Yep, isn't that interesting? Imagine you would have a time machine and the only times you can come up with are in the same time period, just a few years forth and back, over and over again. It must hurt if your imagination and curiosity is this limited. Well, at least the stage-props/CGIs are cheaper this way.
Stop that, you fool ! Fanboys are gonna tell you " but meh , lolilol, in the movies you only have 2 time periods in BTTF 1 and 3, so it's okay" ...
This somehow reminds me of a time travelling story were a bunch of people went back in time to hunt down a T-Rex and thought this would be a no brainer due to their advanced equipment but then it turned out quite different. And even this wasn't a large step through time.
Maybe TTG should consider to generally quit developing the first episodes and go straight for a e2-e6 experience instead.
played it with my brother (we're both adventurers from the monkey island 1 and sierra classics era). We loved every minute of it! Can't wait for part 2
Although I still don't get to my own computer, I managed to play it on my brother's Mac. I'd like to post an in-depth review, scene by scene (spoilerrrrrss!!), and I'd like to post it here in little, digestible bits.
This will address a lot of points other posters made before, but I'll try and focus on storytelling/cinematography elements also, which mean a big deal to me.
Once more: SPOILERS!
I. Opening: The Dream
Phew, my brother's Mac is way OK with the system requirements. What, you don't need to actually install this? Seems like I'm a Windows doofus too much. First downer: Even though we desperately tried to get the system language changed, we just could not get English instead of German screen text/subtitles. Vainamoinen has a BIG sad, while his less-English speaking brother actually likes this. OK then, German screen text and English language. Blech.
But here's Doc from Marty's camera. Ohh, I still can't get myself to like how they cartoonised Doc. The concept art had looked far more promising. And didn't that Panasonic thing record in color, or wasn't that invented in 1985? But what the heck, this is a great way to experience the old scene again and open the game. AJLC is awesome, and I think that the quieter lines are also beautifully done. Christopher Lloyd gives me goosebumps even. The twin/lone pine mall looks just great. We chose answers which Marty did not give in the movie and were of course hellishly disappointed when Doc gave the same responses as in the movie. Well, TTG obviously missed the great opportunity to go creative here and enhance player immersion a great deal.
WOW, the DeLorean does NOT reappear? Jesus Christ! As in the best of time travel movies, my mind starts thinking of the whys and gets entangled in complex ideas about timeline violations. I'm thinking: "YESSSS... this is great! A bold start, TTG, that's what we needed!". Then, our first gameplay scene: Marty has to search for Doc's notebook. But what is THAT? Klicking on one of three possible hotspots solves this puzzle immediately. No exploring Lone Pine mall, no more dialogue options, very few of Marty's comments, and not only that: We get told what to do in a big, ugly window on the upper left. My brother's TV won't do more than 1024 pixels horizontally, so this window is really, really big and the icons on the right are also incredibly and persistently present. No downscaling on this one, no minimizing, no getting rid of it. Urgh. This shouldn't have happened.
Then Marty wakes up... Oh no. It was all a dream. The oldest clichee in the book. But I don't think about this for long, because I get distracted by the "Weird Science" poster. I'm not particularly fond of that movie (in fact, haven't seen it in the last 15 years), but capturing the 80's feel and culture was what this should have been about, and here it works for me. Great effort, that. Will TTG offer prints?? Unfortunately, while this game should have been filled to the rim with such 80's refs, they are sadly missing in the 1986 scene. There are some, and I'll find all of them in my replay, but there should have been oh_so_many_more. Was this a copyright problem?
Lorraine, here's Lorraine! She's speaking, where is she? Hmph, we just hear the voice. There is absolutely no cinematograpic reason to do this, in fact, this is pretty bad. Seems like the in-game model just wasn't finalized yet, so they could not use her. I get that "rushed" feeling again... not the best start, unfortunately. Still, the opening scene preserved the spirit of the movies, which was the main goal in the first scene. I desperately want to know how this continues.
