Can I drive?
Time machines, flying cars, skateboards, and puffy jackets that look like life vests. Marty McFly has a pretty interesting life. But his life is, once again, about to be complicated by the insane genius of Doc Brown.
NOTE: This game is divided up in to five different episodes. This review covers all five episodes of the game. 1. Gameplay
When I first learned about a Back to the Future game I was extremely skeptical. Games based on movies are notoriously horrific. They’re almost always handicapped by their material, the characters, the budget, and the owners of the intellectual property. But after playing The Walking Dead (also made by the developers of Back to the Future), I decided to give this game a chance. I am really glad that I did. Just to be clear, Back to the Future is not like The Walking Dead. While both are point-and-click adventure games, Back to the Future is very linear and has no decisions that the player can make. It is all about telling the story and having the player figure out simple puzzles in order to progress. It’s very basic and, for the most part, easy to figure out. If the player needs help, the game provides hints that are usually enough to point the player in the right direction. The story is awesome, the characters are funny and fit the personalities of the movies to the letter. Marty is clearly Marty, Doc Brown is clearly insane yet brilliant, and all of the other characters fit in with each other. There were some that were more convincing than others, but it all fit and worked great with the natural nostalgia factor that a game like this creates. It’s not about making the movies into a game, it’s about taking the characters and situations that the movies created and developing another story. This isn’t going to be an action-packed adventure game. It doesn’t have the same natural drama that The Walking Dead had. This is a very simple adventure that players can take and enjoy. It’s so simple that anyone from elementary school and up can easily sit down and figure out how to do. But despite that, this game will mean a lot more to the people who have seen the movies and enjoyed them than to the people who haven’t. The game assumes that the player has seen the movies and knows these characters already. Anyone who hasn’t seen all three movies will miss a lot of the tiny extras the developers included for their hardcore fans. After you’re done playing shooter after shooter and are looking for something totally different, take up this game for a bit. I guarantee you’ll have a great time. It’s long enough to tell a great story but short enough that you won’t get bored.
Altogether the five episodes took me around 11 to 12 hours to complete, which was a good length for the content. It was a satisfying length, but I definitely could have continued playing for longer. Unfortunately, that’s about how long every player will spend playing the game. There are no choices or alternate options, so once the player has completed the game there is no replayability.
Most of the game is fairly straightforward. You simply have to ask the right question or make the right mental connection. However, there were a few areas where the correct action became much more difficult to predict than others. Most of the time these areas could be figured out by using the game’s built-in hints, but there were a number of times when the hints weren’t helpful at all. For example, there was one section where the hints indicated that the player had to get a fur stole, but he wouldn’t have access to it until he first goes and visits Emmett Brown. It took me a while to figure that out, and the game did very little to help. Fortunately, these types of situations were relatively rare, but when they did happen they were very annoying. 2. Parental Notices
What little violence there is in this game is extremely mild. Occasionally the player will be required to subdue an opponent by knocking them on the head, but it is always in an effort to subdue the enemy. All of the violence is cartoonish. No one is ever killed and there is never any blood (except for when one of the characters has a nosebleed).
Some of the female characters are wearing clothes specifically designed to show off their curves. However, with one exception, there is no sexuality in the game. The only exception is an event surrounding Trixie, one of the main female characters in the game. The player has to find a softcore pornographic picture of Trixie. He then uses the picture to get Trixie fired from her job. There are also some pornographic magazines included in the confiscated material in one section. The player can never see anything more than the cover and comment on the "boobies" to distract Biff. There’s also a part where the player has to commit an act of PDA with his sort-of girlfriend Jennifer. There is only some kissing though.
There are a few random substances in the game but none of them are consumed. The most obvious is a pink substance used on Doc Brown while his mind is being controlled by Edna. The specific nature of the substance is never clarified, though. In that same section, Biff is supposed to take a sedative. However, when he refuses, the player has to give the pill to a nearby guard. The pill makes the guard pass out almost instantly. The only consumable substance in the game is alcohol. Much of the game takes place during the Prohibition era. Barrels of alcohol are smuggled in by the local mafia and served in the local speakeasy. The alcohol can be seen in a more traditional form within the speakeasy.
In one of the episodes the player can play roulette, sort of. The player can go up to the table and bet on black, red, evens, odds, or double zero. However, I never, ever won. The player has no money, so there isn’t a purpose in playing or winning. I thought that winning would get me some sort of a quest-related item, but it ended up not having a purpose to the story. 3. Other Factors
There are no modding tools available for this game.
Religion is not a factor in this game.
While Marty is typically a law-abiding citizen, there are plenty of times when the local law enforcement will inadvertently prevent Marty and Doc Brown from completing their objectives. When this happens, Marty and Doc will have to covertly go against the actions of the police. This includes Marty having to break Doc out of police custody in the first episode. There are similar elements to this in most of the episodes. The Doc is suspected of committing an act of arson against a local speakeasy, so he has to hide from the police while Marty does most of the work. There is also a local mafia crime family importing illegal alcohol into a local speakeasy. Marty will gain access to the speakeasy in order to try and help a local wayward police officer do the right thing and arrest the head of the family.
There are no online game modes in this game.
Extreme sports is a minor factor in this game. Car chases, hanging onto cars while skateboarding, and doing a few other dangerous stunts will happen occasionally throughout all of the episodes. However, much more time is spent firmly planted on the ground than trying to do anything daring.
Magic is not a factor in this game.
There are no additional factors in this game.
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