On the Cutting Room Floor: Great Things Come in Small Packages

Welcome to the first edition of On the Cutting Room Floor. 

Sadly, not everything you write will be put into publication. Sometimes, extenuating circumstances can lead to some articles being left on the cutting room floor. Instead of having these articles sit on a hard drive to never see the light of day, I want to share them here for all to enjoy. 

This review was originally written late July, early August 2015 for the theatrical release of Ant Man. Unfortunately, I took too long writing and missed my opportunity to be timely. Considering the DVD comes out very soon, it seems like the right time to post it.

To say Ant Man had a troubled production is an understatement. Director Edgar Wright, best known for his work on cult hits like Shaun of the Dead and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, left the film due to creative differences mid-2014 causing Marvel to scramble for a new director and rewrite the script. This tumultuous development has caused many fans and critics alike to fear the worst. Could Ant Man be the first flop for Marvel Studios?

No, quite the opposite. Ant Man exceeds all expectations despite being smaller in scale than recent Marvel movies. In taking a step back from the grander events of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), this movie centres around an emotional core that establishes a brand new cast of lovable characters while perfectly planting seeds for upcoming movies, namely Captain America: Civil War.

Ant Man centres around Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), an ex-convict looking to fix his life after prison. When Scott comes across a peculiar-looking motorcycle suit during a break-and-enter, he will get the most unusual second-chance ever. With the help of Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), Scott is entrusted to become the new Ant Man and stop Hank's former protege Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) from using the super-shrinking Yellowjacket suit for militaristic purposes.

Forewarning: Ant Man starts off slow. Slower than most superhero/action films, in fact. Once you get past the plodding first 40 minutes, the movie moves at a wonderful pace that never lets up. In particular, the climax of Ant Man is nothing short of spectacular. The fight between Ant Man and Yellowjacket may happen on such a miniscule scale, but it is literally unlike anything ever seen on the silver screen. Thomas the Tank Engine and all.

Michael Douglas' performance as Hank Pym steals the show. Both Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly are good in their roles, but it takes a while to establish them as likable characters. From the moment Douglas steps on screen, he looks comfortable in the role of Hank Pym—like it was made for him.

Unlike Age of Ultron's scenes of forced set-up, Ant Man naturally weaves its story with characters, events and themes from the broader MCU. The inclusion of the MCU is not a side-story that has no impact on the plot, it is a integral part of it. One pivotal exchange between Ant Man and a certain Avenger halfway through the movie perfectly encapsulates the MCU's importance to the plot.

For all that Ant Man does right, there is one glaring problem with it: Darren Cross. A villain doesn't get anymore one-note and generic than him—even his name sounds generic. In all seriousness, all the scenes setting Cross up as the villain are just painful to watch. Instead of coming off as threatening and unstable, Cross is wacky and cartoonish. Good thing the movie stops focusing on his development about a quarter into it.

Although the events of Ant Man may seem microscopic in comparison to the world and even universe-spanning adventures of recent Marvel movies like Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, it stands among the best movies Marvel has ever produced. While it doesn't have the big names or explosive spectacles that make most summer blockbusters, Ant Man is a movie that you shouldn't overlook.

Hump Day Music: Mortal Kombat!!!

I have been in a fighting game mood as of late, all thanks to my purchase of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 last Friday.  While I am playing it quite a bit, there has not been a piece of music that has jumped out me like Ken's theme from Street Fighter, Take You For a Ride from Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and the theme I am going to highlight.  Easily the most iconic fighting game theme of all-time.  It literally will have you screaming the name of the game at the top of your lungs.  It is time for MORTAL KOMBAT!!!

Midway's classic fighting game from the early 1990s easily ranked high in the eyes of many children of time due to it's gratuitous amounts of blood and violence.  I remember when I was younger being in awe of the insane 16-bit violence, but I never saw it anything more than a great fighting game.  I never had the urge to try any of the humanly impossible Fatalities on anybody outside of the game like many politicians and video game activists would have you believe.  While the violence did make Mortal Kombat remembered in the annals of video game history, it is the game's theme that has stuck with me all these years.  This impactful theme grabs you from the very beginning and never lets go.  The electronic beat that underlines the entire piece will get you pumped up in no time.  From "Test Your Might" to running down the names of the entire roster, the very basic and repetitive lyrics will have you singing or it would be better to say yelling along.  Every time I hear the chorus, it makes me want to yell Mortal Kombat as loud as I can.  Let us see if you will test your might and listen to the Mortal Kombat theme.

