Kids these days generally don’t understand this but we love Back to the Future. When the first movie was released back in 1985 it was the highest grossing film of the year and whilst I myself wasn’t even born until ’88 it didn’t stop me or many others in my generation loving every second of it. Back to the Future makes little boys out of almost all men, so the question put forward with the new game is does it measure up? Well you’ll be happy to know that yes, at least in some respects. The game announced waaaaay back in June 2010 was only just released onto PSN in America on the 15th of February and so far I’ve been unable to deduce when it’s going to hit elsewhere... so I took a little sneak peak.

The game itself is set seven months after the third movie in which Marty waves “Doc” Emmet Brown and his wife Clara and two kids who fly away in a revamped time machine made out of a locomotive (after the DeLorean is smashed to bits by a train). After a short introduction (let’s see if you can remember the right lines to go in it, you’ll get a trophy if you do) Marty finds himself adjusting to life in 1986 but missing his friend Doc who is yet to return from whichever time he has travelled to. I won’t spoil the story but eventually Marty ends up searching for Doc by using the time machine which has mysteriously appeared in his driveway.

WHEN in hell did that come from? See what I did there? What? Not funny? Fine.. moving on.

The game itself is actually pretty simple, mostly it’s walking around talking to people or interacting with objects or selecting items from your inventory to use with other objects. It generally doesn’t take much to work out what to do next but even in the rare moment that it does there’s a hint system which usually has 3 or 4 levels, the lowest being a generic idea of what you should do next and the highest pretty much saying “OK goofball just do this already”. It shouldn’t take you more than a few hours to get through the first episode but it doesn’t ruin the experience.


Your reaction to Hint#1 will almost always be “Well.. duh”.

The reason the experience isn’t ruined by how easy the game is that really, you’re just so happy be to be Back.... to the Future. Because the game is set after the movies you’re breaking new ground and adding to the story, it’s not exactly going to blow your mind but what it does do for you is put a smile on your face because what this game is about is just continuing to enjoy something you already love. It’s pure fun at its most basic level.

When I first saw screens for the game I didn’t quite know what I thought about how it looked, it’s almost a comic book looking or cartoon style but in the game it actually works really well. You can tell they’ve put a lot of work into it because of things like the facial expressions Marty will have to one of Doc’s somewhat over-zealous science related comments.


The Delorean is still a sexy beast.

The score in episode one is pretty good, lots of dramatic music plays through the whole thing. It’s slightly worrying how often the theme music from the movies is used; it’s good, no doubt but if it continues through all five episodes it might start getting old. The voice acting though is pretty spot-on, Christopher Lloyd reprises his role as Doc and AJ LoCascio who voices Marty might as well be a voice clone of Michael J. Fox. Some of the characters do seem to only have one "voice" or pitch and they can get annoying but there is an option to skip through people talking.

Overall the first episode of the five is a great start and for those who enjoyed the movies is a must play. Being back in the Back to the Future universe brings back great memories and adds a few new ones and the game delivers on your cravings. The only criticism I have is that the game really is too easy but that’s something that doesn’t end up bothering you when you’re exploring the surprising amount of things they’ve put into the levels. Unfortunately we still don’t know when it’ll come to our little corner of PSN but it is available on the US one for those of you with itchy fingers.

Story: 8/10
Gameplay: 6/10
Visuals: 8/10
Music/Score: 6/10
Overall: 7.5/10