Team Rocket balloons have begun appearing in Pokemon Go, giving you a new way to battle the villainous group, and the team’s most infamous duo have joined the fight. Jessie and James, Ash’s recurring antagonists from the Pokemon animated series, have arrived in Pokemon Go, giving you a chance to challenge them.
True to form, Jessie and James can be found piloting a giant Meowth-shaped hot air balloon. The duo will appear randomly in the game and only for a limited time, so there’s no telling when you’ll encounter them. If you do spot their distinctive balloon, however, simply tap it to initiate a battle with them.
Coinciding with their debut, new avatar items inspired by Jessie and James have been added to Pokemon Go’s in-game shop, letting you dress your trainer in their signature Team Rocket uniforms. The second weekly set of Pokemon Go Fest challenges also arrives this week, and this one focuses on battling Team Rocket, making Jessie and Jame’s appearance quite timely.
Pokemon Go isn’t the only game Jessie and James have invaded; the duo are also appearing in Pokemon Masters as part of a special Double Trouble event. Right now, you can recruit Jessie and Arbok as a Sync Pair. James isn’t yet available in the game, although it’s heavily implied he’ll likewise debut soon, presumably alongside his Weezing. You can read more about the Double Trouble event on the Pokemon Masters website.
Despite being some of the series’ most well-known characters, Jessie and James have seldom been featured in actual Pokemon games, making this a special occasion. Prior to their arrival in Go and Pokemon Masters, the duo only appeared in Pokemon Yellow and its 2018 Switch reimagining, Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu and Let’s Go, Eevee.
Niantic has many other events lined up for Pokemon Go this month, including Pokemon Go Fest 2020, which takes place on July 25 and 26. Before then, the studio will hold July’s Community Day, which features Gastly. The Legendary Kyurem is also available in Raids right now, and there’s a new batch of Field Research tasks to complete this month.
The job listings on Naughty Dog’s career site run the gamut from animators to programmers to lighting artists and everything in between. While it’s unclear if Naughty Dog is working on a new project, a job post for a Tools Programmer confirms the studio is looking for someone to “work on our next-generation graphics analysis, profiling and debugging tool in conjunction with our sister technology group.” If Naughty Dog is working on another game already, it seems likely it will arrive on PlayStation 5.
Another listing for a Melee/Gameplay Animator says this hire will “help us create compelling gameplay for our future project(s),” with work possibly including “helping shape the hand-to-hand combat system” and more. It suggests that whatever Naughty Dog is prototyping may be some sort of action-adventure experience.
While none of these listings make it explicitly clear what Naughty Dog’s intentions are or whether there is another game in development, the studio confirmed two years ago that The Last of Us Part II would have a multiplayer component with the return of The Last of Us‘ Factions mode. This Factions mode, however, was scrapped in 2019, with the studio stating that its scope outgrew game and will become its own experience.
The job posts come not long after Naughty Dog said The Last of Us 3 is not out of the question. However, with the ending of The Last of Us Part II, the studio is undecided on what’s next for the series or ND.
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It’s been a long, long road for CrossCode to finally hit consoles. The 16-bit throwback RPG started life as a widely praised 2012 tech demo, enjoyed a super-funded 2015 Indiegogo campaign, and then arrived on Steam in 2018. Two years later, it’s hard not to feel that all this runway has caused CrossCode to be overly ambitious and complicated–even for veteran genre players. As I was sailing into my 20th hour and still trying to not second-guess my shaky strategy for the vast amount of stats that can be customized and stacked, the game was still unspooling tutorials and rolling out new wrinkles. CrossCode is a lot of game to wrap your head around, and one whose expansive menu screens and tutorials double as a mechanically overbearing strategy guide that cannot be skimmed to even start to get your bearings. Playing CrossCode can be a bit like going on a road trip without GPS: Every few miles, you have to pull over and unfold an unwieldy road atlas.
