By GameSpot Staff on Feb 17, 2018 09:30 pm
Wishing upon many stars.
Kingdom Hearts 3 is so close, we can almost taste it. After 10 long years, it goes without saying that fans have had more than enough time to think about what they want out of the franchise's latest release. Since 2018 is shaping up to be the year of bombastic sequels, our expectations are definitely high. While we've seen a bunch of beautiful trailers, it remains to be seen if Square Enix's latest will address some of the shortcomings of its predecessors. Here are nine things we want from Kingdom Hearts 3. Kingdom Hearts 3's release date is yet to be revealed, but we know that it will be coming later this year to both Playstation 4 and Xbox One. For an update on what to expect from this title, check out the latest footage from the game, complete with a screenshot gallery featuring Disney favourites like Ariel and Rapunzel. If it's a look at the development of this long-awaited game that you're interested in, then hop on over to our interview with director Tetsuya Nomura. Kingdom Hearts 3 made our list of the biggest PS4 games to play in 2018. If you're curious about what else we're looking forward to this year on the PlayStation, check out our in-depth gallery. You can also check out our galleries detailing the biggest Xbox games, Switch games, and PC games to come in 2018. For a broader look at what the year has in store, check out our feature focusing on the biggest games to play in 2018 in general.
Noctis
Famitsu did a poll in 2017 for Kingdom Hearts' 15th anniversary, asking fans which Final Fantasy character they'd most like to see make an appearance in the franchise. The winner by a large margin was Noctis Lucis Caelum. Plenty of characters from the franchise have already appeared alongside Sora and the gang, so it makes sense to include the newest member of the Final Fantasy family for a Square Enix double feature. Now that we've seen Noctis in Dissidia, we know that he's more than qualified to kick ass with the best of them. Taking on some Heartless will be child's play.
Atlantis World
Out of all the worlds that have been confirmed so far for Kingdom Hearts 3, there's definitely more than enough variety across the board to keep fans entertained. From Mount Olympus and Toy Story World to favorites like Yen Sid's tower, it's clear that Square Enix are going out of their way to keep things fresh. Nothing quite says fresh like an aquatic paradise. Enter: Atlantis. One of Disney's classics, stunning environments like the ruined kingdom itself and Atlantis' subterranean ocean caverns would look mint on the Playstation and Xbox hardware. Plus, the Leviathan would be a boss fight to remember.
No Star Wars And No Marvel
The odds of Star Wars making it into Kingdom Hearts 3 aren't great. We know that there's an interesting professional relationship with Disney and EA when it comes to who gets to make Star Wars games, and even with the fiasco surrounding Battlefront 2, we don't see that changing any time soon. The Pirates of the Caribbean sections of Kingdom Hearts 2 were admittedly its weakest; maybe it was because the live-action source material didn't translate well, or maybe because it's just not a good fit for the franchise. Either way, it proved that Kingdom Hearts should stick to its roots when it comes to arming beloved childhood cartoon characters. We've already seen enough of the Skywalkers and the Captain Americas of the universe kicking butt. But if you had to put Star Wars in Kingdom Hearts, then we have two words for you: lightsaber keyblade.
Upping The Ante With The Minigames
The minigames are a Kingdom Hearts staple. They've seen many incarnations since the first Kingdom Hearts game, ranging from odd jobs and riffs on Pokemon battles to musical quick time events. While it goes without saying that we'll likely be spoiled for choice when it comes to Kingdom Hearts 3's optional content, it would be nice if the minigames were a little more mechanically demanding on regular difficulties. For example, have a musical minigame that mimics rhythm games instead, or maybe revamp the gummi ship's image as baby's first rail shooter. The possibilities are endless.