Hello everyone, I was just wondering if there was a demo of the back to the future game. I am interested in purchasing it, but wanted to play a demo first. Thanks.
Hello everyone, I was just wondering if there was a demo of the back to the future game. I am interested in purchasing it, but wanted to play a demo first. Thanks.
You'd have to wait until February for anything like that, I'm afraid. On the plus side, the demo in February will be the entire first episode.
Sign up for the free episode here and it'll email you in February when it's available, if you don't mind that wait.
Not this fancy but i only had this much time...anyway was fun to escape christmas for a while. :O) Made on a Mac, so i looks good there, no idea about da PC. Hey Laserschwert, do you have the blocky LucasArts-font with the outlines in TTF-format?
Involving story - I enjoyed playing it, but where are the puzzles? Looks like they have all been put into the Puzzle Agent I got with the pre-order;). Everything was so straightforward with hints turned off! Simply exhausting the dialog options can resolve some tasks (
like getting the hat
). I'd love to see puzzles in the next episodes and more locations and interactions.
Short version: almost everything is great except for the gameplay, which I hope improves, but is still a secondary concern for me--as a BTTF fanboy, I'd rather have the right characters, story, and feel alongside bad gameplay than vice-versa.
And didn't that Panasonic thing record in color, or wasn't that invented in 1985?
The Panasonic records in color, but that was a live-view,and since there where no color-displays in 1985 Camcorders the black n´white style is completely right.
from what ive seen the title should be back to the future 4
not back to the future the game.
and i respect telltale for picking up the franchise and taking it further but this ideal would probably work better as episodic short movies and or a cg movie in general.
it just seems like wasted potential to spend all this time on a game that meny people might not play but a direct to dvd cg movie of back to the future 4 might sell better,
you could even spend more time on it and enhance the graphics/voices more.
from what ive seen the title should be back to the future 4
not back to the future the game.
and i respect telltale for picking up the franchise and taking it further but this ideal would probably work better as episodic short movies and or a cg movie in general.
it just seems like wasted potential to spend all this time on a game that meny people might not play but a direct to dvd cg movie of back to the future 4 might sell better,
you could even spend more time on it and enhance the graphics/voices more.
again it just feels like wasted potential
You are SO right. And this is totally Telltale's fault, too, especially considering Universal approached THEM with the license. And yeah, seriously--direct-to-video movies have always done so much better in sales and exposure than well-hyped video games. What were they THINKING?!?!?
Short version: almost everything is great except for the gameplay, which I hope improves, but is still a secondary concern for me--as a BTTF fanboy, I'd rather have the right characters, story, and feel alongside bad gameplay than vice-versa.
Other games seem to have both good story and good gameplay. I expect that for a BTTF game...
Unlike many others, it seems, I haven't timed my playing time. I just finished the episode and I thought it was amazing! Yes, it was short, but I had a lot of fun playing. A few things I didn't like:
the Kid and Matches chase around the park
was a bit ... slow.
They're on foot,
but they could've made it more exciting.
The lab bit
was great, I liked how
Emmett's comments came faster and faster and you had to keep up with him
I loved the great, but flawed first episode. It was rather short, and at points the engine and animation felt a little off for what it was trying to do in the story, but that's just the TTG engine that we all know and love...
When it comes to being BtTF, though, I think it nailed it. There were enough in jokes, homages and repeats from the film trilogy to appeal to fans, mixing in with enough new stuff and moving the story off on a new arc that has got some pretty monolithic potential for some truly horrendous things to happen. That's a good thing though.
On the difficulty side of things, it was fairly easy, which was great and just fine considering that it's the first episode and is designed to ease in new people to the genre and series. I'm looking forward to the inevitable and crazy time based and reality switching puzzles we'll see in the final couple of episodes.
So all in all a 7/10 from me. A solid start, which I have no doubt will build up to a 9 by the time the entire series is released and considered as a whole.
