It's no small feat that this project was able to get off the ground, and I remember being absolutely floored at the announcement last year. Developer Telltale Games is at the helm--the proverbial messiah of point-and-click adventure games... I was curious if this approach to games would continue with the Back to the Future games as I'd always seen the franchise as something with great gameplay potential. The ability to ride skateboards, hoverboards, the Delorean and possibly a host of other cool techy devices all invented by none other than the Doc himself. The ability to choose when and where you want to travel would give way to endless possibilities... I was very, very excited, suffice it to say.
When the first trailers were shown and full details emerged on the game, it was revealed that, yes, it's an entirely point-and-click adventure game, which was a bit disappointing, to say the least... but I was still eager to see what they had in store for the story and exactly what made this an appealing game to create. Puzzle-solving is the prevalent method of gameplay, aptly so as Telltale Games' religiously prioritized game genre.
Now, let me impart on the fact that I am a HUGE Back to the Future fan... In fact, Back to the Future is my favorite movie trilogy, the 2nd of which is my favorite movie ever... That puts me in the very unfortunate position of judging this game. I can see the dangers as I'm obviously going to be very protective and nit-picky when it comes to this "sequel adaptation" if I may turn a phrase... but even without that bias, it's hard to ignore this game's many short-comings.
"When this baby gets adapted into a point-and-click episodic game sequel, you're gonna see some serious shit." --Actual line from the movie.
Firstly, I think it's important to mention that this game is episodic in that it is meant to be played in episodes. Every month or so, they release another episode and the player gets to play through it and wait for the next one, like some kind of interactive soap opera... I can see the benefits of this, but I'm more interested in full-length games... but that wasn't going to deter me from enjoying these games... it was everything else that would take care of that.
The first episode starts off with a faithfully animated recreation of the iconic scene from the first movie with Doc and Marty in the parking lot of the Twin Pines mall... It's a jarring experience as I've come to memorize the film's dialogue and voice inclinations, which has been redone here by Christopher Lloyd (25 years older) and a voice actor who kinda sounds like Michael J. Fox. The conversation plays out *slightly* different to what has become innate in my memories. It's like listening to a song you know through and through, but in a different key... I could see a person who has perhaps seen the movies 2 or 3 times highly enjoying this part, but for me, I found it very weird...
The scene goes on, though, and Doc sends the Delorean through time, which would come back a minute later as part of the demonstration for Marty... but it doesn't come back. They stand there and Doc is perplexed. Suddenly, Doc starts disappearing and says "I've made a grave mistake" or something to that effect. Then, Marty wakes up in his bed in a sweat and says "Where are you, Doc?" It's then revealed that it's May 14, 1986 and it's six months after the events of the 3rd movie. It all feels like something out of a fan fic, which is sad considering Bob Gale, the original screenwriter on the original films, was helping out with the story... I'm not sure why they decided to start the game this way as it only adds further confusion. Why choose that scene? Why not have a completely new scene so that people don't think there's an alternate reality? With all the inherent confusion that the original films kick up, why add to it?
"I feel... designed... ewwww..."
The game continues and it's relayed to us through dialogue with his father that all of Doc's belongings are being auctioned off by the bank, since Doc has long gone with Clara and his two sons Jules and Vern. Marty is a bit saddened by this and tries to convince his father not to sell off Doc's things. Why his father is even involved in this effort is beyond me. I mean, didn't he become a writer? Why is he so concerned in local affairs suddenly? It just makes no sense and it was obviously an effort to use as few "unimportant" characters as possible so they wouldn't have to model more characters. That's not the only place they cut corners in this game either.
"Nice, Dad... Real nice."
After Marty fails at saving Doc's stuff, the Delorean shows up in front of Doc's garage and Einstein's inside of it! OH MY GOD, AWESOME!!!!! The Delorean was destroyed at the end of the 3rd movie, so it's odd seeing it again. This question won't be answered for some time (if ever. I'm on the 3rd episode and they still haven't explained it).
