Back to the Future: The Game

From WE Computers Museum
Bttfcover.png
Back to the Future: The Game
Developer Telltale Games
Publisher Telltale Games
Platforms iOS, macOS, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii, Windows, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Released Episode 1
Win/Mac: December 22, 2010
PS3/iPad: February 15, 2011
Wii: October 26, 2011
iPhone: March 7, 2013
Episode 2
Win/Mac: February 16, 2011
PS3: March 29, 2011
iPad: April 20, 2011
Wii: on October 26, 2011
iPhone: March 7, 2013
Episode 3
Win/Mac: March 28, 2011
iPad: May 26, 2011
PS3: June 2, 2011
Wii/PS3: October 26, 2011
iPhone: March 7, 2013
Episode 4
Win/Mac: April 29, 2011
iPad: June 2, 2011
PS3: June 7, 2011
Wii/PS3: October 26, 2011
iPhone: March 7, 2013
Episode 5
Win/Mac: June 23, 2011
iPad: June 21, 2011
PS3: June 26, 2011
Wii/PS3: October 26, 2011
iPhone: March 7, 2013
30th Anniversary Edition
360/PS4/One: October 13, 2015
Added to
Museum
macOS/Windows: October 26, 2011
PlayStation 3: April 20, 2014
Xbox 360: October 14, 2015

Back to the Future: The Game was a five part episodic graphic adventure game that was the first game in Telltale's agreement to make games based on NBC Universal properties. The first episode was released in December 2010. The remaining games in this five part episodic series were released in the following months. The original version was released for Windows, macOS, PlayStation 3, iOS, and Wii.

Back to the Future: The Game - 30th Anniversary Edition, a version of the game which celebrated the 30th anniversary of the theatrical release of the original film, was released for Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on October 13, 2015. It had improved textures and featured the voice talents of Tom Wilson as Biff Tannen. Andrew Chaikin voiced Biff in the original release.

Story

Episode 1: It's About Time

Bttf-1-title.png

Six months after the events of the third film, because Dr. Emmett Brown hadn't been seen in months, the bank was foreclosing his garage. As the estate sale was being set up, the DeLorean time machine mysteriously arrived, with only Doc's dog Einstein inside. A tape recorder told Doc's assistant, Marty McFly, that the DeLorean was sent to 1986 via the DeLorean's new automatic retrieval feature. It activated when Doc hadn't returned to the DeLorean.

Marty read a newspaper kept by Edna Strickland, the sister of his High School's principal, and learned Doc was killed in 1931. Doc, going by the alias "Carl Sagan", was blamed for the arson of the Hill Valley Speakeasy, and was killed by the bootlegger, Kid Tannen. Marty took the DeLorean back to 1931, to the day before Doc was killed, and visited Doc in his prison cell.

Doc told Marty to convince his younger self to finish his rocket-powered drill. Marty managed to befriend the young Emmett Brown by telling him he was from the patent office, and that he was there to see the drill. Marty then helped young Emmett deliver the subpoenas required by his job as a law clerk, helped finish the drill, and freed Doc from the clutches of Kid Tannen.

With Doc out of prison, Doc and Marty walked back to the billboard behind which Marty hid the DeLorean time machine. However, as Marty and Doc were about to take the DeLorean back to 1986, Marty began to fade from existence.

Episode 2: Get Tannen!

Get tannen.png

Doc and Marty checked the newspaper Marty got from Edna and saw that Marty's grandfather, Artie McFly, died that night. To prevent that from happening, Marty traveled back to earlier that day to rescue his grandpa from Kid Tannen's gang while avoiding his earlier self. Believing Marty and Doc to be federal agents, Artie went into hiding so that Kid Tannen and his goons couldn't find him.

However, when Doc and Marty returned to 1986, they discovered that, since Artie was Kid's accountant, without Artie's presence Kid never went to prison. Hill Valley was now under mob rule, with the Tannen family, the third biggest crime family in California, controlling everything. Just as Marty was about to be shot by an elderly Kid Tannen, Doc arrived in the DeLorean, saving Marty's life.