Hump Day Video: Deadpool: The Game

In recent years, games have found a bigger home at the San Diego Comic-Con than in the past.  Taking up a lot of floor space, many video game related panels take place and a few announcements are made usually pertaining to comic book related video games.  Comic Con also is the first time the public can play a lot of demos for games showed off at last month's E3.

Out of all the video game announcements, the one that took the cake was the reveal of High Moon Studios' newest project, Deadpool: The Game.  Along with the announcement came an amazing teaser trailer for Deadpool: The Game that I will share you with you all today.  This trailer only shows a little tease of what the gameplay should be like, but from what has been shown so far it looks like a great mix of bloody violence with the humour of The Merc with a Mouth.  I personally believe Deadpool is in the fully capable hands of High Moon Studios, the team that brought us the great Transformers: War for Cybertron and its upcoming sequel Fall of Cybertron, as it looks like they fully respect the source material and want to do their best to translate it to this interactive media for all to enjoy.  So here is the teaser trailer from this past weekend from Comic Con for everybody's viewing pleasure.

On the Download: June 24-30 Part 1

You are not reading the title wrong.  This week On the Download will be split into two parts to cover the good amount of noteworthy downloadable games released this week.  It did not take long for the downloadable game space to start dropping big release after another.  This week alone, we got the expansion to the biggest RPG of 2011, the extended ending to the biggest RPG of 2012, the next episodes in the Penny Arcade and Walking Dead series of games and two big 3DS downloadable releases.  Got a whole lot to cover in On the Download this week.  Today, we will be looking at the two big 3DS downloadable releases.  Along with these games, you can also download the demo for Rhythm Thief for free and get VVVVV on sale for 5 dollars.

A few months ago, Zen Studios released Zen Pinball 3D for the 3DS.  Now Zen Studios has brought their successful Marvel Pinball game to Nintendo's portable system as well.  Marvel Pinball 3D is the same game you may have experienced on the Xbox 360 or PS3, now with 3D visuals and being able to take it on the go.  Marvel Pinball features four tables that players can enjoy.  The four tables are each based on a different Marvel property.  One for Iron Man, one for Captain America, one for Blade and one for the Fantastic Four.  Each table has a corresponding villain that acts as the boss for the table.  For example, you battle Red Skull on the Captain America table or fight the Mandarin on the Iron Man table.   Marvel Pinball 3D also features online leader broads and in-game challenges to keep players occupied.  For those interested in another pinball game for the 3DS, Marvel Pinball 3D costs 8 dollars to download.

Earlier this year Renegade Kid cut their teeth in the downloadable game space with Mutant Mudds for the 3DS.  Now a few months after their first downloadable, they have released their second exclusively for the 3DS.  The game is Bomb Monkey.  In the world of Bomb Monkey, these creative little primates created a sport by the name of Blok Bombing.  The goal of Blok Bombing is rather simple.  You will have to stop the bloks from rising high enough to knock you off your perch.  By carefully stacking bloks and using bombs, you can set up combos and earn a higher score.  Bomb Monkey puts a creative spin on the puzzle game genre.  Bomb Monkey features several different game modes (Endless, Rescue, 3 Minutes and Numbers) and both co-operative and competitive multi-player modes for all to enjoy.  Bomb Monkey looks like an unique puzzle game that 3DS owners should check.  The best thing is this game will only set you back 5 dollars if you decide to pick it up.

Launch Station: The Amazing Spider-Man

A week after Lego Batman 2 hit the scene, Marvel's web crawler hits the consoles.  Just one week before the corresponding movie releases in theatres, The Amazing Spider-Man hits game consoles.  While there has been a steady stream of quality superhero games in the past few years, gamers are still very cautious with superhero games because they end up as bad as the last Spider-Man game, Edge of Time, more often than not.  With the stinker that Edge of Time was, Beenox has to prove to the gaming world they are not one-hit wonders.  Beenox has to prove that they can make quality Spider-Man games each and every year or Activision will run them out the door and not look back.

