Back To The Future The Game doesn't reinvent the point and click genre but it is a very solid and fun game
The gameplay in BTTF is standard point and click adventure fare, with various puzzles and lengthy dialogue cinematics throughout the game. Telltale has been the masters of the genre over the past however many years, and BTTF continues that trend by being a fun, yet simple game with tremendous story and characters. As you could imagine, there are a ton of puzzles throughout the game. Some of the puzzles are simple and easy, but there were a few that were pretty challenging. The challenge mainly comes from the solution of the puzzle being something that I never would have thought to do, rather than being physically difficult. There is one puzzle in the game that I would have never gotten if I didn't get outside help. There is this invention of Doc's that reads minds and determines a person's mental makeup, and you had to alter doc's own reading. There were items in the environment such as bad smells and good smells, but it was never clear to figure out just what reading you needed out of him, or what sequence to use to attain that. For the most part though the puzzles are clever and well done. A complete playthrough of all 5 episodes of the game will take about 8-10 hours depending on how quickly you figure out the solutions to puzzles, and I played about 15 hours getting all of the games ps3 trophies. To help you along the way there is a hint system in the game that can be used as much or as little as you want. I found myself using it every so often to help with a puzzle or get on track with what I had to do next. Sometimes the game really wasn't clear on what to do.
The game does a wonderful job of capturing the BTTF universe, and although there isn't much replayability to the game, I could easily see myself going back and replaying it once a year or so, to see the story again. The story in the game ties in really well with the movies, and the game occurs a few months after the movies ended. Marty hasn't seen Doc Brown for months after he had disappeared with his family to travel in time. One day the Delorean appears with a message from Doc saying that he is potentially in trouble. Marty then travels back to 1931 and discovers that Doc has been imprisoned and blamed for a speakeasy fire in the town. Gangsters are also after Doc and want to kill him. After rescuing Doc they discover that something they did along the way messed up the timeline in 1986, and the rest of the game is traveling time and correcting things in various time periods so Marty's life in 1986 stays how it should be. That's all I will go into with the story, but there is more to it with many different alternate timelines and settings. The story is truly amazing and worth playing the games for. The characters in the game are also very well done, which is a good thing since its a character based game The voice acting in the game is incredible, with every character in the game having the perfect actor. Most of the original movie cast is here including Christopher Lloyd, but there is a new actor for Marty. Michael J Fox, due to obvious reasons, couldn't do the voice acting, but the person who plays Marty sounds just like him and did an amazing job. You couldn't really tell the difference. Fox himself also makes a cameo in the game with a small part.
The graphics in the game are great; the environments are very bright and colorful. The characters have a ton of detail. One problem I had however was that the walking animations of the characters, especially Marty, seem very goofy and awkward. Other than that the game looks great and has a nice unique style to it.
Overall BTTF the Game is a great cinematic based adventure game, with a great story and characters. The game has a few gameplay problems such as some of the puzzles, but overall it is a very good game and worth playing for anybody.
4 stars (8.0)