Back to the Future: The Game

Telltales' Back To The Future is another episodic adventure game series which tells a story taking place after the iconic film series; so it's almost a fourth movie. Doctor Emmett Brown (Aka “Doc”) hasn't been seen in six months and when the time-travelling DeLorean returns to Marty with only Einstein the dog in the driving seat, Marty then needs to travel back in time to find Doc, who happens to be in jail in 1931 as a suspect of arsonist of the Speakeasies.

With time-travel, any tinkering with the past can have drastic changes to people's lives and historical events. Throughout the game, Marty and Doc often think they are ready to live their normal life but learn that a small change has had catastrophic consequences on the future, meaning they have another job to do to repair the damage.

Graphically, the bold and cartoon-like world works well. The game can be controlled by mice and keyboard, mouse only, or by using a game-pad. Which ever method you use, the controls can feel very clunky, which is partly due to the camera. Movement throughout the town isn't as free as you'd imagine, where invisible walls often guide you to use the footpath rather than darting over the road. As the camera angle changes, adjusting your direction feels awkward and inaccurate. I settled with using the pad, and you can cycle the interactive objects using the bumpers, squeeze the right trigger to highlight interactive objects which is helpful.

Another problem with the environments are that they aren't that interactive. Usually, there's plenty of objects to bring out extra witty dialog, or to try to make the puzzles harder, but the town just feels empty. There aren't enough characters to make the town feel busy either, so it just feels a little bland.

The dialog and voice acting is good. So impressive that you probably won't notice that Marty isn't voiced by Michael J Fox. The dialog trees are a bit disappointing though because sometimes you are presented with a choice, but it's just the illusion of choice, since Marty will say a set dialog anyway. The whole game is very dialog driven, the puzzles are pretty basic and sparse for an adventure game. If you do get stuck, there is an in-game hint system which is helpful and makes checking a walk-though redundant.

If you like the Back To the Future film series, then you should like this game. But as a game, adventure fans probably won't enjoy it too much since it is more of an interactive story and not interesting if you ignore the subject matter.

To be honest if you are a fan of Back to the Future you will love this. It gives of sort of a what if story if the series had continues and explores the McFly family back in the 1930s along with Biff's grandpa. Each episode has its sets of twists and is different than the previous episode. The plot is actually solid even if there are some holes and silly moments, but I'll admit the final 2 episodes did feel dragged and like they pushed things a little, and lets be honest, in Episode 3 how was Doc Brown able to operate his society like a complete dictatorship when they live in the United States, you think the California government would come in an remove him since that is violating so many federal and state laws. But yeah, I did enjoy seeing a young Doc Brown in the 30s and those were among the best moments of the game, and well this isn't great, its good enough for me to actually consider official Back to the Future.

I'm sure that I'm not alone in saying this, but I truly loved the Back to the Future series of movies and always hoped that there would be a fourth movie or some continuation. This is not to say that the series wasn't wrapped up conclusively, but the concept just seemed to have limitless untapped potential, not to mention the endearing characters. Other media, like the TV series Quantum Leap, picked-up on this and did attempt to carry the torch, but nothing could quite match the original. I wish I could say that Back to the Future: The Game was the much wanted continuation that this series deseved, but it is a bit flawed for me to give it that praise. Nevertheless, it is a good game, and at times, brilliant, and it is worth the time of fans of the movies.

Telltale Games has made their name by resurrecting quite a few popular licenses over the years (and more recently converting the popular titles of other media), and a part of me can't help but see them as opportunistic, wishing that they would develop their own concepts, but even I cannot deny the overall quality of these productions. As much as I want to doubt them, they do seem to have the best intentions at heart with Back to the Future, bringing back several key members of the cast and even recruiting Bob Gale as a consultant. Short of bringing back the entire set of players and having Gale and Zemeckis write the script themselves, longtime fans could not ask for much more. This is about as close to a fourth movie as we will likely get (unless Hollywood decides to a reboot, god forbid)