Inside the Delorean is a recording of Doc's voice with instructions to go to elderly Edna Strickland's (a former newspaper reporter) apartment and finds from one of her archived newspapers that Doc was put in jail as a suspect in an arson case in 1931, during the time of Prohibition, and that he was shot the next day by bootlegging gangsters led by Kid Tannen, the owner of the burnt down speakeasy. Marty travels back in time to June 13, 1931 and from there the adventure begins. You can read the rest of the story at Wikipedia.
"Yeah! This is gonna be fun maybe!"
I don't want to get into the entire story, but you can see from that excerpt that the plot is a bit like the 3rd movie, only instead of the Wild West Hill Valley, it's Prohibition era Hill Valley. And instead of Biff's ancestor being a cowboy, he's a gangster. And instead of Marty's ancestor being a farmer... well, you get the point. Just to be clear, there's nothing really wrong with that plotting, but it's the execution, from the minute Marty shows up in 1931 to what tasks generally involve you doing that is the real problem of the game and exactly what shoots this game in the foot every time.
Marty spends most of the time wandering around town talking to the most dull people with the most mundane reasons for existing. Edna, a recurring character and nuisance, in my opinion, is this uptight citizen who hates alcohol, crime and, assuredly, fun. She tries to coax you into helping her host some kind of anti-booze rally. She asks you surveys on stuff so boring that Marty actually messes with her by coming up with a fake name for her survey.
Doc, meanwhile, is in prison. You can see him through the bars in comical cartoon style... I can imagine if there were some kind of psychopath in that jail cell and he was like that guy in Silence of the Lambs who flings his funk at Clarice... That's probably why they don't have those cells anymore so the whole town doesn't have to avoid the jail.
Anywho, a young 17-year-old Emmet just happens to be walking around town. This Emmet is working as a clerk at the Town Hall in order to fulfill his duties to his father, a judge, but secretly toils away at pointless inventions... You have to get him to help you get Doc out of jail by getting him to invent some kind of rocket that that'll bust Doc out of jail... It's cartoony, but whatever.
Marty's grandfather is also here, and he's as much of a wimp as Marty's father, which offers up an interesting point. The family lineage in these movies and how they function in terms of personalities is usually black and white. Obviously Marty tries to make up for his Dad's cowardice by standing up for himself whenever possible to the point of dooming his own future (which he presumably 'fixes' by the end of Back to the Future Part III). Expounding on this proof is the case of Marty and Marty Jr. in the 2nd film. The personalities are completely different to one another, so it's strange to see the exact same personality in his grandfather that his father exhibits. Honestly, his grandfather should have a similar personality to Marty, but then that would mess up the story... or whatever... Actually, I think it would have been interesting if Marty tried to teach his grandfather the lessons he's learned about not letting people like Biff get to him, this all assuming his grandfather had a similar personality to him. This would contrast Marty to his former self, I think, making you believe his arc that much more because he has a chance to show how much he's changed by contrasting him with his grandfather.
Creative story adjustments aside, Biff's father, Kid Tannen, is also here and he looks nothing like Biff. All the males in Biff's lineage thus far have looked like Biff, so why this one is an exception is beyond me. Biff here is a mobster, predictably, and runs a speakeasy with a little crime on the side.
"HELLO! HELLOOO! ANYBODY HOME?" ...Yeah, that's not in the game.
Speaking of Biff, this reminds me of another nagging fact that I wanted to point out and it's that the voice actor for Biff and Biff's father sounds NOTHING LIKE BIFF! It agitates me because Biff is a CENTRAL character who teeters on the edge of seeming pathetic, yet at the same time frightening because of his implied evil. The way he carries himself and how he looks and speaks to people communicates a certain dangerousness that they have absolutely failed to capitalize on in these games. Even when Biff is being violent, he never seems threatening enough to evoke a sense of fear from the viewer. We always think that Marty will somehow get out of these predicaments because in these games Biff is a wimp. He even sounds wimpy. Even in the altered history of the movies where Biff is subservient to George, Biff still has that spark of evil inside him and it's apparent. We know there's a dangerous mind that lurks within him, still, even after years of being repressed (even in 2015 when he's an old man, perhaps especially so), but in these games, there's absolutely nothing of that spark. They missed a huge opportunity in not getting Tom F. Wilson to voice act in these games.
"Err, ehhh, hiya Mahty!" ---Totally not something Biff would say... and even if he did, he wouldn't sound like a Jewish grandmother.
