Review

Back to The Future Episode 4: Double Visions

As much as I like the Back to the Future series, I wouldn’t want to be in Marty’s shoes. He did a good job of wrecking Hill Valley’s future (or present in this case) in the last two Episodes. To be fair it wasn’t totally his fault. Doc had a lot to do with our present (and past) state of affairs. This holds true in the latest BTTF episode.

Again, for those of you who haven’t had the chance to play the pervious episodes, let me get you up to speed (slight spoiler warning). This new, 5-part adventure takes places after the 3rd Back to the Future film (6 months after to be exact). It started with Marty going back in time to rescue a stranded Doc Brown from being murdered by Kid Tannen, the leader of the Tannen Gang. Doc was accused of burning down one of Tannen’s speakeasys, which would have led to Tannen exacting revenge and gunning Doc down. At least that’s what it said in a future newspaper. Of course, staying in line with the rest of the Back to the Future series, Marty accidentally changes the past for the worst after rescuing Doc. In the second episode Doc and Marty go back to set things right. Again, something goes wrong and we get a crazy version of the future/present. So of course we have to go back in time…a 3rd time…in the 4th episode. To say that these “events” are starting to get a little confusing is an understatement!

One thing I liked about the series was that it did a good job of following its own rules. Correct me if I am wrong, but there weren’t any lingering plot holes with the movies. That isn’t the case with Marty’s latest adventure. In the last episode we found out that because of Doc relationship with a certain character, he doesn’t get inspired to build a time machine. During the ending of the 2nd episode, the old Doc fads away and we’re presented with the Emit Brown of the future. That’s a rule that was set up in the movies. Once the past has changed, you had a limited amount of time to change it back before time caught up with you and you faded away. This doesn’t happen here, not entirely anyways. You see, even though the old Doc disappears, his DeLorean doesn’t. It ends up in the present with Marty. If Doc was never inspired to build the car, he would have never gone back in time in the first place. This would either mean that the future/present would be changed to something we have yet to see and it would stay that way or that Marty would have a limited amount of time to get back to the past before the car vanished. Neither of these things happened, which breaks the rules of the series as well as creates plot holes in an otherwise good story.

I don’t know why I didn’t catch that before in the last episode. I noticed it pretty quickly this time around as I interacted with Doc’s young self. In trying to steer the characters in the direction we think they should go in order to make the future/present normal, it’s easy to see this type of thing. At the same time, if you’re able to over look these things you’ll still have a good time. The gameplay is similar to the other episodes and the dialog is great as ever. I did notice some issues in the presentation (a character’s hands clipped through her head when she tried to cover her ears), but it wasn’t enough to harm the experience. I still can’t wait to play the final episode and see how everyone turns out. Hopefully the ending will make sense!