Back to the Future: The Game: Episode 1
It seems with the recent relaunch of Tron and the Ghostbusters game released last year, there's been sort of a trend of making video game sequels to some well remembered 80's movies. Now Telltale jumps in with another episodic point-and-click adventure set in the universe of the beloved Back to the Future franchise. Set in 1986, a year after the events of the last movie in the trilogy, the DeLorean has long been smashed to pieces by that freight train and Doc's nowhere to be found. To Marty's surprise the time machine shows up out of the blue right outside Doc's old lab while Biff and George McFly are busy rummaging through his old stuff.
This first episode is a mostly solid opening to the season with a voice cast that features an impressive Michael J. Fox sound-alike and the return of Christopher Lloyd to his old Doc Brown role (though he definitely sounds 25 years older than you remember). Though the acting can sound a bit wooden at times, most of the dialogue is pretty sharp and occasionally funny. I didn't find it as laugh out loud or as clever as Telltales other games, however. The story is compelling enough to get you excited about returning to Hill Valley and the music alone will get any movie fan excited. Needless to say the game is loaded with references to the films that even casual fans can recognize like all those clocks on Doc's wall, that crazy can opener machine, down to the copyright friendly equivalents of the stores in the background of the Twin Pines/Lone Pine Mall. The musical cues, credits font, and the late title card all come together so well it's enough to make you watch the movie all over again. The game looks pretty good with a cartoon style straight out of Telltale's previous work. The animations can be pretty stiff at times, with Marty's walking animation particularly odd looking. The first episode will take you roughly 3 hours to complete depending on how quick you can get through the puzzles. I found none of them particularly hard and never felt the need to ALT+TAB out to find a FAQ. Telltale definitely helps you along with a built-in hint system with varying levels of help.
At $25 for a whole season of five games, the whole thing makes for a good bargain. Even if you never were a fan of the movies (if that's even possible) this episode is the first of what looks like another great adventure game season from Telltale, while fans definitely won't hesitate to pick this one up and they will not be disappointed.