One thing I'd like to see once it's all wrapped up is to have the 5 games be downloadable as a single game. Ditch the episodes, and have it play as a single coherent whole. That would be great.
The game was easy, but the rest of the game design made up for it in my opinion. Telltale's aiming for more casual gamers, so I expected the first episode to be easy. The story, voice acting, art design, and music was amazing. I wasn't disappointed with the episode in the slightest.
ı pay thıs game. ı download the game.. when ı try the login the game this happening " Sorry, but we can't find that username. Please check and re-enter your username in order to log-in."
what the f ? ı send many emails to telltelasupport.. hello anybody home
Isn't this great? Although quite some computer decades have passed, you still have to worry about stuff like a limited ASCII character range in so many fields, typical for humans.
It's pretty good. Better than I expected. Old Edna felt like a wasted scene (her youngself was fine though!). Some of the puzzles were really fun, otherwise were just ok. Storyline was pretty good except for Old Edna. All the reveals from Doc were pretty exciting overall. I think it will be even better when you can play it back to back with the upcoming episodes. More action and story, less old ladies with megaphones (seriously).
I am hugely disappointed and not just with this game. Its seems like the entire industry has made their games easier and easier, obviously to make them more suitable for a larger percentage of the population.This approach to gaming is ruining the gaming industry.
As for Back to the Future, I honestly cant believe how easy they made this game. It requires almost no thinking whatsoever. I grew up on adventure games and its still to this day my single favorite genre in gaming. With that being said, this was easily one of the games I was looking forward to the most. The potential for this series in adventure gaming is almost unlimited especially when you take into consideration the time travel aspect. So to see Telltale Games take this "Easy for the masses approach" is heart breaking.
At this point I am done buying games without first reading reviews and I wont be buying any game that falls into this "easy for the masses category" which unfortunately now represents the vast majority of games being made. I like adventure games because they are usually challenging and require using your head to get through them. Playing this first episode of Back to the Future was akin to watching a movie, no thinking required. I should have just popped in my old DVD's of the movie as I would have basically gotten the same thing and it would have saved me 20 bucks.
Hopefully Telltale Games gets away from this 'making things easy" method but I wont hold my breath as programming like this is done to make more money and that seems to be the only thing people care about these days, game developers included.
Thanks and welcome, OrangeCrush! I moved your post into the review thread where it belongs; as for the specific issue, we have more enough threads about that.
are you the one that moved my mac-posting into the germans thread? i got very confused by seeing my post in there at first, you could have really added a note, that you've done that.
/edit: We have about 1.000 identical threads discussing the same thing at the time, so I'll merge whatever I can. Most of these are just dropping to the bottom with one answer, and we don't even see most of the one-time posters any more.
I just merged three identical threads discussing the Weird Science poster in Marty's room, and I am sure I'll find a fourth one.
it is. well, i just saw that there's a new post in the germans thread, i just clicked on it and i saw my post, which i never posted in this specific topic, so it was kinda confusing for me.
doesnt matter anymore, forget it, its okay now
i edited it even completely in german, so everybody can read it, im so great.... naah....
Today i bought BTTF:TG from steam, altough i had very big concerns if this game will run at all on my late 2007 MacBook. I was surprised how well this game runs on my old machine (had to turn all graphical details to low).
Besides that, i like this game very much. I agree that this episode is too easy and i hope that the difficulty will rise in the next episodes. But the story was very entertaining and fits well into the BTTF-Universe.
I do have one complain besides the fact that this episode is too easy. The animation of Marty McFly looks to awkward to me. He should walk and act more agile and self-confident in my opinion.
its easy because they want to approach bttf-fans that are no adventure-gamers at all, too.
im pretty sure the difficulty will rise in the next episode(s), at least i hope so.....