CrossCode, at its heart, is not a retro-styled hollow homage to Super Nintendo titles like 1993’s Secret of Mana and 1995’s Chrono Trigger. Instead, it’s something more like a full-throated continuation of their tradition of exploring massive worlds full of side quests, puzzles, colorful characters, and gear to collect–while also building on their thornier, more tactical contemporaries. CrossCode’s fondness for this era of action role-playing games is clear out of the gate: Both the opening menu screen and introductory sequences set the tone with plaintive piano, chiming bells, and an oozing chiptune soundtrack that wouldn’t be out of place on one of those “lofi beats to relax/study to” YouTube playlists that lean more heavily into nostalgia. The pixel art style doubles down on all this.
The above is in sharp contrast to the game taking place in a fictional, modern MMORPG called CrossWorlds. That is, CrossCode is a single-player game taking place in an in-game MMO where other characters speak and behave either as other players or NPCs. It’s a world filled with guilds, griefers, and other player characters running through, too busy questing and level-grinding to hold still and talk with you. And just like in a real MMO, the other players you make your way on with will chat and open up about their lives–and give you due notice when they feel they’ve been playing way too long and need to log out and take a break.
There’s a layer to the story above and zoomed out from this, which is that your character, Lea, is not a player but an AI based on the memories of a woman named Shizuka Sakai, who tried and failed to rescue her dying brother. A man named Sergey Asimov tells Lea she must play CrossWorlds to regain those memories–and once you start playing, CrossCode’s dominant note is more often meta commentary and jokes about MMOs and their players rather than making sense of the schemes and conspiracies pointing to what the hell is really going on.
However true these in-game jokes and critiques ring, they unfortunately continue a legacy of games mistaking a self-awareness of tropes as license to get away with deploying them. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with tropes in themselves, but CrossCode repeatedly features characters you can overhear complaining about aspects of CrossWorld that legitimately are worth complaining about. The result isn’t quite Westworld-style provocative questions on the nature of existence, but rather telegraphs a game developer who is apologetic about aspects or entire chunks of a game it fully expects people to groan through.
Early on, another character will praise the game’s combat but vent, “The puzzles on the other hand… sometimes they’re just a thorn in the side, don’t you think? Especially in those dungeons.” It’s hard to disagree. But it would be unfair to say we weren’t warned: Curiously, the game’s Indiegogo advertised five years ago that “the essence of CrossCode is throwing balls at everything.” Again, it’s hard to disagree.
These balls come into play in combat as projectiles, but are pivotal for the many, many puzzles ahead: Well-timed and precise aim is required to throw switches, move boxes, and to hit certain things in a specific and required sequence. The dungeons further complicate this by making certain puzzle facets elemental-themed–you’ll need the flame power to get through the ice dungeon, for example, but won’t know this until after you’ve gotten stuck, hung in way longer than you thought you should across multiple levels of a dungeon, only to earn a new power you’re expected to instantly have mastery over to manipulate puzzle elements.
The unveiling of this elemental side to everything, while familiar to RPGs overall, can make progress halting and confusing–particularly because of how expansive CrossCode is, and how often you will find yourself fighting enemies who have an obvious element weakness but with no clue where to find the necessary weapon to make advancement more within your grasp. Before you start playing the game, a warning appears that CrossCode was “designed with challenge in mind for both combat and puzzles,” and, boy, they weren’t kidding. The sheer number of puzzles is comparable to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s shrines, but unlike those puzzles, these ones aren’t optional.
