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bestfungames1 · 4 years

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Elementor #566

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The Last Campfire Review

Finding light in the darkness is something we can all relate to — whether it be as simple as discovering the solution to a small puzzle or as grand a notion as searching for one’s purpose in life. The Last Campfire addresses both ends of this spectrum and does so throughout with charm, smarts, and grace. Hello Games’ short-ish adventure hits the mark with cleverly designed puzzles, eye-catching style, and a touching story that left me feeling anything but forlorn.

Forlorns, in this world, are lost souls scattered around the colourful land of The Last Campfire; they’ve seemingly abandoned all hope and feel bereft of a purpose. This is in stark contrast to our character, Ember, whose purpose appears more predestined; Ember makes their way through forests, swamps, and caves trying to help as many lost souls as possible, while also questioning what their purpose in the world is. By lighting campfires along the way you’re helping guide the Forlorns on their journey and allowing them to follow in your footsteps. Granted, you never quite know where those footsteps will take them, but by showing the Forlorns that they exist, you allow them to see that there is always light worth finding in the darkness. It was a clear and ultimately highly rewarding journey as I became more and more invested in the world and the creatures calling it home.

Progress is made through solving consistently enjoyable puzzles that almost always hit that sweet spot of not being so simple that they’re boring but being challenging enough to satisfy upon solving, without becoming so complicated that it induces groans. Special items and novel mechanics are introduced throughout which prevent the puzzles from ever becoming too repetitive, and while there maybe isn’t quite the level of variation you’d expect over its six or seven hours, it never fails to offer up something new just before it reaches a point of becoming stale. One of the biggest additions is the fun telekinetic-like ability that comes into play about halfway through the story, and it’s used in many of the subsequent puzzles in clever ways. Manipulating objects from a distance using this provides a welcome breath of fresh air and allows for more ingenious puzzles to be solved in new satisfying ways.

It never fails to offer up something new just before it reaches a point of becoming stale.

Hello’s inspirations are clear to see, and not least in the design of these puzzle rooms. It’s hard not to be reminded of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s many shrines — though there’s no combat at all in The Last Campfire, and this is where different Nintendo influence becomes visible. The minimal approach to gameplay (you can walk, run, pick up, and push and pull objects, but that’s about it) combined with Ember’s inability to jump adds shades of the delightful Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker into the mix.

With such a limited set of button inputs you’d think it would be difficult to keep things fresh over an extended length of time, but The Last Campfire rarely has trouble there due to its creative use of what it has. It does a fantastic job of constantly mixing things up and keeping these problems thematically relevant, never once taking you out of its gloriously crafted world. The way that meaning is weaved into the design of each puzzle makes The Last Campfire stand out against many similar games and does so smartly at each turn. The core theme of preserving hope and purpose can be found at every turn, often subtly, but sometimes literally baked into the mechanics of a puzzle. This is most obviously exemplified in a series of problems that have you transport an open flame through a level while avoiding airstreams that will cause the fire to extinguish. These start off simple but build in complexity as Ember’s story progresses, providing just one example of how well The Last Campfire takes its central ideas and grows them into something special.

As with any game in this genre there’ll always be puzzles that feel too easy and are over in seconds — there aren’t many of these but they can be found near the start where a few simple block pushes can form a path for Ember. On the opposite end of the spectrum are more complex problems that, although never too difficult, do offer a significant but satisfying challenge. Naturally, these occur nearer the end of Ember’s journey and smartly layer mechanics you’ve learned previously with new ideas. Some of my favourites of these involved telekinetically moving around a chained set of snake statues with mirrors attached to solve a reflection-based light puzzle.

It’s an inviting world to play in, like Thatgamecompany painting from a Media Molecule palette.

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This type of puzzle is another example of guiding the light through the darkness; again, Hello puts the core themes of The Last Campfire on display for all to see. This can also be seen in the art design, which beautifully offsets the bleakness with bright and colourful splashes. The most obvious example of this being Ember’s vivid blue clothing and glowing eyes that pop off of the screen during each scene alongside the relaxing, subtle music that soundtracks your journey. Environments range from waterway-filled caverns to pig-infested marshlands, each with their own quirks and pop-up book-ish charm. It’s an inviting world to play in, like Thatgamecompany painting from a Media Molecule palette, evoking both Journey and Tearaway in equal measure.