Absolutely and that is what i said in my post. Developers make games easy so as to appeal to a larger market, which in this case would be BTTF fans that are not seasoned adventure gamers. The bottom line is that is not the approach to take if your looking to make the best game possible. Its the approach you take when your looking to make as much money as possible. The sad thing is this is what the vast majority of studios are doing now and its without question ruining the gaming business, at least for those of us out there that are seasoned gamers.
I can only name a small handful of games that came out over the last 5 years that were truly a challenge. My saving grace is the retro arcade on Xbox live as some of the older coin-op games can be brutally challenging. Don't get me wrong, I am not looking for games to be extremely difficult as that can just be frustrating and can be just as bad as a game being too easy. I do however expect at least somewhat of a challenge especially from the adventure game genre and the first episode of BTTF is so far from being a challenge that using the word challenge in the same sentence is a total misuse of the word. I honestly cant think of an adventure game that is easier than this episode.
I certainly appreciate what Telltale Games has done for the adventure genre as they have helped resurrect what can only be described as a dead genre. With that being said, if this is the approach they are going to take to gaming then were better off just letting the genre die.
Too easy-Too linear. (I think the main reason is improper use of inventory. Item count inside your pocket never exceeds 5.)
A little bit shorty (shorter than the other episodes of telltale).
Need more puzzles like Doc's Lab.
Need more work on faceposing.
Out of the three units of measurements, kelvin is the only one that doesn't use "degrees". It's degrees Fahrenheit or degrees Celcius, but never degrees Kelvin. It's just Kelvin.
Just finished it today for the first time. I really enjoyed the first episode. It has picked up nicely from where Part 3 left off to the extent that this could have been filmed in 1991. But somehow, the adventure game format just feels like the best possible medium for the series to continue in. AJ LoCascio has ceased the role perfectly while Christopher Lloyd sounds as though he has been out of the role for only 6 months.
I felt that the fluidity of the story worked well despite it being a little short. It would have been nice to have some puzzles in the vein of mini-games rather than just drag and click or dialogue based problems. I'm also hoping that in future instalments we actually get to drive the delorian in some way. Perhaps maybe an action scene could be worthwhile to replicate the final "confrontations" that Marty seemed to be up against in the films.
Nevertheless, the episode has set up what promises to be a very interesting 6 months.
Agree with most of the others, I guess: nice game, but waaaaay too easy and linear. I feel more like I have been watching a movie than playing a game. Great story, but I don't feel like I participated much in it.
Please make the next episodes harder. They don't have to be very difficult, just something along the lines of Sam and Max.
I'm also hoping that in future instalments we actually get to drive the delorian in some way. Perhaps maybe an action scene could be worthwhile to replicate the final "confrontations" that Marty seemed to be up against in the films.
Or - puzzles, as puzzles are alcohol of adventures, they make your head spin, and No Puzzles and No Beer make Homer... something something.