An Updated Combat System
You could probably have button-mashed your way through Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 with the coordination of a drunken sailor and still managed to come out on top. We've seen additions like QTEs and improvements to movesets over the years, but we haven't really hit the sweet spot yet when it comes to how combat feels. Birth By Sleep and Dream Drop Distance did their part in making fights a little more challenging, but there has always been the sense of still having fat to trim when it comes to relying on Dream Eaters and the easily exploitable Command Deck system. All signs point it combat resembling some of Kingdom Hearts 2's battles, so hopefully this new combat system that incorporates the aesthetic charm of the older titles with the sensibilities of the newer, minus all the bloat.
More Kairi
Kairi is more than a series regular; she's won a place in all of our hearts. While we're realistically not going to get anything more than a chaste companionship blooming between her and Sora, it's not too much to ask that she gets some character development for a change. Considering that Square Enix have confirmed that Roxas will show up in Kingdom Hearts 3, there's plenty of opportunities for the core's friendship to be sorely tested in ways that will hopefully give us more insight into Kairi's character. Of course, just having her play a bigger part would be nice too; after all, she can wield a Keyblade.
A Contained And Coherent Narrative
There's no doubt that Kingdom Hearts is the kind of franchise that rewards dedication and persistence across multiple titles. If you've followed along with every iteration of the game then you'll know that if the story was any more splintered it would be near impossible to keep up with. However, there's no doubt that 2018's release will draw some newcomers into the fold. On behalf of them and for those who have subjected themselves to the mobile game for two crumbs of context related to HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue and Kingdom Hearts 3: can we please get a storyline that we'll be able to understand from start to finish without descending into paranoia and despair?
Refined Camera Settings
Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix was infamous for its camera miniboss. Half of the gameplay's difficulty came from having to tame a wildly swinging camera. Over time, not that much has changed--all of us know the pain of Dream Drop Distance's nausea-inducing camera movement at inopportune moments. Now that we've had a good 10 years to get this stuff right, it's reasonable to expect that we'll be able to have camera controls and sensitivity adjustments that we deserved all along.
A Forward-Looking Secret Ending
The secret endings are a siren song to every completionist out there. For an RPG franchise like Kingdom Hearts, they're nigh unmissable. As a consolation prize, the secret ending of our dreams would get rid of the Xehanort-shaped elephant in the room and pave the way for Kingdom Hearts 4. We know there's more to the game's universe than Organisation XIII, so what better way to keep fans hooked than to tease at the next big thing on the horizon that has to be defeated by the power of friendship?
By GameSpot Staff on Feb 17, 2018 08:14 am
Monster Hunting Tips To Be Mindful Of
Monster Hunter World is the most accessible game in the series. However, it still leaves some mechanics and systems unexplained. To help you get a knack for some of Monster Hunter World's intricacies, we've compiled 16 essential tips that we wish we knew before starting the game. Monster Hunter World is out now for Xbox One and PlayStation 4, with a PC release to come later in the year. That's notable, as recent entries were limited to 3DS. The additional horsepower has allowed for a game with much larger, more beautiful environments to play in. You can read more about what to expect in our Monster Hunter World review. For more impressions of the game, check out our feature detailing 11 ways for Capcom to make the game even better than it already is. If you're eager to see some of Monster Hunter World's high-rank armor sets, then check out our galleries showcasing armor on male characters, female characters, and Palicoes. Those playing on PS4 will be able to get their hands on some exclusive gear based on Horizon Zero Dawn. We also know that new Mega Man-themed items are on the way, as well as character skins themed around Street Fighter V--and if past Monster Hunter games are any indication, this won't be the last crossover content that Capcom releases.
Decorate Your House With Creatures
You might've noticed a net in your inventory that's not terribly effective against the world's bigger denizens. However, that net can be used to capture smaller insects, birds, and lizards. These captures earn you a few research points with each creature that you catch, but more importantly, the little beasts are added to your room as potential living decorations. Even after upgrading your room, the number of pets you can display is limited, but you're free to swap them out at any time. This counts for fish as well: While you can grab fish one by one with your rod, you can grab a few at once by using your net. Be warned, though, that the net scares off every other fish in the surrounding water.