Moving on to a very basic, yet crucial, critique of these games, the animation is horrendous. I understand that there's a lot of custom animations based on the seemingly endless conversations Marty has with the denizens of Hilly Valley and that puts a strain on quality animations, but some of these animations are absolutely abysmal. Sometimes a character will start walking and then jerk suddenly while in the same pose to walk in a completely different direction. The worst I've seen is if characters need to interact. Never do these animations appear smooth or like they're actually holding each other. Sometimes their hands would just freeze in the air while the other character is moving around, clipping in and out of the arms. A character might move in close to something and only be moving on one axis, making them appear robotic. I hate to say it, but it's as bad as PSX game animations.
The rigging on these characters is another problem. In the CG biz, there is this thing called "skinning" which basically binds the model to the rig (the skeleton, essentially) and then the model is able to be animated. After that's done, painted weights need to be done for the models to deform properly when manipulated. In this game, elbows and biceps look incredibly awkward and look a bit noodly. If a character ever needs to do anything but sit or stand around, it's especially noticeable.
The models themselves look fine and the stylization doesn't bother me, but sometimes the animations, though trying to fit the designs of the characters, don't fit the actual characters themselves. The way they move looks goofy, which makes me wonder if the animators ever even watched the movies or know how to make human animations in general, not just cartoony animation.
I believe it's the job of the animator to not distract from the story, whether that be from making amazingly flashy animation or crappily made animation. Obviously they're working the latter of the two options, and it's pretty embarrassing to watch what looks like CG puppets trying to show real emotion. For a game that is mostly people interacting through conversation, it has no problem showing off how unpolished it is with its animation.
The facial animations are pitiful. They used the most basic of facial expressions: sad, happy, fright, anger and neutral... There is literally no between for most of the characters.
The lighting is actually pretty good, though. Textures look solid and appropriate. Blur your eyes when looking at a long shot of Marty running in town and you might think you're looking at unrealistically animated reality.
*Whimper* "At least I'm well-lit!" *Cries*
As for the gameplay, it's pretty simplistic. You point and click the screen and solve basic puzzles. There's no way to fail in these games. If something doesn't work, you do it again and then it works. There's really no penalty, and for a game, that's not a good thing. Even in movies that's not a good thing... The rest of the time (and by that, I mean most of the time), you spend talking to people. You just make endless banter and things are relayed to you in the most tedious way imaginable. Instead of showing cinematic visuals that present you with all the information you need, we're required to sit through endless exposition through conversations in order to get the full story... For a game that's supposed to emulate the movies, everything has a very hum-drum and lax feel to it, like you're just hanging out and seeing what's up in all these places. Despite this, there really isn't a lot to check out. The town always feels abandoned, never brimming with life or excitement. You just feel alone.
Despite all this (or perhaps distract you from how vapid all of this is) they make little winks to the audience in the form of quotes from the first three movies, as if they're telling you that, yeah, this is Back to the Future... only it's not. It's like going to the Back to the Future fan club where there's none of the fun of the movies, only these boring lectures and talks to sit through while you'd much rather just be watching the movies.
It's very disappointing to watch this whole thing play out and seeing all the opportunities they had to make this an awesome experience and just watching as they continually dash all hopes of that. One part in the game, in an alternate version of 1986 where Marty is a complete nerd and Jennifer is a punker, Marty has to prove his worth with the guitar against some jerk who's supposedly the best guitar player in town. This is when they could have played Power of Love by Huey Lewis, but instead they opted for guitar shorthand where it feels more like inaudible riffs than actual music. I loved Marty's "heavy" version of Power of Love in the first movie and this would have been the perfect opportunity to revive it, but instead they favored some lame gag where the jerk falls in a dumpster while showing off his "moves." What a waste.
I have only watched 3 of 5 episodes (the 5th one isn't even out yet). While they have some interesting ideas as far as the story goes, the execution makes it all seem very dull and unexciting, which I believe to be a slight against the original trilogy. The 3rd episode is probably the best so far and has the most interesting story, but I haven't seen the 4th yet. I'll write an updated review once I've had a chance to see them all and have a chance to make my final remarks... Until then, stay tuned.
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