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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 | |
Requirements: Mac OS X: 10.5 | CPU: 2 GHz Intel | RAM: 2 GB | HD Space: 2 GB | Graphics: ATI or NVidia card w/ 256 MB RAM | Not recommended for Mac Minis or early-generation MacBooks Review: Back to the Future - The Game is a graphical adventure originally released in five parts by Telltale Games (The package from MacGame Store includes all five parts). This game, based on the movie of the same name, let’s you take part in the adventures of Marty McFly. It is an entertaining and often funny adventure, which isn’t terribly complicated, yet manages to provide hours of enjoyment. If you liked the Back to the Future movies, you will enjoy these adventures. In case you aren’t familiar with the theme of this story, a genius inventor, Doc Brown, invents a time travel machine that makes use of a DeLorean automobile. Using the machine, he along with friend and neighbor, Marty McFly have a series of adventures traveling back in time with the intention of making things better in their present day. They quickly learn that messing with the time line can cause all types of unexpected events, few of them for the good. The game makes use of the fact that the player might have seen the movies, and might enjoy more of the same. Much of the humor, the personality of the main characters, and the interactions between them are captured in this game. Even though I have not seen the movies in a long time, I remembered enough to still enjoy interacting in this simulated world. Back to the Future begins shortly after the events of the final movie. We start with Doc Brown having been missing for some time. Marty, is worried. He knows that Doc has gone somewhere and somewhen, but has no idea specifically where or when (luckily, these adventures stay within the confines of a local town called Hill Valley) When Doc’s DeLorean returns without Doc, but with his dog Einstein, it is up to Marty to find a clue which will tell him what date Doc is stuck in. Playing the part of Marty, you move about the spaces of Hill Valley, first looking for the clue, then using the time machine to return to the past and rescue Doc. Finding a way to rescue Doc requires that you interact with the people and places of the past. As hard as Marty tries not to, something is altered during the rescue which alters the future (his current time), so upon your return to the future, you realize there is a need to return to the past and try to undo the change. This game has five episodes, the second through fifth episode all deal with trying to repair the damage done in the previous episodes. When you complete the adventure, you return to a slightly altered, yet comfortable future. All is well, until the last scene…. I found these adventures to be simple yet delightful. Solving the goals of the game is generally a matter of interacting with the right people and/or finding an object or hidden area. The puzzles are challenging but not crazy. They don’t require the player to find a date by setting a planetarium to show a specific constellation that was seen briefly looking at a journal found in a drawer. What you will do is interact with the characters and the environment to gain clues, items, and manipulate events needed to progress the game along. When interacting with the characters in the game, you learn what to do next or where something needed might be, or where you need to go to learn more. Sometimes it is as easy as asking the right question or picking up an item on a table. But there are more complex tasks involving a series of steps. If you do get stuck, the game offers a multi-layered hint system. You can ask for a hint, and if that hint doesn’t help there are often additional and more detailed hints available. The game also will keep track of the goal you are currently trying to accomplish. But since the game is linear, there generally is not more then one path to pursue. As with any good game like this, as you progress through the game, parts of the environment change. A control, person, or object might appear; or you having done something or found something, will change how the person in an area responds to you. While this game does very well overall, there were a few instances where unusual things happened. But these are few and easy to deal with. The goal description is usually detailed enough so you know where to go or whom to speak with.
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