You know I’m beginning to feel like the only rational human being. When I heard that ‘Telltale’ were creating a game adaptation of the well-loved franchise ‘Back to the Future’, I didn’t jump out of my seat and thank whatever deity I believed at that given moment, I slammed my head against my desk and cursed said idol for bequeathing such a burden upon my shoulders.

Back to the Future – The Game isn’t dreadful the same way a fly in the car isn’t too distracting, the game is just boring. You would think with a franchise like Back to the Future you could set the game in basically any timeline as long as you pull it together in the same way the films did by making as much sense as a woman in a managerial role, but the game peeks off far too early and what we’re left with is a disappointed woman next to us.

If my calculations are correct, this will not be a good game

You play as ‘Marty McFly’ several months after the third movie. After a quick flash back cut-scene which shows Marty and ‘The Doc’ testing the ‘Delorean’, you wake up at your house in ‘Hill Valley’. Right off the bat we see that the graphics aren’t too bad and the voice acting is bloody brilliant, but is heavily let down by the frankly God awful lip-syncing.

The main plot of the first half is The Doc hasn’t returned yet and only after traipsing around The Doc’s lab and completing some painful fetch quests and some utterly boring puzzles, you find out that The Doc is going to be killed in the past and it’s up to you to save him. So thus far not a ground-breaking story, but enough to keep most slackjaw locals glued to their happy box.

Without trying to spoil anything, round ‘Episode Three’ is where the game becomes pretty damn shitty. For some strange reason which I could only assume was down to a bone-idol development team, we begin with a great if mishandled opening, which suddenly changes into some ‘human reprogramming’ malarkey and a piss poor ending.

Back to the what?

Back to the Future – The Game is reminiscent of ‘Heavy Rain’ because it’s a point and click adventure where the characters control like windup wankers. Every time the game called for some slight player interaction I’d sigh because it was time to try control someone who moves like a wheelchair bound man with a bucket on his head. Also it has the other deformity that plagued Heavy Rain, which is it’s a far better experience if you aren’t the one playing it. I have spoken to people that have played Heavy Rain, and those who didn’t have crossbars lodged in their smell receptors said they hated it. Whereas, people who sat down and watched the game said it was pretty interesting, and Back to the Future has the same problem.

Playing thought it because of the unbearable controls, makes the game so aggravating I want to smash Marty right between his oblivious eyes. Not only stealing from Heavy Rain, but the choice system plays like a budget version of something ‘BioWare’ would force out like an uncomfortable bowel movement. You can choose supposedly, how you play the game but in reality I find that it doesn’t change anything and it’s merely there to make sure anyone playing hasn’t fallen asleep or shoved a knife in a plug socket.

What happens to us in the future? Do we become arseholes or something?

All in all I don’t understand why Back to the Future – The Game was made in the first place. Everyone knows that that series worse film was the last showing that the franchise is on a downward slope, meaning any attempted at a new film, game or shadow puppet production was going to follow the same path. I will say if Telltale could have kept the excitement alive even half way through the second half it would have been miles better than it is. Eighty-eight miles to be precise.

Back to the Future: The Game Score: 4.5

Why so high? Voice acting, good first half.
Why so low? Poor second half, control are terrible, frame rate chugs and boring fetch quests.

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Every now and then, talented writers from the web want to write for Bag of Games. We encourage our visitors to offer us articles and have their voice heard among the best suitable audience there is: Gamers.

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