If you've played other Telltale titles, then you know just what to expect in terms of how it plays. It is easy to digest, and it avoids getting too esoteric with the puzzles, which ensures that it be accessible. It also has the usual Telltale presentation, which I'm not completely sold on here. The game has their usual cartoon aesthetic, which just doesn't seem quite right. I would rather the visuals try for realism, but at least the locations are accurate to their film counterparts. Since the gameplay is fairly basic, here, Back to the Future relies on the writing, and I have to say it's a bit hit-or-miss. The game spends most of its time set in the early 20th century, and despite being decades earlier, it feels like a retread of the 1950s setting of the first and second film. This is pleasant, but not exactly what I had in mind, and I think it goes to show that there is only so much you can do in Hill Valley before the concept starts to dry up. With the flying car, you would think that they could visit other locales, but I guess this was Telltale's attempt to be faithful. Things get more interesting when Marty returns to a dystopian, authoritarian version of the 1980s, and I was positively gripped by the thrilling fifth episode's conclusion, proving that this concept still has a lot to offer.

Given the high points, I would like to give Back to the Future a stronger recommendation, as its bright spots are nearly on par with the magic of the original trilogy of movies, but the writing just isn't consistent enough for me to praise it unconditionally, and as strictly a game, it can be a bit average. Although I would suggest trying the game if you're a fan of series, I do so with some caution. While I have no reservations about the quality of episodes 3 and 5, the other three episodes are not nearly as sharp and can actually be a bit of a slog. Given my conflicting opinions, I will leave you with this: if you ever wanted more Back to the Future, you should play this. If you just want a good adventure game and don't care about the license, this will work, but there are better titles out there, including other games by Telltale, and this is far from essential. In brief, this is one for the fans.

Recently, I finally caught up and finished watching the Back to the Future films. The trilogy quickly became one of my favorites because of its tight continuity and lovable characters, and I wished I had seen them when I was younger. However, after playing Telltale's Back to the Future game, I'm actually glad I waited. Having the films fresh in mind made the game a blast to play, and if you're a fan of BTTF who hasn't tried them yet, I suggest doing so when you have time. Without spoiling anything, it's safe to say the game feels like a legitimate continuation of the films' story and the creators put a lot of love and care in to making Hill Valley come alive again. While I do think Telltale knocked The Walking Dead (season one anyway) out of the park a bit more, this game was a great warm-up for them, and they didn't repeat the mistakes made in it.

Back to the Future: The Game's greatest flaw is its typical adventure game clunkiness. Controlling Marty is slow, sometimes unresponsive, and kind of frustrating at times. Many puzzles require traversing maps over and over again, which gets tedious and made me long for the simpler interface of games like King's Quest 6. I'm not sure that 3D graphics are worth sacrificing ease of use, but they do help to make the game feel more like the films, so it's a bit of a trade-off. It's a shame, as the game has a number of interesting puzzles, but they are hampered by odd design decisions. There are also points where I'd get ahead of the characters' logic and try to solve puzzles they weren't ready for yet. It's always annoying when this happens in games, but it's more pronounced in this genre. Sadly, you have to get past nagging issues like this to enjoy the game, but if you can, you're in for a nice ride.

Wisely, the creators focus much of the story on Doc Brown. He was always the most interesting character in the franchise, and it's great to learn about his backstory and see alternate versions of him. Christopher Lloyd graciously reprises the role here and it's as if no time has passed; he's a truly great actor, bringing the same level of goofiness and passion the character is known for. It's remarkable how consistent the other cast members are with their film personalities too, from Biff and his kin to the McFly family and so on. The other major character in the game is the newly introduced Edna, a grouchy woman who is so maniacally against alcoholism that even I (a strict anti-drug dude) was getting sick of her. While she annoyed me, I have to say I loved where the writers took her character later on in the game, and she proved herself a satisfying antagonist by the end. Like in the films, almost all of the introduced characters have some importance to Marty, Doc, or somebody else central to the story. Too often, games like this will meander with side plots and one-note characters, but Telltale sidesteps that trapping well and shows that (like in The Walking Dead) they have actual writing talent on staff.

If you are a fan of Back to the Future and familiar with all three movies, this is about as close to Back to the Future 4 as you're likely to see, and honestly, I'm okay with considering it that. Enough members of the original staff (including a head writer) are there to make it feel legitimate, and a live action version would have been impossible due to Michael J Fox's health and age. However, if you aren't a fan of Back to the Future, there's really not much to see here. It's a decent adventure game that thrives on being part of a great series.