Your Palico Can Get New Gadgets
While you're probably aware that you can swap out your Palico's weapon and armor at the Smithy, you might not know that you can acquire other gadgets for your companion. The starting Vigorwasp gear is incredibly helpful--especially early in the game, since it gives you free and immediate heals. But you can find other pieces of gear that give your Palico a whole host of different benefits. To find the new equipment, you need to go out to an area on an expedition and look for Grimilkynes; the researcher in each area will help point you in the right direction. Each area has a Grimilkyne who offers a quest, with new Palico equipment as the reward. One of our favorites is the Plunderblade, which you earn from the Grimalkyne in Rotten Vale. This handy item steals additional monster parts from your prey, which gives you yet another chance to earn some of the game's rarer items (and thus craft better loot).
Always Manage Bounties In Between Missions
Don't let all that time spent picking flowers and murdering small animals go to waste. Head to the Resource Center in Astera's tradeyard between every mission to turn in completed bounties and pick up new ones. They're usually fairly easy to complete--tasks range from gathering honey, to completing hunts in specific areas--and they reward valuable armor spheres for upgrading your equipment.
Turn In Delivery Requests At The Resource Center
The Resource Center is also where you go to turn in completed delivery quests. These are the missions that require you to collect a certain amount of specific materials, usually obtained from speaking with characters in Astera who have an exclamation mark icon. Even if you have all the materials, you can't turn in the quest until you speak with the woman at the Resource Center and select the correct option in the menu. Do so whenever possible, because the rewards are often valuable, and can include new fast travel campsites.
How Investigations Work
Investigations are one of the more confusing elements that are introduced early on in Monster Hunter World, largely because their name is something of a misnomer. You're not actually "investigating" anything; these are really just side quests to hunt or capture specific monsters. That's it. The hard part is managing them. At the Resource Center in Astera's tradeyard, you can "register" a maximum of 50 investigations at any one time. Each investigation can only be attempted or completed a limited number of times, but it's easy to get more investigations through combat, or by sniffing out monster tracks, marks, and other leavings out in the world. You'll also want to periodically comb through and delete lower-level investigations that you're not interested in, so that you don't butt up against the cap. Investigations are the best option for farming specific monsters, if you want their loot to make new armor or weapons.
How Weapon Upgrade Trees Work
Even early on, when your weapon upgrade trees span barely more than a few branches, they can seem hopelessly confusing. The important part to understand is that each weapon archetype has multiple possible starting materials. The basic charge blade, for example, begins on the ore tree (the Proto Commission Axe) or the bone tree (the Bone Strongarm). Each has its own unique upgrade path, and they don't intersect. For example, if you want to make a charge blade that deals lightning damage, you need to start with the Proto Commission Axe and work your way up; meanwhile, the Bone Strongarm can lead to a water-infused charge blade. It gets way more complicated, but the most important thing to know is that you can craft new base versions of these weapons--ore, bone, or otherwise--at the smithy anytime. You can also walk back most upgrades to get your materials back (though not the zenny).
How Multiplayer Works
Playing Monster Hunter World with your friends is one of the game's main selling points, but actually hooking up for multiplayer can be a headache. The main thing to know: You need to be in the same "session" as your friends to join each other on quests. When you load up the game, you can matchmake into a session with strangers, or create your own; either way, you can then invite friends. Or you can form a "squad" (like a clan or guild) with your friends, and load into your squad's session every time you start the game. Anyone in your session can join a quest once you "post" it at a quest board or with your handler. If you want only friends to be able to join, set a password. This comes with some limitations. You can't invite your friends early on in "assigned" (story) missions; you have to view all the associated cutscenes and get to the actual monster fight first. After that, you can fire off SOS flares (to attract random players), or have friends in your session join from the quest board. If you're having more trouble connecting with people, make sure that you're in the same session by checking the player list from the options menu (make sure that everyone is the appropriate hunter rank for the quest you're attempting). Be careful: Monsters become significantly more difficult in multiplayer, and their health scales automatically for four players. Playing with only two players can actually be harder than hunting solo, so it's smart to fire off an SOS flare from the menu, once you actually start the mission to invite more players in.