In some ways, while CrossCode clearly is wearing its appreciation for games like Secret of Mana on its digital sleeves, that creates a skewed expectation for what the game really is. Yes, there is combat and leveling. But in many ways, CrossCode is much more like the more recent top-down hack-and-slash pinball-inspired dungeon crawler Creature in the Well. CrossCode’s dungeons are full of puzzles, and its overworld map is, too: Pretty much every screen you traverse has at least one to two puzzles in it as well. Overworld puzzles are more about hunting for roundabout ways to jump from higher ground ledge to ledge to find a chest–only to discover the solution begins two screens back and the chest is locked with a key you’ve never heard of and have zero clue where to find. These puzzles are in the background, there to notice and take on if you feel like it–except for the times when they’re mandatory. Those with little patience for either combat or puzzles can breathe a slight sigh of relief: The options screen has difficulty sliders to change enemy damage, enemy attack rate, and puzzle timer speed. The emphasis there is on “slight,” because while these sliders can make winning tough boss fights and solving puzzles easier, they aren’t a magic bullet–you’ll still need to deduce their winning strategies.
Fortunately, just as the previously mentioned in-game critics say, the combat is strong and the staggering amount of skill trees you can unlock and invest in only makes it deeper. There is a learning curve to adjust to, but you will eventually (more through patient trial and error than anything else) get used to tossing balls for ranged attacks, melee for nearby enemies, dashing to dodge attacks, guarding to block, and juggling on-the-fly elements-gated strategies unique to each. Despite being a top-down action RPG, CrossCode often can feel like playing a fighting game in combat–especially when you unlock certain abilities deep in skill trees. This isn’t a game where you can just mash buttons during combat. To survive, you need to become adept at parrying and dodging at just the right moments. And because the game boasts 120 enemy types and 30-plus bosses, there’s no relying on simple muscle memory to get by; each has their own behavior and requires their own unique strategy. This all gets further compounded by each of the elemental powers being accessible at any moment–depending on how you’ve leveled, each elemental could instantly switch you into the equivalent of another character class like tank, damage dealer, etc.
Combat has even further complexity to it with a ranking system–the more enemies you fight and kill without stopping, the higher your grade will climb, which increases the likelihood for enemies to drop rare items. And while you can stock up on healing items, the combat rank system rewards you for taking bigger risks as the higher your grade climbs, the more you will automatically heal during a cooldown. Relying on this healing system frees you up to stock up on non-healing items and partake in the game’s item-shop barter system. Though you can just buy items, CrossCode has a whole in-game economy where you can swap items for other items to build a collection of merchandise that will hopefully become valuable down the road, allowing you to trade for something you could really use. But, honestly, the barter system is complex. Unless you know what you’re saving up for, it’s mystifying what individual trades will add up to–and why they’re worth it. More often than not, I felt more inclined to brute force my way through with the gear I could find independently of these many storefronts with limited wares dotting the land.
There’s a similar hesitation I felt in the 100-plus side quests and challenges you’ll come across. You will wind up organically accomplishing many of them–say, to kill a certain number of enemies in an area or to procure a certain number of an item. But because of the game’s sprawling map and the huge, huge cast of characters you’ll come across, good luck remembering who gave you the quest in the first place and where to go to collect your reward. Despite the game’s many patient tutorial screens, you could be forgiven for not even realizing there even is an in-game map–though its usefulness is questionable, especially as you wander deeper and deeper into the game.
Like Owlboy and Iconoclasts before it, CrossCode is the latest in a long line of longer-gestating labors of love that emerge with varying degrees of cohesion. The best thing that can be said about CrossCode is it doesn’t feel at all dated or clunky on the other end of a prolonged development time. The biggest knock against it is that CrossCode can and often does wind up feeling both bloated and inspired simultaneously.
Every year, Destiny 2 provides players with a chance to celebrate some of their biggest achievements in the game with Moments of Triumph. Since last year, the event has become an even bigger deal, with players unlocking an exclusive seal for their efforts, and getting aspect to real-world merchandise they can purchase to reflect their in-game achievements.