But let's start from the... start. I set sail with the Steam version and the game installed and ran perfectly. It's confirmed once again that Telltale compatibility team are aliens, as there's simply no other explanation for game to be so well optimized on even inter-galactic junk computers. The voyage was timed perfectly, waves were mild and there were no heavy storms along the way. Optimization 10/10
The ship itself looked nice. Yes, there's some Wallace & Grommit color schemes but it worked very well. Character animation is best yet, although facial expressions were less varied than in Tales. That's especially when comparing Guybrush and Marty, as Marty seems to have only couple of expressions, like that "worried grin". There's slight problem also in giving sails a little boost of ambient - when we first got to the park the animation is just the right, and giving the "vivid" atmosphere with all that people, cars and surrounding. However, once we get to control Marty it's less live, with lone driver who is lost driving in circle. That's only a minor trim problem to a wonferful design - i'd wished again like in first episode of Tales if i could enter every one of those shops, since interior of the Kitchen really nailed the era, along with the cars, clothes, etc... The Doc seemed like interesting cartoon version of movies Doc, and young Doc design is great. Graphics 8.5/10
Voices? Telltale's usual stuff PLUS Christopher Lloyd. Nuff said. Every character sounded great. Young Doc is perfect in immitating Lloyd's style. Music is just what would you expect, with nice variations of original tune, although some 30's blues wouldn't hurt too. Voices and music 9/10
The story is quite nice of what we've seen so far, and i'm hoping for even more time periods and places to visit. The dialogs were not boring, and there's some laughs along the way although story, writing and humor are probably just preparing the road for adventure to come. Story and writing 9/10
Maneuvering was easy, although i'd wished if Marty could be able to run at every screen, and if there were no limitations like in where you're able to cross the street. When it comes to nitpicking i like more Tales' inventory with all items stuffed together rather than scrolling. Interface 8.5/10
But... why is the rum gone? First of all, i don't have problems with AMOUNT of puzzles neither with short gameplay, even i finished it in one sitting. I even find puzzles to be well thought, but it's solutions to them that are brought to level of banality and with a very little creativity. For example, when you need to record Tannen's line, it's enough to use recorder on him. Where's the creativity in terms of letting us choose which line we will record? Or even better, recording multiple lines and letting players figure out himself what line he needs to construct out of all those words in order to solve the next puzzle? This way the series of puzzles are just a mouse click fest. Next, when we're in young Doc's lab, the puzzle with the experiment is very interesting, but again, maybe it would be even more interesting if those critical words weren't emphasized but rather giving player a chance to figure them out himself first. Or, when finding notebook in Town Square model, it's enough to click on model - how about having separate hot-spot for courthouse where notebook is hidden for instance, rather than just one click to solve it all?
The alcohol puzzle is the only one i found to be more creative. The last sequence with car driving reminded me of Full Throttle end puzzle, but simple because of fact that you have too little inventory objects and hot-spots it quickly comes to easy solution. Puzzles 3/10
Everything said is looking at it from the perspective of adventure game rather than interactive movie. Even if are to look at it more like Heavy Rain than Day of the Tentacle, there's still the fact that puzzle solutions are too easy. And i still find here usual Telltale's style of adventure gaming even it was obvious even before the game came out that it won't be their hardest game. It's quite reasonable because the licensed game is always something where you must count on other people who will want to try it, and not everyone is a hard-core adventure player, but there's a question also if this could be a sort of transition of Telltale's growth.
Comments
Stop that, you fool ! Fanboys are gonna tell you " but meh , lolilol, in the movies you only have 2 time periods in BTTF 1 and 3, so it's okay" ...
Maybe TTG should consider to generally quit developing the first episodes and go straight for a e2-e6 experience instead.
This will address a lot of points other posters made before, but I'll try and focus on storytelling/cinematography elements also, which mean a big deal to me.
Once more: SPOILERS!
I. Opening: The Dream
Phew, my brother's Mac is way OK with the system requirements. What, you don't need to actually install this? Seems like I'm a Windows doofus too much. First downer: Even though we desperately tried to get the system language changed, we just could not get English instead of German screen text/subtitles. Vainamoinen has a BIG sad, while his less-English speaking brother actually likes this. OK then, German screen text and English language. Blech.
But here's Doc from Marty's camera. Ohh, I still can't get myself to like how they cartoonised Doc. The concept art had looked far more promising. And didn't that Panasonic thing record in color, or wasn't that invented in 1985? But what the heck, this is a great way to experience the old scene again and open the game. AJLC is awesome, and I think that the quieter lines are also beautifully done. Christopher Lloyd gives me goosebumps even. The twin/lone pine mall looks just great. We chose answers which Marty did not give in the movie and were of course hellishly disappointed when Doc gave the same responses as in the movie. Well, TTG obviously missed the great opportunity to go creative here and enhance player immersion a great deal.
