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Hollywood’s reign as the entertainment capital of the world has been in decline lately as production companies cross the ocean and the border looking to stretch their dollars a little further.

Hollywood’s reign as the entertainment capital of the world has been in decline lately as production companies cross the ocean and the border looking to stretch their dollars a little further. Canadian and Australian film industries have benefited greatly, as have those in England and New Zealand.

The state of California and the various unions based around Hollywood are actively lobbying against this outsourcing of locations, and have even proposed tariffs on movies that were produced in other countries but are meant to resemble the U.S.

However, the biggest threat to the movie industry these days isn’t wandering studios, the emergence of reality television, or, for that matter, the sad reality that two out of three movies should probably have never been made in the first place.

The biggest threat these days is gaming.

According to a Wired Magazine report, in 2001 the movie industry generated $14 billion in revenues from the box office and rental markets world-wide. In contrast, Americans alone spent more than $8 billion on games for their computers and consoles, plus another $7 billion at the arcade.

Many of the top games are made from successful movies – look at the list of Star Wars games, for example – and some movies even sprouted out of the gaming industry – such as Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy. Some of the companies that create movies and games are even owned by the corporate entities.

All the same, games are a growing industry while the motion picture industry seems to have hit a wall.

In fact, the movies that seem to do the best in the box office these days are the ones that can easily be made into great games – Spider-Man, for example, or The Lord of the Rings.

E.T. The Extra Terrestrial was actually the first movie with a video game crossover, as well as the first movie to include paid-for product placements. Other early game tie-ins include the vector-based arcade games for Star Wars and Tron.

In a very real way, today’s top video games can even be superior to the movies. They are interactive, visually compelling, and in some cases incredibly realistic. They also include short movies in between stages in game play with breathtaking animation. The voices for the animated characters are often provided by top Hollywood stars.

The plots themselves are limitless in scope, and people seem more willing to suspend their belief playing a game than they are for movies. People don’t look for plot holes in games, and poor scripts are more easily forgiven if the game is fun to play,

The game companies seem to have borrowed the best of Hollywood, and repackaged it for the gaming market. They are not over in two hours and they are seldom predictable.

You can play a single game for hundreds of hours, and still not come to the end. You can play against others online and it will never be the same game twice.

Ultima, a role playing game that was released in 1997, continues to set the standard for the next generation of video games. Players group together in fantasy worlds, fighting computer-generated enemies and each other. They have even built towns online with the people they have met, and defend them from invaders. Some of the players working together live on opposite sides of the world from one another.

The game companies do everything they can to make these worlds realistic, letting the time of day and the seasons change, and keeping the weather random. Some of their recent additions to gameplay border on artificial intelligence by building so much versatility into every character that the games lack predictability.

Sports games lead in this field, progressing every season. Every season new features are added onto the basic game structure, which is roughly the same as it was in the first sports games – one button passes and another button shoots.

But now players leave scratch marks on the ice as well as marks on the turf and skid marks on the race track. The players get tired. They get injured. They sweat.

They dodge other players at the line of scrimmage, they recover from body-checks, they deflect shots on net. The time of day changes, the arenas change, and the announcer seems to be able to pull a seemingly endless amount of banter out of their bags.

The players look and act like the real thing. Game companies frequently scan characters from head to toe, creating ultra-realistic 3D depictions that behave like real people.

Some of the adventure games are endless, while others have a variety of different endings. Some of the worlds are based on fiction while others, like the popular Grand Theft Auto III, take place in a kind of twisted reality:

You can walk where you want to walk, drive where you want to drive, fight who you want to fight, steal any car on the street, walk into buildings, and every so often, if you feel up to it, take on a pre-programmed job from a neighbourhood crime boss. It’s up to you.

With the growing use of large capacity DVD-based games, programmers are no longer worried about the size of the games they are creating. The only limit these days appears to be budget and even then most of these companies see a large enough return on their investments to green light some spectacular productions.

For example, it is estimated that the most recent Final Fantasy game for the Playstation 2 cost more than $40 million to make. That rivals the cost of all but the most ambitious movie productions, but it’s obviously well worth the investment.

This is the time of year when most of the studios release their games. Sport seasons are beginning in hockey, football and basketball, people are spending more time indoors, and Christmas is just a few months away. Games with movie tie-ins are also released, coinciding with summer blockbusters and movies planned for fall and Christmas releases.

Judging by the latest previews, 2003 could be the biggest year for electronic games in the history of the genre, with new titles for the Microsoft Xbox, the Sony PS2, Nintendo GameCube and the vast PC market.

The Lord of the Rings game, The Two Towers, is due in the fall of 2002. Star Wars: Bounty Hunter also looks promising with animation and sound. A new James Bond Shooter, 007: Nightfire, should raise a few eyebrows and heart rates, and there are sequels to Due Nukem, Magic: The Gathering, and Hitman.

In the sports arena, studios are releasing 2003 versions of hockey, football and basketball with up-to-date rosters and a host of other 3D features that only recently became possible.

The big thing for the fall is interactivity. PS2 got into the game first with a network adapter that allows players to go online to find worthy opponents. Xbox and the GameCube are next.

PC games have been doing it for years, but most of the new games coming out are supported by more servers than ever before, as well as lightning fast connections that make it possible to play in real time.

Sites to check out include www.pcgamer.com , www.macgamer.com , www.eagames.com , www.gameworld.com , www.dmoz.org/Games/Video_Games/ , http://video.gamespot.com , www.zdnet.com/gamespot/ , www.cgonline.com/ , www.westwood.com , and www.gamesdomain.com.