Doc and Marty then went back to 1931 again, to ensure that everything happened the way it did before so that Kid Tannen was arrested. Marty needed to convince Kid's girlfriend Trixie Trotter, who had been receiving help about financial matters from Artie McFly, to supply criminal evidence to the police officer who originally did the arrest, Danny Parker, Marty's girlfriend's grandfather, on the night that Kid Tannen was originally arrested.

After some convincing, and with some help from the young Emmett Brown's prototype rocket car, Kid Tannen was arrested by Danny Parker, as Kid's secret book of finances provided by Trixie Trotter proved that he hasn't been paying taxes on his income from his speakeasies.

Marty and Doc traveled back to 1986 again, believing that everything was set the way it should. However, the young Edna Strickland fell in love with the young Emmett Brown after he helped put Kid behind bars. Because of this, the course of his life was changed, and when the DeLorean arrived in 1986, Marty crashed it into a billboard and Doc had vanished from existence.

Episode 3: Citizen Brown

Citizenbrown.png

With the DeLorean stuck in a billboard, Marty couldn't get out. He looked down and saw that his girlfriend, Jennifer Parker, was now a delinquent serving a public service punishment of trash pickup. Marty convinced her to give him a tire iron and used it to break the window to get out. Unfortunately, the DeLorean crashed to the ground, and Marty discovered that Hill Valley was now surrounded entirely by a wall. Jennifer drove a golf cart into town, but she wouldn't let Marty come because she viewed him as a "square". However, Marty was able to use one of the DeLorean's hover tires to go over the wall.

In town, he discovered that his mom was drinking again, his dad was spying on the people of Hill Valley and taping their conversations, and Kid Tannen's son Biff Tannen had been brainwashed into an overly cheery man who became nauseous over even the thought of acting like a jerk. After talking to Biff, and listening to tourist audio about the town, Marty realized that Edna and Emmett ran the town as First and Second Citizen Brown, and the only way to get an audience with Citizen Brown was to get demerits for delinquency.

Biff told Marty the worst offenses were drinking, vandalism, owning dogs, and public displays of affection. Marty took a flask from his mom when he caught her drinking. He saw Jennifer spray-painting a wall and used some spray paint to spray something himself. He discovered that Einstein was a stray dog in this timeline, and took his muzzle off. He then beat a schoolmate, Leech, at playing the guitar and impressed Jennifer. They kissed behind the window of a vegan restaurant and were caught by Edna herself.

Marty wasn't originally able to convince Citizen Brown that he had built a time machine, but after discovering that Biff had knocked his dad out and stolen the tapes that proved that people weren't happy in Hill Valley, he followed Biff into the Brown's secret control room and confronted Edna. Emmett heard everything, however, she convinced the guards that both Marty and First Citizen Brown suffered from delusions and scheduled them for the same brainwashing treatment that Biff had undergone.

Episode 4: Double Visions

Double Visions title.png

Marty wakes up to find he's locked in a room in the Citizen Plus facility. With the help of his father, who is monitoring the facility through the security cameras, he retrieves his guitar and plays for Jennifer Parker, who is in the next room, which snaps her out of her Citizen Plus brainwashing. Marty then uses a pacification pill to knock out a guard and uses his guitar on an amplifier to break Citizen Brown out of the facility before his wife Edna has a chance to brainwash him into one of the docile Citizen Plus zombies. Marty and Brown, now asking to be called Doc, escape back to 1931 in the repaired DeLorean time machine while Edna swears revenge.

Unfortunately, the DeLorean still has issues, so the pair arrived a day before the Hill Valley Science Expo rather than two months earlier. Young Emmett is still in love with Edna and is planning to propose to her. Doc tells Marty that his younger self can not be reasoned with in his lovestruck state, so Marty must convince Edna that Emmett isn't the man for her. Marty uses Doc's invention for the fair, a good citizen meter, to create a card that shows that Emmett is a hooligan.