This year’s Moments of Triumph is notable because it’s very much related to the upcoming Beyond Light expansion, which is going to reshape Destiny 2 in a lot of ways. Most notably, four current Destiny 2 locations will be removed from the game indefinitely, and a lot of the content in the current Season of Arrivals revolves around getting ready for those locations to disappear. A lot of their related activities are going to, as well as five current raids: Leviathan, Spire of Stars, Eater of Worlds, Crown of Sorrows, and Scourge of the past. A big part of Moments of Triumph this year is about revisiting those raids.
The good news is, if there’s anything you want from the expiring raids, now is the time to get it–all five are now “farmable,” meaning you can play them over and over again for their unique rewards, without their weekly limitations. And Moments of Triumph will intermix with more Destiny 2 content coming this season, including the Solstice of Heroes summer event that is also about celebrating your Destiny 2 accomplishments. Best of all, you’ll have plenty of time to play through the raids, and everything else, to get your Moments of Triumph rewards–the event runs until September 22 when the Beyond Light expansion unlocks.
The Ruinous Effigy exotic quest has gone live in Destiny 2. The energy trace rifle has some novel features attached to the weapon that strays from previous exotic abilities. In the gameplay video above we show the Ruinous Effigy in action across various activities both in the open-world PvE environments, as well as in the Crucible against other guardians.
The way the rifle works is fairly simple. You defeat enemies using the trace rifle beam, which will then convert the enemy into a purple orb that can be picked up by you or any member of your fireteam. Grabbing this orb will give you three different options in how to wield it: You can swing the weapon as a melee attack; use the orb to leap up in the air and slam the ground causing a massive area of effect ring of damage that will destroy most minor enemies and can one-shot enemy guardians; or create a massive void wall around you which will siphon enemy life and restore your health.
Exotic weapons in Destiny 2 usually have some neat mechanic that allows it to shine, but the Ruinous Effigy–alongside the seasonal exotic Witherhoard–showcase there’s a renewed effort from Bungie to create novel exotics. Although they might not be the new DPS meta, they’re certainly a lot of dang fun to use, which is always welcome.
Twitch has received backlash on Twitter after sharing a Black Lives Matter video that featured very few Black streamers. The video, which Twitch has since deleted, featured mostly white streamers, primarily DrLupo, talking about Black Lives Matter. Twitter User @2leftjoycons reuploaded the video.
I’m sorry, but this is maddening to me. Twitch talks about the importance of #BLM YET STILL 1. Has 90% of the talking done by white/nonblack people 2. Doesn’t promote any black streamers/content creators Share and promote Black Twitch content, here or in retweets! pic.twitter.com/fMJ8DNq7yU
Twitch followed up with an apology stating that the video was supposed to be focused on allyship, a message Twitch said it “didn’t make clear.” People took issue with the video promoting the message of supporting Black Twitch streamers without showcasing and promoting more of them.
We hear you. Our goal was to demonstrate the importance of allyship – a message we didn’t make clear. Only by working together can we create a positive change.
BlissKai and ZombaeKillz, two Black Twitch streamers featured in the video, expressed their feelings on Twitter.
It sucks that Twitch deleted the tweet but it had to happen.I want to see black gamers succeed & make a difference as well. My first ever huge thing from Twitch & I’m glad I even got a opportunity to see myself up there. Disappointed but Twitch just delivered the wrong it the way
why im not mad at that twitch video… it didnt show the same 5 black partners that hate being used as tools for diversity.. twitch dug around. it also celebrated the actual and very real allyship of some creators during this time. AND AND… white people listen to white people.
If you’re looking for more gaming content from Black creators, check out this roundup, featuring articles, videos, podcasts, and streamers.
Twitch dealt with controversy earlier in the week when it tweeted out a video celebrating LGBTQIA+ content creators that said “When the G in LGBTQIA+ also stands for gamer.” Twitch has deleted the tweet and put out a version without that graphic, but did not address the change.
