making movies that “look” good, only movies that the game thinks are good – and again, this comes to a toss-up on if you’re playing The Movies for the singleplayer experience, or just as a sandbox to make goofy and cool movies (or both, for those of us with the luxury of rampaging gaming addictions and too much free time).

Stuntmen aside, the additions are rounded off by some UI improvements, particularly in terms of making movies and being able to save specific scene configurations for quick retrieval later. You can also now apply a variety of cool movie filters and overlays – I particularly loved being able to set up space ship bridge effects or cyborg overlays. The game also adds a number of new props, costumes, and sets to work with, such as the Miniature-City sets (perfect for that “Gigantic Chicken of DOOM” movie you’ve been dreaming up) or the “Scrolling Landscape” set, which is good for a variety of chase scenes and other related tasks.

But in spite of these improvements, is Stunts & Effects really worth the $30 MSRP? What you get out of it are some new sets, a few badly-needed gameplay and interface tweaks and improvements, and of course the lovable stunt doubles, but the game’s core issues still very much exist. Staffing in general is still in rather short supply (which gets extra annoying when your actors begin demanding entourages), and the micro-managing of relationships is still almost overwhelming at times. To its credit, Stunts & Effects has never really been promoted as anything more to a basic add-on to expand the game’s functionality, and expand it does – I just feel that for the investment, having some additional changes in place to improve the core gameplay could have really helped improve the quality overall. But this still does not change the fact that The Movies is still a dangerously addictive game, and the options added through the expansion pack make this even more so true; it’s just a sad fact players who couldn’t get over the interface and management issues of the original title won’t find a major reason to return for The Movies: Stunts & Effects.