Back to the Future: The Game

The Good
It's funny: just a couple of days ago I was talking on phone with my mother, who (uncharacteristically) asked me what game I was playing; when I answered "You know, they just made a Back to the Future game. Do you remember that movie?" - she said: "Do I remember? That was your favorite movie, how could I forget it!".

Indeed, when I was a teenager, watching that movie for the first time back in 1988 or so was really exciting. I still love it. I've watched it at least seven or eight times, and the last time (about two years ago), I realized there was more to the movie than its flashy, goofy sci-fi side which appealed to me when I was younger. Back to the Future is a movie about the choices we make, about our power to shape our own future, about all those eternal ethical maxims that must be repeated over and over again because so few people actually pay attention to them.

Back to the Future: The Game captures the spirit of the movie and its sequels pretty well. The game's creators proved, above all, that they knew, understood, and loved the movies. Their competence goes beyond nostalgic reminiscences and plot devices. As a matter of fact, the visual style (being somewhat cartoony and even "super-deformed") doesn't resemble the movie at all; the story revolves mainly around Doc's past, which was hardly the topic of the movies; the action elements are sparse and confined to cutscenes. Yet every fiber of this game is so unmistakably Back to the Future, that the game could have gotten away even with less superficial differences. The game breathes the spirit of the movies as though it were created by the very same people.

The overarching story of the five episodes focuses on Doc. Basically, the main objective of the game is to help Doc find his true vocation, become himself. Naturally, all this is done with familiar nonchalant time-traveling plot devices. Everything that happens in the game is absolutely convincing in the sense that it fits what we've seen in the movies. The story has its poignant moments and also carries an underlying ethical message.

The dialogues in the game are well-written. They found the perfect tone, never going over-the-top with the comedy, and carefully preserving the style of the original. Everything is written with just a touch of humor, just like it was with the movies, and things never get too grotesque or out of tone, as it often happens with installments of long series when authors erroneously begin to think that it needs expansion and mixture of styles (yes, Escape from Monkey Island, I'm looking at you).

The Bad
While the game works as a Back to the Future product, the same cannot be said of its quality as an adventure game. I understand that Telltale wanted to cater to casual gamers, but there is a fine line between catering and dumbing down, and I think that they have certainly crossed it. Every task in the game can be solved simply by applying common sense to the situations. There are no actual puzzles, nothing that could challenge the player - it feels like a mildly entertaining sitcom with a bit of interactivity thrown in.

The worst thing about the game, however, is the utter lack of exploration, confinement to small, restricted areas. Roughly speaking, there is just one location in the entire game - the town square. Yes, you visit other places as well; but, without exception, all these places are just puzzle rooms in which you must accomplish a task and then move on. The only location that offers some (rudimentary) exploration is the square, and it's really small: there are maybe two or three buildings at most you can enter, and they are close to each other.

The game imposes inexplicable restriction on your movement: often you can clearly see an area, but cannot walk there. You are confined to tiny, pre-determined pathways throughout the whole game, and that is not good. The fixed camera angles are confusing, annoying, and out of place in a 3D game. On top of that, the navigation is clunky and weird: you either move by dragging the mouse (who came up with that idea?), or with directional arrows, but then you have to simultaneously hold a key to run. Walking and running animations look stiff and unnatural.

You only see the aforementioned square in two variants: 1930's and the alternate Orwellian 1986. Four out of five episodes take place almost entirely in the thirties. I have nothing against this setting, but I think a game with such a small location could have at least offer this location in different flavors. In fact, you do make a trip to 1876 (in the last episode), but it is ridiculously short and consists of a visit to one saloon.

I think something could have been done to reflect the action-loaded spirit of the movie. I'm not saying that the game should have been a shooter or a platformer or anything like that; but unlike the cerebral, comic book-like Sam & Max, Back to the Future would have benefited from more suspense and pure adrenaline-raising thrills. Maybe it sounds silly, but I think I would have enjoyed this game more if it had mini-games - perhaps a few quick-time events, maybe driving or racing levels, or anything to spice up the languid adventure gameplay.

Finally, I must say that even though they made a good Back to the Future installment, there still can be no comparison to the first movie. The story is much weaker and doesn't quite have the same kind, touching wisdom that made the first movie so memorable. It can be compared in this sense to the two movie sequels, which are in my opinion inferior to the original one. The episodes are also uneven in quality, with fairly long stretches of dull storytelling and repetitive plot devices.

The Bottom Line
Back to the Future: The Game is perfectly satisfying as a nostalgia trip to the great film, but strip away the license and you will be left with a paper-thin adventure game that is sub-par in pretty much every respect.