WOW, the DeLorean does NOT reappear? Jesus Christ! As in the best of time travel movies, my mind starts thinking of the whys and gets entangled in complex ideas about timeline violations. I'm thinking: "YESSSS... this is great! A bold start, TTG, that's what we needed!". Then, our first gameplay scene: Marty has to search for Doc's notebook. But what is THAT? Klicking on one of three possible hotspots solves this puzzle immediately. No exploring Lone Pine mall, no more dialogue options, very few of Marty's comments, and not only that: We get told what to do in a big, ugly window on the upper left. My brother's TV won't do more than 1024 pixels horizontally, so this window is really, really big and the icons on the right are also incredibly and persistently present. No downscaling on this one, no minimizing, no getting rid of it. Urgh. This shouldn't have happened.
Then Marty wakes up... Oh no. It was all a dream. The oldest clichee in the book. But I don't think about this for long, because I get distracted by the "Weird Science" poster. I'm not particularly fond of that movie (in fact, haven't seen it in the last 15 years), but capturing the 80's feel and culture was what this should have been about, and here it works for me. Great effort, that. Will TTG offer prints?? Unfortunately, while this game should have been filled to the rim with such 80's refs, they are sadly missing in the 1986 scene. There are some, and I'll find all of them in my replay, but there should have been oh_so_many_more. Was this a copyright problem?
Lorraine, here's Lorraine! She's speaking, where is she? Hmph, we just hear the voice. There is absolutely no cinematograpic reason to do this, in fact, this is pretty bad. Seems like the in-game model just wasn't finalized yet, so they could not use her. I get that "rushed" feeling again... not the best start, unfortunately. Still, the opening scene preserved the spirit of the movies, which was the main goal in the first scene. I desperately want to know how this continues.
(End of first scene. More tomorrow.
Sign up for the free episode here and it'll email you in February when it's available, if you don't mind that wait.
Not this fancy but i only had this much time...anyway was fun to escape christmas for a while. :O) Made on a Mac, so i looks good there, no idea about da PC. Hey Laserschwert, do you have the blocky LucasArts-font with the outlines in TTF-format?
Short version: almost everything is great except for the gameplay, which I hope improves, but is still a secondary concern for me--as a BTTF fanboy, I'd rather have the right characters, story, and feel alongside bad gameplay than vice-versa.
The Panasonic records in color, but that was a live-view,and since there where no color-displays in 1985 Camcorders the black n´white style is completely right.
I'll look forward to that. Thanks for the fast reply. Happy new year.
not back to the future the game.
and i respect telltale for picking up the franchise and taking it further but this ideal would probably work better as episodic short movies and or a cg movie in general.
it just seems like wasted potential to spend all this time on a game that meny people might not play but a direct to dvd cg movie of back to the future 4 might sell better,
you could even spend more time on it and enhance the graphics/voices more.
again it just feels like wasted potential
You are SO right. And this is totally Telltale's fault, too, especially considering Universal approached THEM with the license. And yeah, seriously--direct-to-video movies have always done so much better in sales and exposure than well-hyped video games. What were they THINKING?!?!?
Other games seem to have both good story and good gameplay. I expect that for a BTTF game...
yeah, cause all bttf games so far were just brilliant.
or are you talking about other games from telltale? well the gameplay for s&m3 and tomi was also shit, so what do you expect??
When it comes to being BtTF, though, I think it nailed it. There were enough in jokes, homages and repeats from the film trilogy to appeal to fans, mixing in with enough new stuff and moving the story off on a new arc that has got some pretty monolithic potential for some truly horrendous things to happen. That's a good thing though.
On the difficulty side of things, it was fairly easy, which was great and just fine considering that it's the first episode and is designed to ease in new people to the genre and series. I'm looking forward to the inevitable and crazy time based and reality switching puzzles we'll see in the final couple of episodes.
So all in all a 7/10 from me. A solid start, which I have no doubt will build up to a 9 by the time the entire series is released and considered as a whole.
One thing I'd like to see once it's all wrapped up is to have the 5 games be downloadable as a single game. Ditch the episodes, and have it play as a single coherent whole. That would be great.