Twitch put out a video on pride and this was one of the tag lines. People are already confused about what each letter means. It was deleted pic.twitter.com/1H7FwE8F7G
GameSpot has officially kicked off Play For All–a celebration of all things gaming. Join us as we bring you the summer’s hottest news, previews, interviews, features, and videos, as well as raise money for COVID-19 relief efforts and Black Lives Matter with the help of our friends from around the gaming world. Check out the Play For All schedule for more.
Blizzard has announced another set of balance changes coming to Hearthstone, and like the last few updates it focuses mostly on the new class, Demon Hunter. Though the update also packs balance changes for some other powerful decks currently dominating the meta, one class is clearly the biggest target.
Of the eight cards getting balance changes in the 17.6 update next week, three of them are Demon Hunter class cards. Those include Metamorphosis, Kayn Sunfury, and Warglaives of Azzinoth–all reliably aggressive Demon Hunter tools that have helped the class remain strong.
Other big changes are coming to strong cards used in popular Warrior, Mage, and Druid decks. And similar changes are coming to the neutral legendary Dragonqueen Alexstraza and the Rogue Galakrond. Rather than generating or drawing cards that cost 0 Mana, both of their effects will instead bring cards that cost 1 Mana. That retains the strong effect but keeps them from being played all at once or in conjunction with strong combo effects.
Heads up! Next week’s 17.6 patch will include balance changes for a handful of cards in Standard. Full patch details will be shared July 14.
Blizzard had said it designed Demon Hunter cards to be a little stronger than most on average, in part because it had some catching up to do with other classes that have amassed a much larger card pool over the years. It seems the developer may have overdone it, because Demon Hunter has been nerfed repeatedly in the few months since its release–including the fastest balance adjustments ever, just one day after release.
That initial rebalancing nerfed four Demon Hunter cards. Since then it’s readjusted six more Demon Hunter cards, mostly nerfs, and this will include three more. Despite the number of rebalanced cards, the class has remained competitive in the meta.
Check below for the full list of upcoming balance changes.
Hearthstone 17.6 Balance Adjustments
Dragonqueen Alexstrasza
Old: Battlecry: If your deck has no duplicates, add 2 other random Dragons to your hand. They cost (0). → New: Battlecry: If your deck has no duplicates, add 2 other random Dragons to your hand. They cost (1).
Corsair Cache
Old: Draw a weapon. Give it +1/+1. → New: Draw a weapon. Give it +1 Durability.
Metamorphosis
Old: Swap your Hero Power to “Deal 5 damage.” After 2 uses, swap it back. → New: Swap your Hero Power to “Deal 4 damage.” After 2 uses, swap it back.
Game of Thrones is getting a massive 4K UHD Blu-ray collection later this year. Game of Thrones: The Complete Collection is available to pre-order now at Amazon for a cool $255. Best Buy has an exclusive steelbook edition up for pre-order for $240 as well. Best Buy’s edition is probably the way to go for serious collectors, but we wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon’s price goes down before the box set’s release, making its edition more enticing.
6479547 – Game of Thrones Complete Collection 4K UHD – Amazon and Best Buy pre-orders
Game Of Thrones Box Set
The Complete Collection comes with 4K, standard Blu-ray, and digital copies.
Though each season of Game of Thrones is already available to purchase individually in 4K Blu-ray format, now you’ll be able to buy all eight seasons in one box set. The 33-disc set comes with both 4K UHD and standard Blu-ray discs as well as digital copies of all 73 episodes.
In addition to the full Game of Thrones arc, you’ll get 15 hours of special features, which are presumably the same as the special features from the standard Blu-ray collection that released late last year. If you want to own the entire Game of Thrones saga on Blu-ray but don’t have a need to watch in 4K, you can grab the gorgeous Blu-ray collection from Amazon and Best Buy for $195. Alternatively, you can (re)watch every episode of Game of Thrones on HBO Max, the recently launched streaming service that costs $15 per month.
As Disney’s domestic theme parks get closer to opening, The Hollywood Reporter says the company is being accused of retaliating against a union of 750 Disney World performers demanding workers be tested for COVID-19 upon a rolling series of resort re-openings. Disney World is currently scheduled to partially re-open July 11, followed by Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios on July 15.
