Back to the Future - It's About Time artwork

A long time ago, I was really into a lot of PC games, and I played through at least one game on an average week! And for years I was managing a gaming website, so at least one good thing could come out from my addiction. Well, those days has passed now, and I play through maybe four games per year. So it’s pretty normal, I guess. But I’d like to start a gaming column, here on our blog, so if you like gaming, you can keep yourself updated about a few games that I play, and I consider them quality games, or they’re close to me for some reason.

So the first game I’d like to talk about is the new Back to the Future game from Telltale. If you’ve never heard of Telltale yet, go and check out their website. They make pretty good adventure games, and it is a dying genre. So Telltale makes games that require logic and some time to solve. You can walk around sets and look for clues. But one peculiar thing about the games is that they have seasons. For example the Back to the Future game was released in December, but the third episode was only released yesterday. So after playing through one episode, you can wait a month or so for the next one, similarly like TV series.

Well, everybody can decide, whether this is a good thing or a bad, I really found it amusing and great to wait a little time what will happen next with my beloved game hero (because at the end of every episode there’s a little teaser). It always makes me say “aw, I want it now!“, but some way I enjoy the period I have to wait.

Now back to our game. So Back to the Future had its 25th anniversary last year, and it had a little commotion around it, and the guys took advantage of this, making the game. In the first episode we find ourselves half a year after the last movie ended. And of course the Doc is in trouble. I won’t say too much about the story, I don’t want to spoil your fun. But let me say this: if you like the Back to the Future series, if you watched the movies multiple times, then this is a game for you! So don’t hesitate, buy it now (I was fortunate enough to buy it with pre-order).

Back to the Future - It's About Time cinematic

It was a little disappointing that when the game was released in December, there were many problems immeadiately. A lot of us hardcore fans waited until late for the release, and the guys at Telltale uploaded wrong, bad, or corrupted files to their server, so I wasted hours trying to figure out why my game doesn’t work, just to find out, that nobody can get through the menu screen. It was a bad experience, but after a while, and after a completely fresh download of the game, everything was fixed. But still, this was a pretty huge day, they should’ve been prepared for an overload.

Regarding the characters, they really nailed this one. Spot on, I just can’t complain, Marty is great (the new voice is exactly like Michael J. Fox’s voice), and we were lucky enough to get Christopher Lloyd as the voice of Doc. So the characters and sounds are great, and the story will get you back to the mood.

Well the graphics is a bit of a tricky part. A was a really addicted gamer, and I saw really great and really bad game graphics, and I have to say, that most of the Telltale games graphics would be really great for example in 2005, or 2006. But not today. They look OK I guess, but if you are a hard gamer, then don’t expect too much – you won’t like it. It’s just not up to the standards of a Crysis game, or a GTA IV. But the size of the game is small (3-400 Mb).

But if you are just in it for the mood, then it won’t bother you. I don’t even see the bugs and mistakes, only concentrate on the story and the mood. Well, just to give you a full picture: you can expect texture problems (pixelated, too big textures), few polygons, so not every object, character is fully rounded. Things like this, not big things, but it won’t be good for everybody.

Back to the Future - It's About Time gameplay

Now, let’s get to the storyline. It’s built up pretty good, and though I just started to play this genre, I only needed the help menu once. And this is good, because the story can remain continuous, and you won’t be frustrated too much, but I think it’s way too easy. Everything was just obvious for me – if you listen to the conversations, you can do every task and riddle with ease. Now I don’t know why this is (maybe I just played too much games, and from the experience I can instantly recognize a situation?), but it cerainly helps younger players and those who are not that much into gaming, but wanted to buy the Back to the Future game, because they’re big fans. So I played through the first game in 2-3 hours, with only one help and listening to every conversation.

To summarize, I think this game is a really great game. But too short. While we have to keep in mind that it is episodic, so 3 hours per episode is fairly good (15 hours in total). I definately recommend the game for adventure game fans and BttF fans. If you are a hard gamer, you could try it, but I can’t guarantee that it meets your expectations.