Top Five: Best TV Opening Themes
Just like first round interviewees and blind daters, TV Shows are generally very nervous about making a good first impression. If the first impression is a bad one, well… you better start thinking of ideas for the next show.
Shows take different routes in order to ensure that viewers are hooked. However, most involve a recurring opening sequence with a title theme that is played at the beginning of each new episode. These songs are what get stuck in our heads, and keep us thinking about the show and wanting more. Some series do it wrong, and some do it really right. Here is our Top Five break down of the latter. Read more
Top Five: Formative Video Games
Halo wasn’t born out of the ether and World of Warcraft didn’t rise from the ashes. Nearly every video game we play today owes its lineage to something that came before it. It’s worth taking a look back at those formative games now and again, and in a couple places, actually replaying them. You get a real appreciation for the designers of the games, both for the cojones to make them in the first place, and the very real technical hurdles they overcame in doing so.
So without further ado, my (guaranteed to be disagreed with, lambasted, and generally derided) list of the top five most formative video games.
Top Five: Period Comic Movies That Should Happen
X-Men: First Class has now arrived, and has left a fairly good impression with us. Granted, First Class does crib the concept of superheros entering into the Nuclear Powers equation from Watchmen, but the idea of the X-Men being involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis is too cool to get caught up on the technicalities of originality. Between the solid 60s vibe of that film, and the WWII setting of Captain America: The First Avenger, we here at Nerd News And Reviews started to wonder: what other period comic movies are out there, waiting to be made? So we came up with a list of five other comic book stories that might very well never become movies. But that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t.
Top Five: Marvel Actors Who Should Be In DC Movies
Up is down, black is white, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together…mass hysteria! That’s what it can feel like in the continuity-obsessive comic book world when film adaptations continually cast from the same, relatively limited, stable of actors. Chris Evans, formerly known as Johnny “The Human Torch” Storm, will be in theaters this summer playing Captain America, another Marvel Comics character. Ryan Reynolds is not only Hannibal King and Wade Wilson/Deadpool for Marvel, he’s also Hal Jordan for DC. To make matters worse, these casting decisions often disregard decades of established character history. Admittedly, some actors were born for certain roles. To wit, even though Wolverine is listed at 5′ 3″, 6′ 3″ Hugh Jackman’s adamantium skeleton and retractable claws pretty much guaranteed him the part.
Although I was always told not to cross the streams, whether nerds like me like it or not, this cross-universe casting seems here to stay. So, when life gives you lemons, make a Top Five. Read more
Top Five: Video Game Worlds
In order to get us through the holidays, and the general dearth of content on the Interwebs, I’ve dusted off a post I’ve been thinking about for a while and decided to finally finish it. Happy Holidays to all, and without any more ado:
I picked up Bioshock 2 off my shelf recently, looking for something to pass the time for a few hours, and it reminded me how artistic and imaginative an environment Rapture is.
However, Rapture isn’t the only example of a well designed environment for a game, so I’ve decided to lay out a list of my top five game worlds. I’m specifically not including the myriad of games that have great gameplay and pretty worlds, like Dead Space, because I’m talking about games that put a little more effort into making the whole world feel right. Like the other games on this list, when I play Bioshock, I feel like the world continues to exist when I leave the game. I highly recommend you go play these games if you haven’t, since they’re an experience in and of themselves. No doubt you’ll all disagree in one way or another, but hear me out and then tell me what I missed in the comments.