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viralhottopics · 7 years

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‘Feud’ star Alfred Molina says ‘very little has changed’ for women in Hollywood

Alfred Molina as Robert Aldrich, Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford

Image: Suzanne Tenner/FX

Alfred Molina may have nabbed one of his finest roles yet, thanks to a filmmaker thats been dead nearly as long as the actors been working. Thats because director Robert Aldrich didint give Molina the part he is the part.

With a movie and TV career that spans nearly four decades including vivid and memorable appearances as Indiana Jones treacherous temple guide Savito in Raiders of the Lost Ark (Molinas film debut), the coked-out drug dealer Rahad in Boogie Nights, and the multi-armed supervillain Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2 Molina is delivering a star turn on FXs Feud: Bette and Joan. Ironic, considering that hes playing one of Hollywoods less remembered filmmakers.

In Feud, Aldrich is caught in the middle of the acidic war of wills between aging superstars Bette Davis (Susan Sarandon) and Joan Crawford (Jessica Lange) during the production of his 1962 horror/thriller What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

SEE ALSO: ‘Feud: Bette and Joan’ is about so much more than Hollywood’s most infamous catfight

Today, Baby Jane is recalled as one of the finer moments from Aldrichs oeuvre more enduring in stature, perhaps, than the filmmaker himself. For while Aldrich flirted with full-on auteurism throughout his long career and made his share of top quality films including the influentially cynical Western Vera Cruz (1954), the seminal noir entry Kiss Me Deadly (1955), the Crawford-led melodrama Autumn Leaves (1956), the tense war thriller The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), the genre-defining action ensemble The Dirty Dozen (1967) and sports comedy The Longest Yard (1974) his movie resume is also a checkered one, loaded with projects that were, at best, rent-payers.

Molina portrays an Aldrich that, despite his past successes and his privileged status in Kennedy-era Hollywood, is barely hanging on to his livelihood – or genuinely creative opportunities almost to the same degree as Davis and Crawford. All three are nearly a decade or more past their primes, and desperate to wring a few more years of glory out of their Tinseltown careers.

Its a character with a deep-seated survivors mentality that Molina tells Mashable he understands and respects, even if Aldrich occasionally compromised himself to stay in the game.

What an interesting Hollywood figure today still too often overlooked for his best work for you to play, and what an interesting space he occupies between these two women at the center of the story. What was it about him that made him so compelling to you?

I think one of the first things was that very thing you just mentioned: this notion of him being caught in the center of this feud, this struggle, of these two very formidable women who are huge stars and Robert really wasnt.

Robert was always regarded very much by his peers and by the industry, as a kind of journeyman director. He worked in almost every genre imaginable. He had some successes and he had some terrible movies. He was a technician in many ways. And I dont think he ever quite enjoyed the sort of artistic esteem that a lot of other directors of his generation enjoyed. He wasnt regarded in the same kind of light as people like John Ford, or Raoul Walsh, or people like that.

He had a long career, and one that was marked by huge valleys and peaks. In fact, Im sure you know, after what happened to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? he went on and made some very good movies into the early 70s.

So I think what makes him fascinating is that, although hes very prominent in the story, because he very much is caught in between these two women, hes sort of anonymous, and kind of in the shadows they suck all of the oxygen out of the room. Hes very much trying hard to be a referee, in a sense, between the two, and trying to keep both parties happy and satisfied.

It showed to me what happens when someone is so desperate to get the project made. His priority was always the movie. He sacrificed a marriage to make movies; he sacrificed a relationship with his children; he sacrificed many relationships in order to get movies made. He was very much a product of his time, in that sense. That was his focus, to get the work. In those days, it was possible for men to do that. We live in a very different time now.

I think what makes him interesting is how he was, to me, the epitome of a survivor. Ive always been attracted to those kinds of characters, people who are just kind of getting by, people who are struggling against all kinds of forces, whether they be physical, or emotional, or artistic, or intellectual, whatever. Its the struggle to achieve whats important in the face of what seems to be insurmountable odds.

He also has this interesting position of being morally compromised, both in his life with his family through absence and infidelity, and in the way that hes expected to keep fanning this flame of hatred between the two actresses…

I think what makes that really interesting to play, in terms of the actor playing the role, is all the kinds of conflicting emotions that turns up. As you say, he was morally compromised. He felt very guilty about it. He also was very conflicted about creating and contributing to this tension and animosity that was building between Joan and Bette, for the sake of getting better footage and so on.

