The Lost Archives of On-Screen: February 16th, 2011

As On-Screen approaches its fourth birthday, prepare to delve into our not-so-distant past!
Come March 14th, this blog will hit its fourth anniversary, and to commence celebrations of its upcoming birthday, we're launching a third exclusive feature that will take a look back at our early days and will examine the evolution of the entertainment industry and its various franchises in the years that followed.

How will 'Lost Archives' work, we hear you ask? Put simply, on semi-regular dates across 2014, we'll provide a retrospective on the news, reviews and features that appeared on those same dates either in 2010 or 2011 (depending on whether On-Screen had started up by that point in the former year). Never mind Valentine's Day, we're aiming for this to be a nostalgic gift for fans of the blog as well as a celebratory anniversary feature series, so without further ado, let the party begin!

• TIM SCHAFER'S NEXT GAME IS...SESAME STREET- Before our scepticism regarding Microsoft's Kinect sensor had fully manifested, Brutal Legend's Double Fine Games premièred a kid-orientated motion-control adventure based on the Sesame Street franchise. Titled Once Upon A Monster, the game featured a whimsical, surprisingly engrossing narrative and quite a few inspired implementations of the aforementioned Xbox 360 camera to boot. It's a shame, then, that by 2014, the Kinect-exclusive slate has slimmed considerably, with the Xbox One's version of the sensor meeting with a mixed reception and its launch titles Ryse: Son of Rome and Fighters Uncaged hardly faring any better...
• LEGO PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: 3DS, NEW SHOT- On the eve of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' box office release later that year, Travellers' Tales unveiled their latest LEGO video game adaptation to the world and it turned out to be based on none other than the Pirates franchise itself. This was a double-barrelled reveal article, packing a new screenshot and the first details on the distinct Nintendo 3DS version of the upcoming product. On Stranger Tides eventually plummeted to the ocean floor critically (though remained an astounding commercial hit), yet LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean still holds the right to brand itself as one of TT Games' finest franchise instalments ever.
• MARVEL VS CAPCOM 3 FIRST REVIEWS ARE IN- Back in 2011, Marvel Vs Capcom 3 was a worthy fighting experience for console gamers (so much so that Capcom have proceeded to simply iterate upon it ever since!). We rounded up the various critical reviews of the game two days before its release, revealing that GamesMaster gave it a 90% score and branded it "the most explosive, OTT, fan-pleasing 2D fighter the world's ever seen". This reviewer (who awarded it an equal 9.5/10 score after his playthrough, now a 9/10 as per our updated ratings system) couldn't agree more with the magazine's assertion three years on, even if that's only because Capcom have been so reluctant recently to release groundbreaking new iterations of their Street Fighter franchise- well, we can live in hope!
• ANOTHER AMAZING SPIDER-MAN VILLAIN REVEALED- As odd as it is for some of us to recall a time when Andrew Garfield wasn't playing Spider-Man, three years ago, that was precisely the case until the release of the divisive series reboot The Amazing Spider-Man in cinemas in June. The news broke on February 14th that Irrfan Khan would play an Oscorp scientist named Nels Van Adder, a name which fans recognised as the future alter-ego of the B-list antagonist Proto Goblin. In the end, it turned out that Van Adder's role in the film itself was minimal, with Khan only turning up on infrequent occasions to remind Curt Connors of his ongoing agreement to save Norman Osborn's life before it could be extinguished. For those who missed the movie, suffice to say that Connors' experiments backfired with his transformation into the Lizard, and as such, the founder of Oscorp will still be on the hunt for a means of survival this April in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
• SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS REVEALED- Finally, we provided the first details (courtesy of Warner Brothers) on Guy Ritchie's second big-screen adaptation of the exploits of Arthur Conan Doyle's Great Detective. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows was, mercifully, a superb successor to the sublime 2009 original, aided in no small part by Jared Harris' accomplished portrayal of Professor James Moriarty and the up-and-coming Naomi Rapace's similarly remarkable performance. There's been no official word as of yet on when we can expect to see a third Holmes motion picture in cinemas, but Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law and Guy Ritchie have each expressed their interest in going ahead with the project- stay tuned on this front...

Keep it On-Screen for more exclusive feature articles and more of the fine entertainment coverage you've come to expect from us!