However, Disney’s reported response to the call for testing has been to “rescind all of its recall notices for Equity members,” opting to reopen parks without those performers in the union.
A statement issued by the union reads: “Since our public request that Disney test performers in the park, there have been more than 114,000 new coronavirus cases in Florida. Rather than agree to testing of performers, Disney has decided to retaliate against workers fighting for a safe workplace.”
Disney, in a statement of its own, responded: “Seven unions signed agreements to have their employees return to work… the Actors’ Equity rejected our safety protocols and have not made themselves available to continue negotiations, which is unfortunate. We are exercising our right to open without Equity performers.”
Back to the Future 2 is streaming on Netflix. Here’s what to look for when you watch it.
The first Back to the Future movie ends on a bit of a cliffhanger–Doc, Marty, and Jennifer travel to the future to save Marty and Jennifer’s children in a now-airborne Delorean. Back to the Future II follows through on this narrative, though after the first 30 minutes, it shifts gear into something zanier, when Biff steals the time machine and decides to make his own customizations to the past.
The movie does what all sequels must: it raises the narrative stakes even higher, and it reframes the first movie’s events in a new light. It also adheres to the first film’s internal logic. The entire narrative thrust–the creation of alternate timelines and branching realities–is a fanciful depiction of how many physicists actually conceive of space/time.
We revisited interviews and the Blu-Ray commentary of writer Bob Gale and producer Neil Canton to find the most interesting trivia we could. Here are 20 Easter Eggs you might have missed in Back to the Future Part II. Great Scott!
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1. New Jennifer Parker
The filmmakers recast the role of Jennifer Parker and re-shot the scenes at the end of the first movie with a new actress, Elisabeth Shue. They then used those re-shot scenes as a recap at the beginning of the sequel.
The original Jennifer Parker, Claudia Wells, dropped out of the sequels to care for her family; her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.
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2. Old Doc Brown
As he quickly explains, 1985 Doc looks younger in this movie, because he went to a rejuvenation clinic in the future to make himself 30 years younger–like his 1955 self. There was a practical reason behind doing this; Christopher Lloyd no longer had to spend hours in the makeup chair to get ready for his scenes.
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3. Re-Elect Wilson, Jr.
Apparently, the Wilson family has a political dynasty in Hill Valley. In 1985, Goldie Wilson was the mayor of Hill Valley running for re-election. In 2015, his son, Goldie Wilson, Jr, is also mayor Like his father, he is also running for re-election.
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4. Still Broken
Apparently, Hill Valley never got around to repairing the clock tower. In the first movie, Doc Brown broke the ledge directly under the clock. It remained broken when Marty traveled to the present in 1985. It remains broken in 2015, when Marty travels to the future.
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5. Cubs Win!
The 2015 issue of USA Today says that the Chicago Cubs won the World Series in a five-game sweep. They didn’t manage this in real life; instead the Cubs won the World Series in 2016, for the first time since 1908.
There are other interesting 2015 “predictions” on the front page. Princess Diana became Queen Diana; in reality, Princess Diana died in 1997. There was a Swiss terrorist threat, which is funny given Switzerland’s long standing neutrality. Lastly, we had a female U.S. president, which still has yet to happen in real life.
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6. Young Elijah Wood
The kid with the orange shirt and yellow suspenders is played by Elijah Wood. Wood famously played Frodo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.
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7. Skateboard Parallels
The sequence where Marty steals a girl’s hoverboard and escapes from Griff closely mirrors a similar sequence in the first movie, when Marty escapes from Biff on a makeshift skateboard. It shares a lot of the same beats, including when Marty hitches a ride on a passing car. History repeats itself.
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8. Close Enough?
