Back to the Future has been one of the wonderful franchises with a bad history when it comes to videogames, leaving fans of the trilogy with a bad taste in the mouth, since the old NES days.
Me being a huge fan the movies waited years for a decent Back to the Future game, when Telltale Games (Sam & Max, Tales of Monkey Island) leaked art and later on a trailer. I was hoping for something good, playing the game for the first time, all i could say was “Great Scott, finally someone did it right!”
Story
The game takes off around six months after the third movie, doc has been missing for months and the bank plans to sell his property. Mysteriously the DeLorean that was destroyed in the railway tracks suddenly appears, with broken time circuits and only one shoe as a clue, you must discover the whereabouts of Doc Brown.
Stranded in the 1930’s during prohibition Doc was put in prison, accused of blowing up a speakeasy. You travel back in time and rescue the Doc before he is shot by the local gangster Kid Tannen.
To do so, you must cooperate with a young Emmett Brown who designed a rocket drill that uses alcohol as fuel (something not easy to obtain in that time).
An arty McFly under the yoke of Tannen, a young Emmett Brown who fears facing his father to become a scientist, Doc jailed and a mob of gangsters after you, can you keep the timeline intact?
Think, McFly. Think!
Gameplay
If you played previous titles from Telltale Games you know what’s in store for you, with the already known and peculiar point and click style to which we are accustomed, Back to the Future joins this family of games.
If you never played a point and click game before, well.. let’s say you missed a great genre and this game is a good chance to start.
By pointing and clicking different objects you will discover clues and reveal objetives to advance in the story. You have to use the right clue or item with the different characters just like in many other Telltale games.
Difficulty of the puzzles is not too challenging but even if you get stuck there’s a nice built in hint system giving you info on what to do next (cheap but works!)
Art wise the cartoonish look of the characters may not be appealing for everyone, but they aren’t bad. The style i’m sure will please fans of the film, it was this that caught my attention, to know more of the game even before gameplay footage was leaked.
Something remarkable is the voice acting, Christopher Lloyd lending his voice to Doc for the game was a great asset from Telltale, it would not have been the same without him.
And what can we say from AJ LoCascio? in the role of Marty McFly, it is like listening to Michael J. Fox in the original movies. Definitely, voice acting in this title deserve a lot of praises!
Something to say about the PS3 release is how some trophies are unlocked by picking the right dialogs and choices at some point in the game, 2 or 3 can be easily missed in the first run. There’s a total of 12 trophies for episode 1, counting there’s 5 episodes this will please those trophy hunters out there.
help young Emmett to become a scientist
Overall
Back to the Future is a great game, specially for fans of the trilogy. Taking you back in time with dialogue and events that will help you remember the films, leaving a big smile on your face, during the game.
With good artwork, a nice story complementing the films, and excellent voice acting is hard to find bad things in a game like this. But if i have to point something it may be the controls, is a bit messy when you move to a different zone as the perspective change, but nothing mayor to ruin gameplay.
The point and click genre is not for everyone. If you like button smashing games or a faster style of play you may not like the game.
But for fans of this genre and as I said before the movies, this first episode was great and cant wait to play the rest!
We give the game a 8.5 out of 10!
~Mario
