Episode two of TellTale's Back to the Future game kicks off in traditional BttF fashion - solving something in the past has in fact created a different problem in the future (present?), and thus you have to go back to the past to correct that (and in doing so, create yet further problems). In this case Marty has to save his grandfather, who the newspapers show was beaten to death for handing in evidence against Kid Tanner - and as a result, Marty is beginning to disappear. It's back to the past again to fix things up...
Summing up this game is as simple as you like:
- The graphics are nice, voice acting and music music are good
- The storyline's very good, quite clever in the way it weaves different elements together
- There's a lot of humour in the game
- Talking to the characters in the game is often fun in itself
On the other hand...
- The interface, despite being simple, still manages to be unnecessarily fussy (especially when accessing your inventory)
- The game lacks challenge to all but perhaps adventure game novices
- It's rather short
Overall, much like Episode One, though I enjoyed this a bit more. Basically it's more realistic to view this as a mildly interactive movie than an adventure game; I still enjoyed it because the story and humour were spot-on, but as an adventure game it definitely disappoints. The highlight for many adventure gamers will be the Monkey Island 2 pastiche in the puzzle to get the speakeasy door open.
TellTale are perhaps pandering to the casual gaming audience too much with the Back to the Future games, at least from the point of view of adventure gamers. Whether this ends up being a long-term strategy will, one suspects, depend on how this tactic affects sales - which is something we shall have to find out as time goes by. For now it's not a great game, but certainly is still an enjoyable diversion. There's a built-in hint mode but I seriously doubt you'll need to use it.
A short review for a short game - if you liked Episode One then you'll like this, and vice versa. Nothing more to say really, except that I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with the plot next episode!
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