When Telltale Games first announced that they were working with Universal Pictures to craft a new saga in the Back to the Future series care of an episodic point-and-click adventure, we were both excited yet a little bit apprehensive. Bringing back such a beloved license should be a no-brainer, but with such fond memories of the film trilogy, anything short of a pixel perfect rendition of the franchise would be incredibly divisive.
Some fans would appreciate the fact that this universe is being revisited at all, whereas others would be all too ready to criticise Back to the Future: The Video Game for besmirching the legacy of Bob Gale’s and Steven Spielberg’s cinematic tour-de-force. Telltale Games has already shown that they know how to threat this IP well, but every good adventure game hinges on its ending and thankfully the final episode, ‘OUTATIME’, more than delivers.
The dialogue and set pieces are brilliantly put together and the events patch up the strained relationship between Marty and Doc Brown, left off in the previous episode, in an inventive and succinct way. The calibre of the voice acting is again faultless and the cameo performances by Michael J. Fox really help to tie this series together as a celebration of all things Back to the Future. Crucially there’s plenty of DeLorean action to be savoured too and there are lots of references that fans will immediately recognise with a smile.
The episode clocks in at around 2-3 hours and is very linear in nature. There’s no opportunity to really explore and instead players will find themselves penned in for the majority of the running time. This isn’t a massive complaint, after all every concluding chapter needs a sense of urgency, but it would have been nice to explore more of the exotic locales, like the ironic future technology fair.
Another issue is with the exposition as most of the main story points are delivered by non-replayable cutscenes, which can be really frustrating when you miss critical dialogue or have it upstaged by some annoyingly loud background noise. Again this is a minor issue, but players have been building up to these critical moments for twelve or so hours at this point, and it’s unfortunate that players may have to reload or fiddle with the audio levels, in order to understand everything which is going on.
As is the case with many sci-fi stories there are some plot inconsistencies, but honestly for all the time-travel hullabaloo Back to the Future is always linked with, the main reason this franchise has stood the test of time is the relationship between the two lead protagonists. Doc Brown’s motivations and flaws are explored in just as many ways as Marty’s are and the concluding act does a grand job of linking them back together again. Lots of loose ends are tied up and there are some surprising, if not confusing, revelations to bring proceedings to a close.
The final cutscene itself is as perplexing as it is awesome and joyfully ribs the franchise for just how preposterous the idea of alternate timelines really is. It’s just a shame that the morale implications of messing with an individual’s destiny aren’t really explored like they were in ‘Double Visions’, but we suppose that the subject matter is considered too heavy for this light and humorous ending. Honestly it needs to be played to be believed!
Overall Back to the Future: The Game is too easy an adventure for the more hardcore point-and-clickers out there, but it emulates the movies perfectly and delivers a great ride for fans of the series.
Best of all the ambiguous ending hints that Telltale Games are at least entertaining the idea of setting another episodic series in this beloved universe and we’re definitely interested in seeing more.
So should we expect a Back to the Future: The Game 2 then? Only time will tell…
Verdict: 83%
To read reviews of all the other episodes in the Back to the Future: The Game series, please follow the links below.
Tags: back to the future
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