Crispin Glover and the filmmakers couldn’t come to terms on a contract, so he did not return for the sequel. The movie did the best with what they had; they shot his character, George McFly, from behind whenever they could, and they added prosthetics and heavy makeup to the replacement actor for any frontal shots.
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9. Split Screens
Michael J. Fox plays all three roles in this scene: Marty McFly Sr., Marty McFly Jr., and Marlene Mcfly. The filmmakers spliced three takes together to create the scene.
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10. Flea Cameo
Douglas Needles is played by Flea, the acclaimed bassist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
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11. Power of Love
After losing his job, Marty Sr. strums Huey Lewis’s “The Power of Love” on his electric guitar. The first movie featured the song prominently, and Marty played its opening during the Battle of the Bands.
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12. Check The Dashboard
If Marty and Doc had taken a second look at the dashboard, they would have seen that the Delorean last departed from November 12, 1955–proof that Biff had used the time machine without their knowledge.
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13. President Biff?
Writer Bob Gale confirmed in an interview with The Daily Beast that Donald Trump was on everyone’s mind while they were making the movie. He cites a particular scene from alternate 1985, when Biff is holed up in his casino:
“You watch Part II again and there’s a scene where Marty confronts Biff in his office and there’s a huge portrait of Biff on the wall behind Biff, and there’s one moment where Biff kind of stands up and he takes exactly the same pose as the portrait? Yeah.”
At the time of the movie’s release in 1989, Trump had an ownership stake in three Atlantic City casinos, all of which bore his name: Trump Plaza, Trump Castle, and Trump Taj Mahal.
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14. Third Wife
According the the Biff Tannen museum in alternate 1985, Biff was married three times: currently to Lorraine, and previously to sex symbol actresses Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield. Monroe is most famous for her comedic performances in The Seven Year Itch and Some Like It Hot. Mansfield was a Playboy Playmate, and starred in The Girl Can’t Help It and The Wayward Bus.
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15. Brother’s Deleted Scene
Several narrative decisions were based on casting availability rather than creative choice. The decision to kill alternate 1985 George McFly was because Crispin Glover decided not to reprise his role. As for Marty’s siblings, there was a scene that showed an alcoholic Dave McFly living homeless. But since the actress who played Marty’s sister, Wendie Jo Sperber, did not return for the sequel, the filmmakers decided to axe any sibling scenes so that the audience wouldn’t ask questions.
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16. Carl Sagan Endorsement
Astronomer and popular scientist Carl Sagan, who hosted the original run of the show Cosmos in the ’80s, praised Back to the Future Part II for its portrayal of time travel and the theoretical science behind diverging timelines
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17. Real Football Scores
Old Biff uses a UCLA football game on the radio to prove to young Biff that the almanac is real. This was a real game (the Bruins won, 19-17), and it did happen on November 12, 1955.
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18. A Quick Spin
When the Delorean travels back in time at the end of the movie, it leaves curved flame trails in the air. This was intended to show that the Delorean spun at 88 miles per hour, which triggered the time jump, instead of accelerating to the speed linearly.
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19. What Inventions Did They Get Right?
We still don’t have flying cars or hoverboards. But Back to the Future: Part II did a good job of predicting the little things–the conveniences that make our lives easier. Tablet computers, picture-in-picture broadcast, flat screen televisions, fingerprint online payment, self-tying shoes, and drone technology are all inventions that came true.
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20. Why We Don’t Have Hoverboards
There’s a short movie on the Blu-Ray release of the Back to the Future trilogy called “Doc Brown Saves The World.” It’s 8 minutes long, and it was made in 2015. In it, Christopher Lloyd reprises his role as Doc Brown, and he explains that there was a nuclear holocaust in 2045 as the indirect result of four inventions: the food hydrator, th self-lacing shoes, the hoverboard, and the home energy reactor, which made human beings too lazy. He travels back in time to prevent all four from being invented.
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Disclosure: ViacomCBS is GameSpot’s parent company