The game was easy, but the rest of the game design made up for it in my opinion. Telltale's aiming for more casual gamers, so I expected the first episode to be easy. The story, voice acting, art design, and music was amazing. I wasn't disappointed with the episode in the slightest.
what the f ? ı send many emails to telltelasupport.. hello anybody home
As for Back to the Future, I honestly cant believe how easy they made this game. It requires almost no thinking whatsoever. I grew up on adventure games and its still to this day my single favorite genre in gaming. With that being said, this was easily one of the games I was looking forward to the most. The potential for this series in adventure gaming is almost unlimited especially when you take into consideration the time travel aspect. So to see Telltale Games take this "Easy for the masses approach" is heart breaking.
At this point I am done buying games without first reading reviews and I wont be buying any game that falls into this "easy for the masses category" which unfortunately now represents the vast majority of games being made. I like adventure games because they are usually challenging and require using your head to get through them. Playing this first episode of Back to the Future was akin to watching a movie, no thinking required. I should have just popped in my old DVD's of the movie as I would have basically gotten the same thing and it would have saved me 20 bucks.
Hopefully Telltale Games gets away from this 'making things easy" method but I wont hold my breath as programming like this is done to make more money and that seems to be the only thing people care about these days, game developers included.
A very disappointed adventure gamer.
im pretty sure the difficulty will rise in the next episode(s), at least i hope so.....
but its okay now, i've edited my post, lol
/edit: We have about 1.000 identical threads discussing the same thing at the time, so I'll merge whatever I can. Most of these are just dropping to the bottom with one answer, and we don't even see most of the one-time posters any more.
I just merged three identical threads discussing the Weird Science poster in Marty's room, and I am sure I'll find a fourth one.
doesnt matter anymore, forget it, its okay now
i edited it even completely in german, so everybody can read it, im so great.... naah....
Besides that, i like this game very much. I agree that this episode is too easy and i hope that the difficulty will rise in the next episodes. But the story was very entertaining and fits well into the BTTF-Universe.
I do have one complain besides the fact that this episode is too easy. The animation of Marty McFly looks to awkward to me. He should walk and act more agile and self-confident in my opinion.
Absolutely and that is what i said in my post. Developers make games easy so as to appeal to a larger market, which in this case would be BTTF fans that are not seasoned adventure gamers. The bottom line is that is not the approach to take if your looking to make the best game possible. Its the approach you take when your looking to make as much money as possible. The sad thing is this is what the vast majority of studios are doing now and its without question ruining the gaming business, at least for those of us out there that are seasoned gamers.
I can only name a small handful of games that came out over the last 5 years that were truly a challenge. My saving grace is the retro arcade on Xbox live as some of the older coin-op games can be brutally challenging. Don't get me wrong, I am not looking for games to be extremely difficult as that can just be frustrating and can be just as bad as a game being too easy. I do however expect at least somewhat of a challenge especially from the adventure game genre and the first episode of BTTF is so far from being a challenge that using the word challenge in the same sentence is a total misuse of the word. I honestly cant think of an adventure game that is easier than this episode.
I certainly appreciate what Telltale Games has done for the adventure genre as they have helped resurrect what can only be described as a dead genre. With that being said, if this is the approach they are going to take to gaming then were better off just letting the genre die.
Too easy-Too linear. (I think the main reason is improper use of inventory. Item count inside your pocket never exceeds 5.)
A little bit shorty (shorter than the other episodes of telltale).
Need more puzzles like Doc's Lab.
Need more work on faceposing.
Those are minus ones. The others are plusses.
So, "degrees Kelvin" actually would have been accurate for 1931.
http://www.bipm.org/en/CGPM/db/13/3/
I felt that the fluidity of the story worked well despite it being a little short. It would have been nice to have some puzzles in the vein of mini-games rather than just drag and click or dialogue based problems. I'm also hoping that in future instalments we actually get to drive the delorian in some way. Perhaps maybe an action scene could be worthwhile to replicate the final "confrontations" that Marty seemed to be up against in the films.