After Doc worries that they might have made Edna's life worse, he asks Marty what she will become in the future. He tells Doc truthfully that she is a lonely shut-in who yells at passersby from her apartment window. Doc wonders if there might be another option, where he and Edna can get together leaving him to pursue an interest in something other than science. When Marty informs Doc that he has to pursue science without Edna as his girlfriend, Doc sadly departs in the DeLorean.

In order to fully repair the timeline, Marty destroys Emmett's suit with Emmett's rapidly aged clothing enzyme and convinces Trixie Trotter to pretend that she and Emmett were having an affair behind Edna's back. This causes Edna to break up with Emmett, which ends their relationship but has the unforeseen side effect of Emmett completely giving up on science. At the courthouse, Marty is able to reignite his love for science. Emmett decides to once again enter his flying car in the expo after Marty's actions inspire him to complete it. Emmett and Marty leave the courthouse in order to repair and complete the flying car in time for the expo.

At that moment Edna is walking on the highway leading out of Hill Valley. Citizen Brown picks up Edna in the DeLorean and tells her to tell him everything she knows about Marty.

Episode 5: OUTATIME

OUTATIME title.png

Marty rescues Emmett from an undersea ride at the expo, postpones Emmett's presentation so that he has time to give it, and plants a recording device using a literal plant to record Edna admitting she burned down the speakeasy.

Marty has to convince Judge Brown that his son Emmett is entitled to make his own choices and his own mistakes, as he did when he left Germany for a new life in the United States of America. Emmett gives his presentation, and the car explodes, but he is happy because it has confirmed his love of science.

When Officer Parker tries to arrest Edna for her crimes, she steals the DeLorean and travels to an unknown point in time. Stranded, Marty gives Emmett a newspaper clipping which the former says the latter can not open until he receives the key to the city. This causes the Doc from 1986 in the repaired timeline to come back to 1931 and pick up Marty.

However, Edna's actions in the past have caused Hill Valley to become erased from existence. Thankfully, William McFly, Marty's great-grandfather whom he met as a baby in 1885, spots them and drives over. He tells them that Hill Valley burned down before he was born. He tells them that a cranky old woman who lives in the middle of nowhere might know about the town.

When Doc and Marty get to the woman's house, they discover that she is an elderly Edna Strickland, who is using the name Mary Pickford after the Canadian actress of the same name. Marty realizes that she is acting like she did when he first met her. Knowing that she kept newspapers in 1986, they hope that she will know the date the town burned down. She tells them that it was in 1876, however she tries to shoot them with a rifle before they can leave. They are saved at the last moment by William McFly, so Doc and Marty are able to take the DeLorean back in time.

In 1876, Beauregard Tannen, a former Confederate General, was in the middle of building the Palace Saloon. Edna Strickland, having just arrived from 1931, is trying to burn it down. Marty and Doc are able to restrain Tannen and stop Edna, but she escapes in the temporal-duplicated DeLorean. Marty and Doc chase her in the DeLorean from 1986, and Doc tells Marty they need to stop her because her DeLorean is slowly disappearing from time. Marty uses the hoverboard he took from 2015 in the second film to place nodules on Edna's DeLorean. This allows Doc to control her DeLorean, which he does, causing her to crash right into the Hill Valley prison, alongside Kid Tannen.

Doc and Marty travel back to 1986, where Doc reveals he is now living part-time with his family, setting up the events of the animated series. Doc reveals that he was in 1931 trying to collect information on Marty's family and the former gives the latter a McFly family album. Edna is no longer lonely in this timeline, as she has married Kid Tannen who is still alive yet reformed. Three Marty variants from the future arrive in multi-colored DeLoreans trying to get Doc to help them with their timelines. However, Doc and Marty leave them behind and travel to an unknown point in time.