I think he felt very conflicted. I think he would have much rather not have done that. But the truth is, he did do it. So hes not just morally compromised, but you could argue morally implicated. I think that kind of contradiction, that kind of paradox, is what makes characters interesting to play.

SEE ALSO: ‘Feud’ star Jessica Lange on the ways Hollywood is still failing women

I remember, years ago, being told by a director, If you make a list of everything a character does and says, and a list of everything that he does and says to other people, youll find all kinds of contradictions. Its in those contradictions, thats where all the creative meat is, in terms of playing that character.

I think theres a lot of richness there. His need to make the film, and at the same time, his obligation to his family that was one conflict. His need to survive in an industry that was forgetting him to a certain extent, and his own morality about how to do that another conflict. Theres a lot of juice in that stew, if you know what I mean.

And he had an interesting sexual and romantic life, in that its suggested very strongly that he had a relationship with Joan Crawford at some point, and we see in the show that he has a romantic fling with Bette Davis. Tell me about that: for a journeyman director, to still be able to use that position of power and his own personal charm to cultivate that aspect of his life.

It was interesting from a historical point of view, in that period, that men could get away with that. Its not so interesting that he may or may not have had all these affairs. Whats interesting is that he was living and working in an era where that was possible, and how it was taken for granted that men could do that.

SEE ALSO: Prince Charles and Princess Diana will be Ryan Murphy’s next ‘Feud’

I think one of the most interesting things about the show is how it really highlights the position of women in show business and in the film industry of that era, and how very little has changed for them, in terms of how theyre perceived, how theyre used, how they are, to a certain extent, manipulated in order for the movies to make money and so on, and very little has changed. The disparity in pay scale is a perfect example of that. Also in terms of whats acceptable for women to be able to do on film, and whats acceptable for men to do on film. All of these things, these are all facts that existed then.

I think Robert clearly had all kinds of relationships with women, and certainly a relationship with both Joan and Bette at different times. I think what we tried to do in the show was to show how that was very much a product of the time, was part of his moral ambiguity, and also very typical of the era.

That desperate quality that you mentioned really comes through in the scenes that you share with Stanley Tucci as studio head Jack Warner. Its always such a delicious back and forth.

Its great fun to play, as you can imagine. Theres a kind of jousting that goes on when you get a chance to do that as an actor. And if youre working with someone whos as good as Stanley, it just raises your game.

When I was at drama school, I remember being told by one of my professors, As you go through your career, always try and work with people that are better than you. He used a tennis analogy, which was, You only get better as a tennis player if you play with people that you know are going to beat the shit out of you, because you just constantly have to raise your game. You cant sit back on your success.

Alfred Molina and Stanley Tucci

Image: fx

Stanley is such a fantastic actor. Hes so smart and fast. He thinks very quickly. He can improvise deliciously. Ive worked with Stanley before, and this is why Ive always enjoyed it so much, is that Im acting on my toes with Stanley. Im always waiting for the next surprise, and its fantastic.

Given the material that we had in Feud, it just made it even more delicious. Those scenes are so beautifully written in terms of this relationship that is not based on love or mutual respect, or even friendliness. Its a relationship thats based on a kind of mutual need, where they didnt like each other, clearly, but they both saw in the other something that the other one needed.

As the story evolves throughout the rest of the season theres an interesting shift in the statements in the room between Jack Warner and Bob Aldrich. Those scenes are just great fun to do.

Have you ever been involved in a project where the behind-the-scenes activity was anywhere near as poisonous as what we see in Feud? Youve made a lot of films and television shows over the years; has that been part of your experience?

No. Ive never experienced anything anywhere near the toxicity between two actors as on What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte. Ive been around actors and directors who have had issues with each other, thats for sure. But thats to be expected. That would happen I think in any job, in any company.

Ive never experienced anything quite so vitriolic or vicious or ongoing as that. Ive seen actors sort of lose their tempers, or get upset at something, but usually its over as quick as its happened. No, Ive never experienced anything quite like that.

I should rephrase that: Ive never experienced anything anywhere near that. Quite like that sounds like, Well, maybe… But no, I really havent. [Laughs]

Feud: Bette and Joan airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on FX.

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