Save Manually
Monster Hunter World auto-saves your progress when you do something important, like completing a quest. But it's smart to save your game manually whenever you're joining a new online session or powering down for the night. Let's say you complete a quest and then spend several minutes putzing around in Astera, upgrading weapons, registering bounties, and managing inventory. Then a friend invites you to their online session. Great--you accept their invitation, ignoring the warning about losing unsaved progress. Congrats! Unless you saved manually, you just lost 15 minutes of your life, and you'll have to do all that micromanagement again.
How To Actually Use the Insect Glaive
A lot of us first-time Monster Hunters were drawn to the Insect Glaive as our initial weapon of choice, because it's flashy and looks cool. But more than a few of us didn't discover how to use it to its full potential, until we had already slain the first few monsters. The Insect Glaive comes with a Kinsect--a giant beetle that you're supposed to aim and shoot at monsters, in order to extract one of three different buffs for yourself. Once you're happy with what it's got, you'll need to recall it in order to receive the limited-time benefits. If you're diligent, you can have all three buffs going at once, which will greatly assist in your ability to slay your foes. Send the Kinsect to a monster's feet, and you can get a white speed buff. Hit its body, and you'll get get an orange buff that boosts defence. Finally, hit its head and you'll get a red buff, which boosts your attack power--and more importantly, expands your attack strings and combo options with even more slicing and dicing! Don't even consider attacking something until you have a red buff, at the very least. Seriously--some of us can't even believe we slogged through so many monsters without knowing this. The other important thing to remember with the Insect Glaive is that you should make liberal use of the vault-jump (R2 + X on PS4, or Right Trigger + A on Xbox One). You'll have access to two different aerial attacks (which are fantastic once you have a red buff active), as well as a midair dash to cover more ground or keep your combo going. It's even possible to stay in the air indefinitely, if the conditions are right. Naturally, this ability also makes it incredibly easy to mount monsters in order to knock them down. The Insect Glaive is all about being incredibly mobile, doing great air damage, and keeping your buffs up to unleash a dizzying flurry of strikes. It's fun as hell--when you know how to use it.
You Can Swing Around On Wedge Beetles
Mounting monsters is both fun and incredibly useful, but you don't always have always a good ledge to leap from. Enter the Wedge Beetle, those glowing bugs that you may have noticed scattered around the world (which also make a very distinctive noise to notify you that they're nearby). By aiming at a Wedge Beetle with the left trigger, you can hit the Circle button (on PS4) or B button (on Xbox One) to latch onto it, allowing you to swing indefinitely before launching yourself in a direction. This is useful not just for mounting monsters, but also for navigating the world, as you can sometimes save yourself the trouble of scaling a wall--just fly on up by latching onto a Wedge Beetle.
Item And Equipment Loadouts Save Tons Of Time
One of the most time-saving (and tedium-reducing) things you can do in Monster Hunter World is save your item and equipment loadouts. This can be done from the Manage Items and Manage Equipment screens of your item box, and each loadout can be assigned a name to help you keep track of what it is. By doing this, you can establish equipment sets that work effectively when hunting specific types of monsters. This means no more scrolling through all of your items to double-check, say, whether you have something that provides more defense and resistances. Item loadouts serve a similar purpose: They not only ensure that you have everything you want to bring on a hunt, they also allow you to easily dump everything that you picked up on a previous hunt. While Monster Hunter World introduces the ability to visit your item box while you're in the field, this ensures that you never find yourself ready to capture a monster after a long fight, only to realize that you didn't bring any traps.
The Map Is A Powerful Tool
A glimpse at the map can be overwhelming, but it's incredibly helpful if you know how to use it. If you're on the trail of a monster, you can select it in the bottom-left of the map, to have your scout flies help guide you toward it. Beyond that, you can set custom waypoints anywhere on the map,and your scout flies will guide you to your destination. And the map shows quite a lot--quests and bounties that involve hunting a particular small monster or collecting honey are much easier when your scout flies can take you to the correct location.
