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| | Gameplay
Sound
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Value
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| | Genre: Adventure & RPG | | | Min OS X: 10.5 |
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Back To The Future
January 31, 2012 | Ted Bade | |
As with most games of this genre, progress is made through a series of interactions with characters and the application of items in the inventory. In several cases, an item picked up early in the game might be used more than once in the same way. The events of each episode take place in just a couple general areas, always including the Hill Valley town green. The inventory holds items you pick up, allows you to inspect them, and to bring them out to apply to objects on the screen. Audio clues tell you that your attempt won’t work and sometimes give a vague hint. If they do work, a video sequence follows, showing what is to be done.There are only a few characters in this game, which show up in most episodes. Interaction with game characters is through canned statements, click on a choice and Marty says something akin to that statement and gets a response. The interactions serve both to help solve the puzzle as well as provide parts of the game’s story. Often, certain statements open a new area of the conversation, allowing you to find a clue or piece of information needed to continue. Some of the conversation choices might seem like asking for trouble, but you can do any of them without any serious consequence. Movement is via the arrow/movement keys. It is a bit clunky, as the function of the keys does not change as the position of the camera does. Once you get a feel for the movement, it become transparent, although I did find myself trying to run Marty into a wall often enough. Marty’s movement itself doesn’t look all that good. Marty lurches about, often seeming a bit tipsy. While it was a bit clunky, this didn’t really distract from the enjoyment of the adventure and the excitement of participating in a new Back to the Future episode. The spoken comments in this game are the best part. Here is where you learn the story, interact with the players, and get the most entertainment from the game. BTTF is an animated adventure, with real people doing the voices of the characters. Adding to the fun, some of the original cast of the movies do the voices for their characters. Most note worthy is the fact that Christopher Lloyd does the voice for the various forms of the mature Doc Brown and they even got Michael J. Fox to participate in the final episode, as a couple of the characters. Using original cast for voices bridges nicely from the movie to the game. However, the rest of the voice characters also do a great job. AJ LoCascio does a smashing job of Marty McFly, and sounds remarkably like a younger Michael J. Fox! The audio track also pulls from the motion picture. Some of the sound effects and background music come from the movie, as does the music during the ending credits of each episode. I found the audio track to be very well balanced, not at all repetitive, and the music blends so well into the background as to be enjoyed but not really noticed. This is a really well done and fun game. If you are looking for Myst like complexity, you won’t find it here, but if you are looking for a fun adventure with some laughs and an entertaining story you won’t go wrong giving this game a try! It is well worth the price of $25. I highly recommend this game for it’s entertainment value. Pros: • Entertaining and fun
• Light hearted
• Great voices Cons: • Puzzles are relatively easy
• Motion and movement a bit jerky
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