With hidden object games being a fairly saturated genre, it can take a lot to try and stand out. One such game that I had recently come across is Please, Touch The Artwork 2, a game by former Hitman dev Thomas Waterzooi made around the art of Belgian artist James Ensor. While I had not played the original Please, Touch The Artwork game, the presentation and it being free led me to download and play it, which proved to be a short, yet worthwhile experience.
Bombshell (1933) Starring Jean Harlow, Lee Tracy,
Frank Morgan, Franchot Tone, Pat O'Brien. Directed
by Victor Fleming. Produced by Hunt Stromberg. Screenplay by John Lee Mahin, Jules
Furthman. Based on the unproduced play Bombshell by Caroline Francke and
Mack Crane. Run time: 98 minutes Black & White. USA Pre-Code, Romantic
Comedy
It’s rare that an actor will play a character that so
closely seems to mirror their own lives. While not a biography, much of Bombshell
seems to be based, at least in part, on the life of its star, Jean Harlow.
However, the film is really based on an unproduced play, Bombshell, by Caroline Francke and Mack Crane. It was in a story conference at MGM that the idea to make the play into a comedy was born. Screenwriter John Lee Mahin had the inspiration to turn the tale into a comedy, an idea seized by Fleming when he realized Bow's story was ripe for satire. "She used to be my girl," Fleming explained. "You'd go to her house, and there'd be a beautiful Oriental rug with coffee stains...and her father would come in drunk, and her secretary was stealing from her."
While I don’t actively seek out modern games with pixelated art styles, I am still willing to give them a chance if the art and gameplay styles appeal to me. One such game is Sheepy: A Short Adventure, which I came across in my Steam recommendations and decided to download since it was free. After going through the short experience for myself, I found myself wondering how a game of such quality could possibly have been free.
The Cat’s Meow (2002) Starring Kirsten Dunst, Cary Elwes, Edward Herrmann, Eddie Izzard, Joanna Lumley. Directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Screenplay by Steven Peros. Based on a play by Steven Peros. Produced by Kim Bieber, Carol Lewis, Dieter Meyer, Julie Baines. Run time: 112 Minutes. Color. United States, Germany, United Kingdom Mystery, Comedy, Drama, Historical
It almost sounds like a movie, film pioneer Thomas Ince, actress
Marion Davies, fellow filmmaker Charlie Chaplin, British writer Elinor Glyn, gossip
columnist Louella Parsons, and actress Margaret Livingston take a weekend
cruise aboard William Randolph Hearst’s yacht Oneida to celebrate Ince’s
birthday. However, the guest of honor dies onboard or soon afterward, depending
on who’s story you believe. How did Ince die?
After Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two and its companion game, Power of Illusion, failed to meets sales expectations in 2012, the Epic Mickey franchise was shelved, cancelling the in-development Epic Donald along with it. This development also led to the character of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, who was reacquired from Universal just for this series and reintroduced to a new generation of fans, to be relegated mostly to cameos in other Disney works, including a cancelled Disney+ series, until the company suddenly started paying more attention to him around his entry into the public domain. 12 years later, both the Epic Mickey franchise and Oswald were given a second chance with the announcement of a remake of the original game for modern platforms, dubbed Epic Mickey: Rebrushed (Rebrushed). As someone who enjoyed the original, this announcement got me excited, and I had faith in Purple Lamp as the developer due to their work on SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated. As someone who became an Oswald the Lucky Rabbit fan as a result of the original game, I was further surprised when I noticed that, according to the back of the box, Rebrushed is an official Oswald the Lucky Rabbit product.
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| A small, but interesting bit of branding. |
Due to the proximity of its release to my birthday, I received the PS5 version of Rebrushed as a gift, at which point I felt hyped enough to play it as soon as possible, and found it to meet my expectations and more.
The Man with Two Faces (1934) Starring: Edward G.
Robinson, Mary Astor, Ricardo Cortez, Mae Clarke, Louis Calhern. Directed by Archie
Mayo. Screenplay by Tom Reed and Niven Busch. Based on the play The Dark Tower
by George S. Kaufman and Alexander Woollcott, produced by Sam H. Harris
Theatrical Enterprises, Inc. (New York, 25 Nov 1933). USA Black and White. Run
time: 72 minutes. Drama.
Films based on plays are nothing new. The Dark Tower is a
mystery drama by George S. Kaufman and Alexander Woollcott, first produced in
1933. The play ran at the Morosco Theatre in New York from November 25, 1933
until January 1934.
The film version, entitled at various times: The Strange Case of Mr. Chautard, Dark Victory and The Dark Tower, was in production from March 5 until April 4, 1934.
Note: This review contains spoilers for Silent Hill 2.
In the decades since its release in 2001, Silent Hill 2 (SH2) has earned and maintained a reputation as one of the greatest survival horror games ever made thanks to its powerful storyline that tackled taboo subjects in a mature way. Fast forward to today and ten years after the 2012 release of Silent Hill: Downpour, Konami announced a full series revival, which included two SH2 projects: a remake also called Silent Hill 2 (SH2R), developed by Bloober Team, and a film adaptation, Return to Silent Hill, directed by Christophe Gans, who had previously directed the original Silent Hill film adaptation. Despite involving former Team Silent members Masahiro Ito and Akira Yamaoka throughout development, SH2R fought an uphill battle. Although Bloober Team had experience with horror titles like Layers of Fear, Observer, Blair Witch and The Medium, these titles usually had a mixed reception at best. Add to that the lack of pre-order bonuses for physical copies and the negative reception to early trailers, which included some differences in presentation and character models. Fortunately, confidence grew as the October 8, 2024 release date grew closer and the game released on PS5 and Steam to positive reception, as well as selling 1 million copies within the first three days.
Personally, I had faith in SH2R from the moment of its announcement, as I could sense the team’s passion behind the project, though I followed the development with more cautious optimism. When it released, I also had a hard time finding a physical copy on day one, but I fortunately found a store that still had a number of them left. Throughout the following playthrough, I felt impressed by what Bloober Team had accomplished and, when it ended, I took a little time to process my full opinion before writing this review. As of this post, I can confidently say that while SH2R isn’t a flawless masterpiece, and neither is the original, I think Bloober Team knocked it out of the park and made me even more excited about the series' future.
