Back To The Future: The Game

Thanks to a click-thru banner at Penny Arcade, I found out that Telltale Games was offering the first episode of Back to the Future: The Game *absolutely free* this weekend.

I had heard good things, but let's be honest - we've all been burned by licensed properties before.  Remember 'Enter The Matrix'?  That thing seemed ready-made for awesomeness... yet still it ended up bland and uninspired.  That being said, however, Telltale's approach (an adventure game that serves as a 'sequel' of sorts to the trilogy that is now over 25 years old - god, that makes me feel old) gave me high hopes as I started it up the first time.

Maybe it's just overtly nostalgic sentimentality on my part, but they had me completely hooked from the opening credits.

The gameplay is standard, retro-adventure, point-and-click 'hotspot' fare - like it just stepped out of the golden era of adventure gaming (Just for point-of-reference, Full Throttle is my favourite adventure game of all-time).  The graphics are decent, but certainly nothing groundbreaking (though to be fair, I was running with the graphical goodies turned down because my iMac is over three years old).  The sound is uniformly excellent - from the outstanding voice acting (the fellow voicing Marty has Michael J. Fox's voice inflection mannerisms down to a science and Christopher Lloyd returns to voice the character that gave us '1.21 Gigawatts!!!') to the soundtrack (even Huey Lewis & The News make an appearance!).  Where this game *truly* shines, however, is in the story itself.  Without giving anything away, I'll say that the writers have crafted a believable and thoroughly enjoyable romp that could just as easily be mistaken as a full-fledged sequel to the original trilogy.  In essence, it takes the heart and soul of the Back to the Future trilogy and puts it in a video game (there are *several* little winks and nods to fans of the films throughout the game) so that you actually *feel* like you're right there, in that universe (the first time I set the time coordinates into the DeLorean, I couldn't help grinning like a Cheshire Cat).  It's incredibly fun and it made me dust off my old Trilogy boxed set just for the hell of it.

I should warn you, however, that seeing as how the game is in an episodic format, the first 'Episode' is only about 2 to 3 hours long and it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger.  But given how great the first episode was, I felt no qualms about going right out and purchasing the remaining episodes.
Telltale has seamlessly resurrected a beloved movie franchise and released the best new adventure game in years.  If you are even a passing, casual fan of the films, you owe it to yourself to give it a try.   After all, the price is right.


Geek Score: 8 out of 10 bacon strips