Telltale Games have taken on the risky job of revisting the characters of one of the greatest movie franchises of our childhood. Great Scott, it’s actually not bad.
By Leo Stiles
I have long resisted the idea of a Back to the Future remake or sequel; arguing that any attempt to add to the trilogy would sully the reputation of a classic set of films from my childhood. Why anyone would risk a sub-standard take on Marty and Doc is beyond me, so it was with a genuine sense of fear that I fired up Telltale Games take on the time travel saga.
Happily, it turns out that I really shouldn’t have worried because Telltale have done the impossible and crafted an adventure that absolutely deserves to be called the fourth film in the series. From the use of the original movie score to the excellent voice cast-including Doc Brown himself; Christopher Lloyd, Back to the Future effortlessly transports you back into its universe with its blend of adventure and comedy.
Everything just feels right and although the game itself is a fairly easy affair, Telltale are savvy enough to know that we are all here for the story and anything that gets in the way of the it would ruin our enjoyment of an excellent piece of fan service
They’ve even accurately modelled Marty’s ‘life preserver’ jacket
And fan service is exactly what it is as the story trades on your knowledge of the original films and no attempt is made to catch the audience up – things have moved on in Marty’s world and it’s now 1986, the Doc has been gone for months and the Town Council is now foreclosing on his house. But before you can say ‘Great Scott!’, the Delorean mysteriously reappears and Marty is flung back to Prohibition 1930s in search of the crazy scientist.
Telltale have made their name from creating quality puzzle adventures and have already won accolades for their work on classic series such as Monkey Island and Sam & Max. Their trademark style is present here with puzzles taking the form of object use and conversation choices.
On the surface, this doesn’t sound like it will set the world on fire but by the time we got to taking Biff out with the same giant amplifier from the first movie, all thoughts of simplistic games mechanics went out the window.
Slight issues
Unfortunately, the game does have its technical problems that run from the slightly annoying loading screens to much more serious frame-rate issues. There is no doubt that the game is pushing the iPad hard but there are times when the game stutters along, with voices going out of sink and the odd crash. It’s a testament to the quality of the gameplay, the voice cast and the story that these shortcomings never completely derail things but when they do arise, they put a big dent in your enjoyment.
We have to mark the game down for this because in iPad terms, this is an expensive purchase at €5.49 and we should have the right to expect the game to perform well. The only reason we are giving Back to the Future a pass is because of the quality of the rest of it and we would hope that an optimisation patch in the future would iron out these issues before the next chapter.
As it stands, the game is a triumph of story over gameplay and is sure to be a new benchmark for the games based on movies. It’s just a shame that the same can’t be said for its technical performance.
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