Mention Lionhead's '05 management sim about running a film studio and someone will crash through the wall, Kool-Aid Man style, to say they really liked it and there should be a remake or a sequel. In recent years there have been a few attempts to make a game like The Movies, with games like Moviehouse and Filmmaker Tycoon sitting pretty at 'mostly negative' status on Steam because they are not, in fact, like The Movies beyond the basic premise. But Blockbuster Inc. has shouldered its way into the conversation, wearing big puffy trousers, shouting through an old-timey megaphone, and openly billing itself as a "spiritual successor" to The Movies. It's launching on June 6th this year, but you can play the prologue on Steam for free right now.
]]>Every month I throw half a dozen broken shovels at the sleeping forms lying around the RPS treehouse floor. I demand they dig a new hole for the monthly RPS Time Capsule of games we'd like to save from a certain year, and usually it isn't a problem. This time, however, the staff complained a lot about the year choice: it's 2005, baby, and they struggled. I'm okay with it though, because we ended up with a lot of cool abandonware and interesting choices I couldn't have predicted. Especially because, since I got to the Time Capsule first, I got to stuff in the most obvious choice.
]]>Lionhead Studios, The English developer behind Fable, The Movies, and Black & White, closed down today. Peter Molyneux and other former members of Bullfrog Productions founded Lionhead in 1996, and Microsoft bought it in 2006. Molyneux himself left in 2012 to start new studio 22cans. Microsoft still haven't really explained why they're closing Lionhead. But they publicly announced in March that they were "in discussions with employees about the proposed closure of Lionhead Studios", and there aren't many ways back to safe ground from that point. Alas, today was the final day for Lionhead. Godspeed, you cow-tickling, guff-blasting chicken-chasers.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
"I think we made a terrible mistake with The Movies," says Peter Molyneux in this interview, because of course he does, but I'm not sure I agree with his assessment. The Movies wasn't frustrating because it was frantic, exactly, but because it too often dragged you away from the creative promise at its core in order to nanny the egos and alcoholism of actors.
Hey, maybe that's what its really like in Hollywood.
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