Talk To The Chief Ecologist Often
Among the people you'll want to routinely talk to in town is the Chief Ecologist, in the Ecological Research area of Astera. Located just to your left of where you spawn (up the stairs, behind where you manage bounties and investigations), having a quick chat allows you to capitalize on any tracks and other monster evidence that you collect in the field. Picking up that stuff is incredibly helpful long-term, but speaking to the researcher is a necessary part of the process, as doing so lets you increase your Research level with that particular monster. This, in turn, allows you to check out your Hunter's Notes from the Start menu at any item, which gives you important information about monster weak points, resistances, and item drops. Higher Research levels also provide a scout fly bonus, letting you more quickly pick up a monster's trail.
The Wishlist Makes It Easy To Track Materials
Crafting everything you want requires a lot of materials--and trying to remember exactly what you need can become a hassle. Rather than waste your time running to the crafting screen to see if you finally have all the necessary parts after each hunt, setting up a wishlist ensures that you get notifications telling you both when you've picked up a material for something on your list, and when you have all the parts to start crafting.
Capturing Monsters Is The Way To Go
Capturing monsters may seem a little intimidating, particularly if you're a newcomer; it's easier and safer to just keep smacking a monster on the head with a sword than to risk death by trying to ensnare it. But the process is actually quite easy (check out our guide to capturing monsters in Monster Hunter World), and more importantly, tends to yield more rewards than killing a monster. Capturing is obviously an essential element of some quests, but even when you can get away with killing a monster, you're better off bringing some traps and tranq bombs (or tranq ammo) and capturing everything that you can.
Flash Pods Are Invaluable Against Flying Monsters
Flying monsters can be obnoxious, particularly if you're a melee weapon user. They soar into the air, often out of even the most comically large weapon's reach, and they launch deadly attacks from the sky. Launching rocks with your slinger won't do much, but the slinger can be equipped with something that is more effective: Flash Pods. These are occasionally given to you for free at the beginning of a quest, or you can craft them and bring them yourself. Either way, simply scroll through your item bar and equip the Flash Pod, and you suddenly have a great counter to flying monsters. You only get three shots, but firing one in the vicinity of a monster's face with the slinger (done by holding the left trigger and firing with the right) will stun the monster and cause it to drop out of the sky, thereby saving you from an incoming attack (and opening up an opportunity to deal some damage).
By Mat Elfring on Feb 17, 2018 05:12 am
Netflix's newest original series, Everything Sucks, follows a group of high school students and their struggles to deal with life during the mid-'90s. As expected, the series is filled with references to '90s culture, objects, clothing, and terrible, terrible slang. However, the charming series is "all that and a bag of chips," and you can check out our review of the first season here. There were a lot of moments during the first season that reminded us of some of the great things that came out of the decade, along with a few other things that were just awful about the '90s. From Walkmans to payphones, the entire first season is a love letter to not only the decade itself, but every failed Coca-Cola product of the era. And there's no one better to talk/complain about this than someone who was the exact same age as the kids on the show in 1996, me. Here are some of our favorite and least favorite pieces of nostalgia from Everything Sucks.
Pogs
The game of pogs--originally called "milk caps"--was created in Hawaii during the 1920s, which may have been modeled after the Japanese card game Menko from the 1600s. In this game, each player stacks their circular, cardboard pogs with the image side down and uses slammers--a heavier, metal pog--to try and flip over their opponent's pogs. During the '90s, pogs exploded in popularity across the United States. Companies licensed out their characters to appear on the game pieces, and if you were like me, you had at least one Killer Instinct pog (mine was Kilgore). The fad quickly died out around 1997.
