Back to the Future: The Game Preview

Doc, you disintegrated Einstein! No, for real this time!

It’s late at night in the empty parking lot of a suburban shopping mall. Empty, that is, except for a van, a DeLorean, an eccentric white-haired scientist, and a perplexed teenager with a video camera in his hands. Oh, and furry little Einstein, of course.

This iconic scene from everyone’s favorite time-traveling 80’s adventure is exactly how Back to the Future: The Game begins as well, and it's sure to be a welcome throwback for any fan. But you’ll quickly notice that the scene diverges from our fond memories: The DeLorean doesn’t reappear a minute after Doc sends it on its maiden voyage.



At this point the player takes control of Marty McFly, who immediately has a spirited conversation with Doc about what the hell’s going on. In tried-and-true Telltale point-and-click fashion, you advance the conversation through several dialogue branches. Being an actual scene from the movie, you can pick the options that Marty originally said for nostalgia’s sake… or you can rewrite history a bit and go for some different dialogue.
 
Rest assured, despite clearly diverging from the film, as you play, you’ll understand why this opening scene to Back to the Future: The Game doesn’t mess with our beloved canon (I’ll leave the spoilers out). But it sets an exciting, authentic tone for the five episodes that are now collected on one Wii disc.
 
If you’ve played Telltale’s previous Wii ports of their episodic games like Sam and Max, then you know exactly what to expect: the same PC point-and-click gameplay and puzzle solving, using the Wii-mote instead of a mouse, all at a bargain price. Back to the Future: The Game on Wii will only set you back a mere 20 bucks, even less than what it costs on Steam. And we’ve already reviewed the PC episodes very favorably, if you hadn’t noticed.



It’s great for any BTTF fan to see the series revived again—it has the same feel as the movies, along with Christopher Lloyd reprising his role and A. J. LoCascio doing an uncanny Michael J. Fox impersonation. In fact, several of the developers (and Lloyd too, for that matter) were incredulous upon hearing the dialogue that they were able to cast Michael, until they were informed that it was, in fact, a different voice actor!
 
Back to the Future: The Game will get its retail release on October 25. Now make like a tree and get outta here.