Nevertheless, the episode has set up what promises to be a very interesting 6 months.
4 out of 5
Please make the next episodes harder. They don't have to be very difficult, just something along the lines of Sam and Max.
An ACTION scene?!!! Oh, Heaven forbid!!! :eek:
But let's start from the... start. I set sail with the Steam version and the game installed and ran perfectly. It's confirmed once again that Telltale compatibility team are aliens, as there's simply no other explanation for game to be so well optimized on even inter-galactic junk computers. The voyage was timed perfectly, waves were mild and there were no heavy storms along the way. Optimization 10/10
The ship itself looked nice. Yes, there's some Wallace & Grommit color schemes but it worked very well. Character animation is best yet, although facial expressions were less varied than in Tales. That's especially when comparing Guybrush and Marty, as Marty seems to have only couple of expressions, like that "worried grin". There's slight problem also in giving sails a little boost of ambient - when we first got to the park the animation is just the right, and giving the "vivid" atmosphere with all that people, cars and surrounding. However, once we get to control Marty it's less live, with lone driver who is lost driving in circle. That's only a minor trim problem to a wonferful design - i'd wished again like in first episode of Tales if i could enter every one of those shops, since interior of the Kitchen really nailed the era, along with the cars, clothes, etc... The Doc seemed like interesting cartoon version of movies Doc, and young Doc design is great. Graphics 8.5/10
Voices? Telltale's usual stuff PLUS Christopher Lloyd. Nuff said. Every character sounded great. Young Doc is perfect in immitating Lloyd's style. Music is just what would you expect, with nice variations of original tune, although some 30's blues wouldn't hurt too. Voices and music 9/10
The story is quite nice of what we've seen so far, and i'm hoping for even more time periods and places to visit. The dialogs were not boring, and there's some laughs along the way although story, writing and humor are probably just preparing the road for adventure to come. Story and writing 9/10
Maneuvering was easy, although i'd wished if Marty could be able to run at every screen, and if there were no limitations like in where you're able to cross the street. When it comes to nitpicking i like more Tales' inventory with all items stuffed together rather than scrolling. Interface 8.5/10
But... why is the rum gone? First of all, i don't have problems with AMOUNT of puzzles neither with short gameplay, even i finished it in one sitting. I even find puzzles to be well thought, but it's solutions to them that are brought to level of banality and with a very little creativity. For example, when you need to record Tannen's line, it's enough to use recorder on him. Where's the creativity in terms of letting us choose which line we will record? Or even better, recording multiple lines and letting players figure out himself what line he needs to construct out of all those words in order to solve the next puzzle? This way the series of puzzles are just a mouse click fest. Next, when we're in young Doc's lab, the puzzle with the experiment is very interesting, but again, maybe it would be even more interesting if those critical words weren't emphasized but rather giving player a chance to figure them out himself first. Or, when finding notebook in Town Square model, it's enough to click on model - how about having separate hot-spot for courthouse where notebook is hidden for instance, rather than just one click to solve it all?
The alcohol puzzle is the only one i found to be more creative. The last sequence with car driving reminded me of Full Throttle end puzzle, but simple because of fact that you have too little inventory objects and hot-spots it quickly comes to easy solution. Puzzles 3/10
Everything said is looking at it from the perspective of adventure game rather than interactive movie. Even if are to look at it more like Heavy Rain than Day of the Tentacle, there's still the fact that puzzle solutions are too easy. And i still find here usual Telltale's style of adventure gaming even it was obvious even before the game came out that it won't be their hardest game. It's quite reasonable because the licensed game is always something where you must count on other people who will want to try it, and not everyone is a hard-core adventure player, but there's a question also if this could be a sort of transition of Telltale's growth.