Nickelodeon Gak
During the '90s, there were plenty of green, gooey toys on the market. The most notable was Nickelodeon Gak. In 1992, Nickelodeon was at its height of "dumping green goo on people" era. Fans of the network loved slime, sloppiness, and everything else that showed up on shows like Double Dare. To feed the masses, Nickelodeon created Gak, which was a lot like Silly Putty but a bit more viscous. The best thing to do with Gak was push it into something like a pog holder and make fart noises with it, which is exactly what happens on Everything Sucks.
Hacky Sacks
During the '90s, hacky sacks--also called footbags--exploded in popularity. The American wave of hacky sacking gained popularity during the '80s but peaked in the mid-'90s and was even featured in the 1987 NES game California Games. Hacky sacks are small, crocheted balls filled with plastic beads that folks in the hippy and grunge communities took to as a fun game to pass the time. Essentially, it's a tiny soccer ball you kick around and don't let touch the ground. The best part of the game was making up dumb names for your trick, like the sweet "Joker's Wild" move I could do (it wasn't sweet).
The '90s Bowl Cut
Hairstyles from the 1990s were rough, especially if you were a guy. Many young men wore the '90s version of the bowl cut, which as it sounds, looks like someone put a large bowl on top of your head and just cut the excess hair off. Many kids during that time--sadly, like myself--shaved underneath the top layer of hair for what's known as an undercut. The poor souls who thought this haircut was cool parted it down the middle, like many people on Everything Sucks.
Jolt Cola
The '90s were all about excess, including twice the amount of things in your favorite soft drinks. Jolt Cola, which was first introduced in 1985, wasn't your typical cola: it had twice the caffeine. This was an era before energy drinks were everywhere, so Jolt was the cool thing to drink, as it was the only cola that kept you awake for two days straight. Mr. Stargrove drank Jolt during his scenes on the show and could be bought off with a six-pack, apparently.
Fruitopia
Fruitopia was Coca-Cola's answer to Snapple during the mid-'90s. The drink was known for its kaleidoscope imagery on its label and that some flavors were only available from McDonald's fountain machines. It was an attempt for Coca-Cola to market drinks to Generation X. The sugary, fruit-flavored drink met its demise in 2003, with Minute Maid taking over a couple of its most popular flavors.
Surge
Mountain Dew--a Pepsi product--exploded into popularity during the mid-'90s, and Coca-Cola's answer to that was Surge. What set the soda apart was the addition of maltodextrin, which changed the mouthfeel of the drink--as the chemical is used primarily in beer brewing. The drink was marketed towards younger folk and tried to associate with extreme sports, which aped everything Mountain Dew was doing at the time with its advertisements. Sales weren't great, and eventually, it was discontinued in 2003. However, Amazon started releasing it in six-packs back in 2014 for those who wanted a taste of nostalgia. Apparently, McQuaid loved drinking Coca-Cola's failures on the series as he's seen with both Surge and Fruitopia on separate episodes.
Tight Plaid Pants
There are a lot of weird fashion styles from the '90s, and many are showcased on Everything Sucks. One of the biggest standouts comes from the scene where Emaline stands on Lucas and company's lunch table and yells at them. She's dressed like Gwen Stefani with the gem in between her eyebrows and the plaid pants; Stefani wore something similar during the "Spiderwebs" music video. Both men and women wore these pants, as long as you had bad taste in clothing, like me.
Zima
Zima was weird, and Zima was gross. The alternative-to-beer citrus-flavored alcoholic drink was made by Coors as an answer to the growing popularity of wine coolers in America. However, much like on Episode 4 of Everything Sucks, it was popular with underage drinkers probably because their parents bought it and never drank it, so it was easy to steal. Zima tasted like a really old Mike's Hard Lemonade that had been sitting in the sun for days.
Cassette Tapes
Even with a resurgence in vinyl records, digital music rules the world. Most people haven't purchased a physical copy of music in years. However, during the mid-'90s, CDs were people's preferred choice, but they were expensive. This led many music listeners to jump back to an older technology, cassette tapes. At times, the format was annoying: you needed a pencil on hand in case the tape came out of the cassette--in order to rewind it--the cases cracked, and sometimes, the tapes would become stuck in the player. This happens in Everything Sucks, which means the people on the bus had to listen to Ace of Base, non-stop.
