Back to the Future: The Game - 30th Anniversary Edition

This is the second game from my Bean Dive that I’ve seen off and I’m not sure how I feel about the experience. It took a while to get through and had some ups and downs. I bought the game a long  time ago with no real intention of playing it straight away and the only reason I chose it now was because the title is so long, it was throwing my game collection on True Achievements out of whack. The game became Games with Gold on Xbox One after I had bought it on the 360 but I didn’t get it for a second playthrough and I’m glad as I don’t think I could go through it again.

Back to the Future follows the story of Marty McFly and Doc Emmett Brown after the events of the movie trilogy. Doc has gone back in time again for some reason and Marty has to find him… for another reason. They eventually meet up and make a load of fuck-tarded decisions to try and fix the timeline after Doc is killed.

It’s the same as the movies in this regard in that you have to suspend your disbelief in terms of the liberties they take with time travel. Only the liberties taken in the game are a lot bigger and more noticeable. Essentially every concept of time travel is completely ignored to drive the story.

The second thing that annoyed me was Marty. In the movies he’s a cool, easy-going guy but in this game, he’s an arrogant fucker with a stupid face. His dialogue is annoying. His face is annoying. And his environmental movement is annoying. Although this is more of a gameplay thing, the camera angles and walk directions are so fucked up that the biggest challenge you will face is getting Marty from one location to another.

Well, that’s not entirely true. Working out what to do is the tricky bit. Unlike most other TellTale games I’ve played, it’s not linear and you will have to click on most objects in the environment just to figure out what to do. I had to use a guide for most it as most actions are convoluted.

Sound wise, the voices are pretty good. They got Christopher Lloyd to reprise the role of Doc for it as well as Thomas F. Wilson as Biff and there’s even a cameo by Michael J. Fox. They couldn’t get him to do Marty’s lines though, which is a shame because it may have made Marty likeable. Outside of the voices, the music is annoying and kept on playing the crescendo bit from the movies. All the time. Sometimes for no reason.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 59 Achievements

The game is split into five episodes, each with their own save and load section which makes getting achievements easier because if you cock up, like I did twice, you won’t have to play the whole thing through again. It’s excessively long too, each episode clocking in at over 2 hours. The gameplay isn’t enthralling either and I fell asleep a few times!

Roughly half of the achievements can be obtained just by playing through the game but the others take some planning. They all involve some kind of action, or repeated action and also relate back to the films in some way. The most irritating of these was in the final episode where you have to repeatedly talk to a cactus to get all of the ‘dialogue’ that comes out of it. It’s weird and there’s nothing in the achievement description to give you sensible directions as to what to do.

There are loads like this – too many to go through individually but that’s basically it for the achievements. With a guide it’s possible to get them all in a single playthrough. Without a guide you will be replaying forever.

Downloadable Content – N/A

Back to the Future: The Game was a partially enjoyable story albeit with an annoying Marty McFly. The gameplay was more frustrating than fun and I can see how gameplay can actually ruin the story of a game from this experience. It may be why TellTale opted for more linear games with future titles.

Achievements wise, it will take over 12 hours to run through the game to get them all, but that’s only if you use a guide.

The Walking Dead Season 1 and 2

Walking Dead Season 2 was being given away as part of Xbox’s Games with Gold programme. Like a mug, I had passed up Season 1 several months ago as I had already completed both of these on the Xbox 360 Arcade. However, they did not carry the 1,000 points and my memory was that they were quick completions. I was wrong about the second point but they do now carry 1,000 points each.

Season 1 sees you take control of Lee, a guy on his way to prison when the zombie outbreak starts. You then meet Clementine, a girl – not an orange – and the way it plays out is that she goes with you in order to survive.

Now this is where a second playthrough had a bit more value for me and proves to me that I actually enjoyed this series. I said to myself that I was going to do the exact opposite of what I did during my first playthrough and be a dick and get everyone to hate me but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I couldn’t scream and shout at the little girl who had been abandoned by her parents no matter how much it would

have resulted in a... slightly different gaming experience.

