Back to the Future: The Game – Ep 2 | Review (PC)

Review Score:

The latest in the monthly episodes of Back to the Future: The Game is upon us! In this month’s installment (Get Tannen!) we travel back in time once again to right the wrongs in the ever so fragile time stream. This episode takes place directly after the end of the first episode. After a brief prologue to remind us of the mechanics of the game, we soon learn that Marty has put a stop on the premature death of Doc Brown in the 40s. Yet something is a bit off, Marty has started to fade away! Marty decides (obviously) that he must attempt to fix the problem which has caused him to start to fade, and the game begins.

Even after solving that dilemma, Marty runs into more problems. Upon returning home to live out his life, Marty soon finds out that his meddling in the time stream has caused a second time stream to form. In this time stream, Kid Tannen has became a powerful mob boss and has taken over Marty’s home town and is terrorizing his parents. Doc Brown returns in the world famous Delorean and whisks Marty back to in time save the day once again. This little twist is where the story really takes off.

The story of this episode is entertaining and well written. Unlike other move to game franchises, the story of BttF: The Game is not some tacked on story written by an intern. It fits the overall theme of the franchise and deserves a place in your library. While playing, I really wanted to keep going to find out what was going to happen, and it was cool to see the results of your actions from the last episode in this one. The ending is quite satisfying as well, since Telltale wraps up the main story thread of this episode quite nicely. But even after it is all said and done, the developers drop a huge “To Be Continued…” bomb that makes you wish episode three was out already.

Two of my favorite features of the first episode return in this rendition. The first is the slick help system. Should you have missed my first review (I’m heartbroken if you did) here’s a quick rundown of the system. If you get stuck, the game can provide you with several levels of hints. The first few hints will drop some additional clues to push you in the right direction, while the later clues flat out tell you what you need to do. The system works no matter what your skill level with puzzle solving is, which is why it is deserves some recognition. I never had to refer to a walkthrough to solve a difficult puzzle thanks to this system.

The second feature is the stellar voice acting. A.J. Locascio (Marty) and Christopher Lloyd (Doc) reprise their roles in this episode much to my delight. A.J. sounds so much like Michael J. Fox it’s spooky and Christopher Lloyd continues his excellent performance of Doc Brown. It makes the game so much more entertaining to have these gentlemen voicing the characters. One of the tricky parts of movie to game franchises is getting the main characters done right. Telltale did an excellent job avoiding the pitfalls of a movie to video game series with the character models and voices in BttF: The Game.

Mechanically, the game remains the same. You point and click to do everything and use the arrow keys to move Marty. The camera angles are much tighter in this episode, which leads to a more cinematic experience. I did get turned around a few times and headed in the wrong direction though, but that is easily overlooked. You can steer Marty with the mouse as well, but that is a little more cumbersome, so I avoided it. The interface also remains the same, but it didn’t need changes anyway, so this is a good thing.

If you buy the game, you get access to all the current episodes and the future releases of episodes for one price. If you were waiting to see what the second episode was like before purchasing, I am here to help you make your decision.

You should buy it.

The game is fun, it is funny, the voice acting is very well done and the story Telltale is setting up is excellent. There really is no reason to go back and play it again once you are done though, so I cannot give a full five star review to this episode. However, I can give it a four out of five, which is a really good score.  This game truly deserves its score, and even if you’re not a big adventure game buff, the help system will let you enjoy this well executed tribute to a classic film franchise. Great Scott, what are you waiting for? Go buy Back to the Future: The Game!

Visit this handy dandy hyperlink to buy the game.

Screenshots and logos courtesy of Telltale Games and are copyright their respective owners.