Pizzarias
The best thing the Keebler company ever created wasn't EL Fudges. It was Pizzarias, a pizza-flavored, triangle-shaped chip. It looked like Doritos but tasted like pizza, kind of. The chip was created in the late '80s but was most popular in the '90s. Then, one day, the delicious chips disappeared from store shelves. Pizzarias can be seen on Everything Sucks briefly in the school vending machine after Sherry and Ken got high and wanted some munchies. Little did they know, Pizzarias are delicious when you're sober as well.
Dial-Up Sounds
The sweet sounds of a dial-up modem may be painful to hear, but to some of us older folks, it's a symphony of magical tones. Although, back then, we had no clue how to really use the internet. Most of us teenagers spent time making terrible Angelfire sites or trolling people in the AOL Backstreet Boys chat room... Or maybe that was just me. Anyway, the gang on Everything Sucks hopped on the internet looking for ways to get high without purchasing illegal drugs.
Early Websites
The early internet was hard to look at and not because it's embarrassing. It's literally hard to look at because it's aesthetically a mess. There were tons of bright, flashing colors, with font hues blending into the background. Sure, finding cool websites was fun and all--especially when you got to use Ask Jeeves--but looking back, early websites were the worst.
Seatbelt Belts
Coming straight from your local Spencer's Gifts was the seatbelt belt. It was a belt for your pants that looked like an old seatbelt. It was a way to say you cared about safety as well as the height of your pants on your waist. Surprisingly, you can still buy these today. Emaline sports one of these cool accessories during Episode 7 of Everything Sucks.
Columbia House
Services like Columbia House, BMG, and a slew of others offered outrageous deals for CDs like "12 for the price of 1." Then, they locked you in a contract, billing you monthly for an outrageous amount of money. The best part was that they billed you after the CDs arrived, and if you were someone underage, like myself and everyone I knew, you just never paid them or the monthly fees after your first set of CDs came. Both Columbia House and BMG taught many of us an important lesson about bill collectors and how companies like these can't go into business with minors. Just don't pay for those CDs, Lucas. Don't do it.
Skateboard Backpack
Tyler has one of the coolest backpacks from the '90s, which you can see in Episode 1 and 8 of Everything Sucks. It's a Shorty's backpack that holds your skateboard, for when you're "on the go," but there's nowhere to skate. The board is zipped up behind the front pocket on the bag. Skate backpacks are still in existence, but none that we could find were like this Shorty's pack.
Blockbuster
Believe it or not, Blockbuster still has physical locations, although the majority are in Alaska. During the video rental company's height in the mid-'90s, the chain consisted of more than 9,000 locations and was a juggernaut in the video rental industry, probably because of its outrageous late fees. However, Blockbuster never took Netflix seriously, even before it offered streaming movies, and Blockbuster fell by the wayside. Currently, it's partnered with Dish for the Blockbuster on Demand service.
VHS Cameras
Everyone has a high-definition camera on their phone nowadays, but back in the mid-'90s, video cameras were bulky, heavy, and shot in extremely low quality. Early cameras used large VHS tapes to record onto, which were like giant cassette tapes for video. Lucas and the rest of the AV club have access to a lot of great camcorders--for its time--on Everything Sucks.
Pagers
Before cell phones were cheap enough to be available for the masses, there was a brief moment in '90s culture where many people had pagers, and I was one of them. These small boxes--many the size of a Tic Tac container--allowed someone to contact you and leave their phone number on the pager screen. If you had a bit more money, you could get a pager where the person calling you could leave a text message.
Pumps
The coolest shoes during the early-'90s were the Reebok Pumps. They looked like typical sneakers for the time, except they had a large button on the tongue--which many times looked like a basketball. When you pressed the button, air chambers in the shoe would fill up to create a more snug fit. Lucas had his own pair on Everything Sucks, and to me, that makes him the luckiest boy in the world.
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