Another example of this is Kenny. I told myself I was going to do everything that favoured Kenny throughout the whole game but I couldn’t bring myself to make terrible decisions based on having him be my friend. That said, it’s definitely another case of following Kenny is the worst option whereas anything else you choose to do is just bad by comparison.

Season 2 puts you in Clementine’s shoes after the events of Season 1 and it’s pretty much the same storyline from the 1^st season with different characters and not as good. Everyone you come across seems to be retarded in some way and the ones that aren’t, die – the exact opposite of what would happen in a zombie apocalypse.

The most troubling thing is how all the grown up characters leave it to Clementine, an 11 year old, to make all the important decisions... and then get pissed off with her when you don’t pick their idea! Take some ownership then, you fucks.

Achievements – 2,000 Points – 88 Achievements

There is actually a bit of variety and stuff you have to do here that doesn’t involve just playing through the story. But it’s only in Season 1 and only in the last episode which sees you control 5 different people at various points during the outbreak.

The first non-storyline achievement is obtained during Russell’s story. A car approaches and you have to jump into the bush where you will find someone who died during the main episodes. You have a choice not to jump in to the bush so this is sort of missable.

The second one is when you are playing as Wyatt. You are driving with your friend and both of you seem completely oblivious to the outbreak... but that’s beside the point. You will hit someone with the car and you will play rock paper scissors to see who goes out to check on the person you hit. You have to win 2 out of 3 in order to get the achievement. It’s completely random but you can quit out just before the third game to try and again, however you have to play through the initial conversations again each time you do this which is annoying.

Other than these two, it’s just playing through the stories and seeing what happens.

Downloadable Content – N/A

This time there is no DLC argument as both games have been released as full packages. They are probably the best TellTale games I’ve played thus far and I don’t have that many left to do as things currently stand.

The Wolf Among Us

I broke one of my gaming rules to complete the Wolf Among Us on Xbox One. I had already completed the game on Xbox 360 but it did not qualify for a review as Arcade titles do not have to have 1,000 Gamerscore. This changed when the Xbox One was released which required all games to have 1,000 Gamerscore and they also rereleased The Wolf Among Us. And made it free with gold.

Now, I knew I had already completed the game on 360 but I did find it quite enjoyable and it was free so why not?

I won’t talk too much about the storyline because it’s the main reason for playing the game but it is basically an original take on fairy tales where all the characters live together in a weird twisted version of our world. You play as Sherriff Bigby Wolf (yes, the big bad wolf) as he attempts to solve an ongoing series of murders.

A lot of effort has gone into the graphical depiction and characterisation of many of your favourite childhood characters and the voice acting is definitely one of the highlights of the game.

The general gameplay mechanic is the same as most TellTale games – see Game of Thrones – in that the way the story progresses and the way characters behave towards you are influenced by the dialogue and action decisions you make. Sometimes this does fall short though as you can see slight pauses between lines of dialogue that show something different would have been said if you had made a different decision earlier in the game. It’s not game breakingly obvious though so not a major deal breaker.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 35 Achievements

Another reason I cheekily chose to play this one again is that the achievements are really easy. All of you have to do for 30 of them is play the game from start to finish. I think I mentioned in the Game of Thrones review that there is scope to add replayability through the achievements but TellTale has chosen not to do this for any of their games to date. However, The Wolf Among Us does have an additional set of requirements.

During each of the episodes, you have to witness certain events or meet certain characters to complete all of the Book of Fables entries for each episode. Sometimes this sees you having to do alternate dialogue options for about ten extra minutes of game play but there is nothing so onerous as to make you play the whole thing twice.

Downloadable Content – N/A

As I said at the start, The Wolf Among Us is one of the more enjoyable story game experiences available on the Xbox One. If you haven’t played a TellTale game, this is definitely the one to start with. It offers the most originally and the more engaging characters that the series has to offer.