Penultimate chapters in episodic series are always difficult. Any budding developer needs to get the final event ball rolling, yet offer up enough resolution to make players feel as though their latest three hour investment was worth making. With a disappointing third episode, part of us had given up hope that this series would have be worthy of the Back to the Future license, but we’d should have known not to underestimate Telltale Games.
Double Visions sees Marty McFly struggling to get out of a false version of 1986 which was created his exploits during previous episodes Writing these things without talking about the grand themes at play and thus crossing into spoiler territory is tantamount to madness, but rest assured the status quo has been rocked to the core and more time travelling shenanigans are afoot, again returning to the 1930s.
Thankfully the old formula of running back and forth between two different skinned versions of Hill Valley’s town-square has been abandoned and here you’ll find all new areas, never seen before. There’s also the return of several characters with both Doc and Marty arriving several months later than their previous visit to the thirties. It’s really interesting to see these characters evolve due to your actions, but best of all Marty and Doc seem like more rounded characters in this episode, with the likeable protagonist’s superiority questioned by his reliable servant inventor.
Oh god this lack of spoiler stuff is a nightmare! Well, something happens and it’s a biggie. Finally the reason why Bob Gale decided to revisit this franchise is revealed and it further challenges the morality involved with messing with people’s lives and those of their ancestors so frequently.
It isn’t only the story and the dialogue which has been noticeably stepped up though, Double Visions has some well designed puzzles and a brief but fast paced running time which can be easily tackled in a single sitting. The developments come thick and fast, and for the first time in Back to the Future’s history you begin to question whether Marty really is the ‘good guy’ at all.
If you hadn’t guessed already episode four has been our favourite of the series thus far, it’s brave with the source material and doesn’t recycle any of the content we’ve seen already. Problems associated with pumping out these episodes on a monthly basis still remain, for instance some odd character animations and lack of a few sound effects, but nothing that isn’t easily forgotten or rectified in the inevitable compilation release post season.
All in all this chapter restored our faith in this series and sets up the final episode with a fantastic twist, like all great penultimate episodes should. Where this series is going to go from here is an absolute mystery, but whatever happens we’re extremely glad Telltale got to do their thing with the Back to the Future franchise.
Roll on Outatime!
Verdict: 90%
Tags: back to the future
Diablo III feature plus previews for Crysis 3, Dishonored and War of the Roses. As well as reviews for both The Walking Dead and Sniper Elite V2.
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