Back to the Future: The Game is a point-and-click adventure game, and takes place as a direct sequel to the Back to the Future movie trilogy. And naturally, time travel (and its unintended consequences) drives the story.
You play as Marty, doing your best not to alter the timeline while saving Doctor Emmett Brown... and then trying desperately to fix it when things go inevitably wrong. The majority of the game takes place in 1931 or the Present (1986). Naturally, no matter what time period you end up in, the Tannen family is always there to cause problems.
Game PlayBesides a couple of minor annoyances regarding camera angle, the game runs reasonably smoothly. I didn't encounter any glitches/bugs when playing the game, and it does support multiple save states. Due to the presence of several missable achievements, I do suggest using them.
Throughout the game, there are little nods and references to the original trilogy, some subtle, some hidden behind dialogue options, some very blatant. I HIGHLY recommend watching the movies first for full enjoyment of the game. Doc Brown is voiced by Christopher Lloyd (who played Doc Brown in the movies), which is a nice touch. While Marty isn't voiced by Michael J. Fox (who played Marty in the movies), Fox does voice certain others towards the end of the game.
Unfortunately, the game suffers a bit from Marty's slow movement speed, which detracts from the excitement of any "AHA!" moments the player has. A couple of times, I got stuck on how to move the story along - turns out I'd missed a dialogue option or a hard-to-see item that I had to interact with.
StoryWithout spoiling anything... you get to work with a young Emmett Brown as he's just starting his scientific career, meet your grandparents before they get together, and see how small changes to the past make enormous changes to the future. There are a couple of emotional moments regarding an alternate timeline, and the game ends on a similar note to the Back to the Future trilogy. In the end, the Present has been restored, and bettered in a couple of small ways. It wraps up with multiple versions of Future Marty trying to get Present Marty and Doc to help them out, but Present Marty and Doc decide to ignore them for now and live in their own timeline for a while.
OverallThis game was nice as a fan of Back to the Future. I'm unsure that someone who hasn't watched the movies would enjoy it very much, though. Most of my entertainment value came from the references to the movies and my familiarity with the characters. There's not much by way of character development, so the characters would probably seem flat for those who don't know their history. The gameplay itself isn't anything special, although the dialogue could get funny at times.
So, overall, I'm going to have to give this one a 3/5.
3.0