Here's an odd piece of trivia about myself: I'm a "time management" game junkie. I know that most of 'em are pretty much the EXACT same game, only with different settings and colors and sounds, but whenever a new 'TM' game hits the scene, I have to check out the free trial. And yes, I buy more than my share, trust me. (For those who aren't following, some time management games are Diner Dash, Cake Mania, Turbo Pizza, and (my very favorite) Ranch Rush.) Basically in these games you're required to oversee a diner / bakery / day-care / boutique / farm and get a lot of jobs done in the quickest time possible. But since the large percentage of "casual gamers" are female, most of these games are rather girly in nature -- which doesn't really bother me, but I'd really like to see at least ONE "TM" game that deals with monsters, lasers, and carnage.

But now I have something even better: In the new game from newbie developers Gold Sun Games, I can click the living crap out of fifty levels of Megaplex Madness. And while the cinema gimmick is more than enough to get me excited, I'm happy to announce -- as a veteran of over 50 "TM" games -- that this one is definitely in the Top 20. And here's why: Yes, the gameplay is slick and simple, and yes the graphics and interface are jazzy and cool -- but the most integral part of any time-management game is in the "upgrade" department, and this is where Megaplex Madness shines.

When you're not dragging clueless customers from box office to popcorn to bathroom, you'll be upgrading your snack bars, ticket queues, and various lobby items. But even if you get a GREAT score on each level, you'll be a little short on cash when it comes to the extra upgrades -- which means you have to play nifty old-school arcade games in order to raise some extra money. Fun fun! The (optional) mini-arcade and the expansive upgrade menu means a LOT of replayability, and that's another big key when it comes to casual games: Will you want to play again after you've finished? I'd say absolutely, doubly so if you're a big TM freak like I am. And quadruply so if you're a movie nut.

Ever since I was old enough to know what the POWER button does, I was a video game fanatic. I grew up in the golden era of the Atari 2600, Intellivision, Colecovision ... damn, I'm old. But I was born at just the right time to chart the evolution of the modern video game. Hell, my dad even worked in a Radio Shack and, yes, once brought home an amazingly clunky Pong system. I wasn't TRULY infected by the movie bug until I was about 14, but I was a wizened old video game junkie by that point. (And yet I still had time to eat, sleep, and read books. I was like a prodigy or something.)

So yeah: My two passions have always been movies and video games. Unfortunately, things don't always work out so well when people turn video games into movies -- but I thought it might be fun to flip that equation the other way. As in, a semi-regular feature in which I (or someone else) focuses on a video game that has something to do with movies. And I'm not talking about every single X-Men, Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings tie-in that falls off the xBox / PS3 assembly line (although we'll get to those once in a while), but games that actually deal with movies in general.

As an example I'll use one of the coolest, smartest, and most durable movie games out there: Yep, the Hollywood Stock Exchange. has been kicking for well over a decade, and it remains one of the most popular activities available for hardcore movie nuts who have half a brain for facts, figures, and decimal points. I know the interface is a lot less complicated than it looks, but I'm still kind of intimidated by the HSX. (I believe my last transaction was about three years ago when I invested four million dollars in Twister 2.)

Of course in the future the Movie Games feature will offer a lot more information on much newer games, but that's why this was called "the introduction," right? If you have any suggestions for online movie-centric games that deserve some love, well that's why we have a comments section.

UPDATE: As luck would have it, HSX has been taken offline temporarily as the good folks over there prepare for a relaunch next week. We'll let you know when it's back up so you can check out what they've done with the place.