If you grew up as a kid in the 80's and 90's, you'll know this franchise just by the first few notes when the trailer video plays. Or you'll know it from the icon when you clicked on the blog. But for most of you, I bet you heard or seen this on Netflix, or from your parents. Some of you may have even mannaged to catch this on TV stations like Spike TV or even a rare occurence on
For many of us older nerds, this movie was an instant classic. It even according to some sources, reached cult classic status in the 90's when such movies hit TV.
The movie series spanned from 1985 to 1990. It created in it's viewers a view of possible futures, and great fantasies.
In 1989 shortly before the realease of Back to The Future: Part II; a video game was released with the Back to The Future name made by then game company LJN, and was subsequently NOT made with input from the original creators. Even writer of the original film Bob Gale requested many times to be part of the original story and making of the game only to be turned down by LJN - the creators - stating it was too far along in the making process to allow any changes. He was later quoted saying "one of the worst games ever," and even insted in interviews that fans not buy it. (sourced from wikipedia)
Fans were outraged and not many were happy with it's subsequent sequels also produced by LJN. Most siting the sequal's length, bad imagry and lack of passcode system or save features being used, the reason for disliking the game. Not to mention, in my experience, the game not having much to do with the series at all. With the exception of sparse comments, or allusions to the original stories.
While this is rampant with alot of games tied to movies, LJN was very bad with this in many of it's titles, and in my opinion was what led to it's subsequent death in 1994.
Since the LJN days, there has been a few BTTF games, but almost none of them has captured the spirit of the series in my opinion -- Untill now.
Produced by Telltale Games, Back to The Future: The Game is seperated into 5 episodes. Each chronicling the adventure of Marty McFly and what has happened after the third movie.
A little back story:
It's 1986, and Emmett "Doc" Brown inventor of the DeLorean time machine, has been gone with his wife Clara, and their two children as seen in the end of Back to The Future Part III. In his absence the bank that holds the loans for Doc are foreclosing and holding for auction his belongings. Marty, avidly against this has tried and tried to ask his father to help stop this. As he knows Doc is not dead, but has no way to prove it. Keeping his friend's secret about the time machine.
This is what you come into when you start the game after having a short memory of what happened that fatefull morning when Marty first gets into the time travelling DeLorean.
The Graphics:
If you're looking for a graphically inspiring game play, you're looking in the wrong direction. This game uses graphics style similar to titles like Ultimate Spider-Man, or Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 2. It's very comical, and can somewhat remind you of a comic book page at that.
But in that mindset, it is beautifully imagined, and utilized very well to even give the much beloved DeLorean time machine a good look.
The Story:
The story of this game is very reminicent of the series, and even follows in plot development much like the series. The story fits the characters and the types of situations one would expect from them and is very believeable in their world that has been created.
The Characters:
Every character whether they are being played by their real world counterparts, or stand-ins due to age most likely, are wonderfull. They sound, act and even protray their intended characters well, and even get alot of their influxes, and slurs, and intonations of how they were protrayed in the films down so that you barely are aware that they are NOT the original actors. (Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox and Claudia Wells the only reprising voice actors).
Execution:
Everything flows within the world they have placed this in. Everyone interacts as if you're within the world, and the integration is flawless. The world itself is as you remember it as they even competely model Doc Brown's house\lab.
Gameplay:
I found this to be a bit cumbersome at times, and I could honestly say on PC, it would benefit from some sort of gaming controller. But camera angles are decent as if you were actually watching a movie instead of a game, so much so that it makes you feel as if you're the director, and you could actually influence the game.
Conclusion:
As someone who grew up with the franchise, and watched it grow throughout it's time, I have to say, I loved this game! It's everything an avid fan would want from a game based on the movies. Unlike the poor LJN adaptation made for the NES.
So, yeah, go buy this game, or get it however you want. I'm sure you can find it for cheap via Steam, and as far as I know, you only have to pay for the first episode, and the rest are free.