Much different than other movie tie-ins, The Amazing Spider-Man game will serve as an epilogue to the movie.  So be warned to those planning to buy it during the first week of release because there will be spoilers.  During the opening mission of The Amazing Spider-Man, cross-species experiments from Oscorp escape into New York City.  In order to combat the cross-species that are running amok in New York City, expert in nano-technology and newest executive at Oscorp Alistair Smythe creates a bunch of robots to hunt them down.  It is up to Spider-Man, which is also a cross-species, from both the escaped Oscorp experiments and Alistair Smythe's army of killer robots.  While Alistair Smythe may be the main villain in The Amazing Spider-Man, the game also includes classic Spider-Man villains such as Rhino, Felicia Hardy, Scorpion and The Lizard.  The Amazing Spider-Man sees the return of the open world gameplay that was made popular in Spider-Man 2 (possibly one of the best movie tie-in games of all-time).  As Spider-Man, you are able to explore New York City to your hearts content.  Swing around, complete side missions and challenges, fight random thugs or take part in multiple different mini-games in addition to the game's main story.  The two major changes to the Spider-Man open world formula are found in the combat and new Web Rush mechanic.  First, the combat has been retooled to be more fast-paced and free-flowing.  The combat in The Amazing Spider-Man is very similar to Rocksteady's Batman games.  Next the Web Rush mechanic makes travelling across New York a little easier.  When you activate Web Rush and highlight the place where you want to go, Spider-Man smoothly transitions to said location.  When Web Rush is activated, control is taken away from the player, but you can break from the animation and go off in another direction altogether.

Personally, it has been hard to tell if The Amazing Spider-Man will any good.  I have not really cared for a Spider-Man game since the last generation of consoles.  I do want to pick up Shattered Dimensions sometime because I have heard many good things about it.  Other than that I am not that interested in The Amazing Spider-Man game.  I do hope Beenox has made a good enough game in The Amazing Spider-Man to get Activision to possibly give them more time to develop future Spider-Man games instead of pumping one out every year.

Off the Newsstand: Game Informer Issue 228

Two editions of Off the Newsstand in one week, well that is a first.  Got both issues of EGM and Game Informer on the same day so immediately after I breezed through EGM, I breezed through Game Informer.  The bad part of that breezing through both magazines was that I had nothing to read until this past Tuesday when I got my newest issues of both Nintendo Power and Game Informer.  After an underwhelming March issue of Game Informer, let us see if Game Informer can bounce back with a good April issue.

In short, Game Informer Issue 228 is a better than Issue 227.  It is not the best issue out there, but a solid nonetheless.  With Ubisoft's announcement of Assassin's Creed III releasing this coming October, Game Informer has new protagonist, Connor gracing the two special covers.  While the Assassin's Creed III cover story is a much more informative and a better read than The Last of Us cover story from the last issue, it did nothing to get me excited for the fourth Assassin's Creed game in four years.  Honestly, I was more excited for Assassin's Creed: Revelations after reading Game Informer's cover story back last June than for the newest entry in Ubisoft's cash cow.  Maybe it is franchise fatigue or Assassin's Creed may not  be my cup of tea.  If you are a fan of Assassin's Creed, you will definitely eat up everything that is reveled in Game Informer's good cover story.  If you are not a fan of Assassin's Creed, this issue of Game Informer is packed with good articles.  Some of the articles you can find in this issue are an interview with Mojang's Markus "Notch" Persson, the man responsible for a little indie game by the name of Minecraft, coverage of the D.I.C.E. summit in Las Vegas, a roundtable interview with Marvel Comics' top writers about video games, comics and Avengers vs. X-Men, a look at Zen Studios, makers of hit downloadable game Pinball FX 2 and a interview with the designer of the Flash game tribute to the 8-bit era, Abobo's Big Adventure, Roger Barr.  Those all come with another solid round-up of previews on upcoming games such as Hitman Absolution and Far Cry 3 and reviews on recently released games like SSX and Syndicate.  One article I could personally do without is Game Informer's annual April Fool's tradition, Game Infarcer, a fake magazine within Game Informer.  It will illicit a few laughs here and there, but there are much better ways to use those few pages on a stupid jokes about the gaming industry.  I will say it is funny watching somebody skim through Game Informer only to stumble upon the Game Infarcer article and believe everything on those few pages.

Overall, Issue 228 of Game Informer is a solid issue.  The cover story will only excite fans of the Assassin's Creed franchise, but it is still an enjoyable read.  If you do not enjoy the cover story, the other great articles will more than make up for it.  You will not be disappointed if you pick up Issue 228 of Game Informer at your local book store or library.