Back to the Future

[Ben X]

Or did you sign up for that 'free first episode' deal that makes you wait until February to play?

[elmuerte]

Really? What's it saying? Are you sure you haven't got the "infinite reinstall" issue? It's defies belief that it wasn't picked up during QA.

It didn't say anything. I just had a blank screen without content.

Anyway, at some point it worked again, and now I finished episode one.

[Erkki]

Finished it. Not bad, ignoring the bugginess and interface issues (though occasional crashes on Mac seem to be common to most games for me). Feels very much like BTTF and the puzzles were interesting enough.

[Hermie]

Ok, played through, and enjoyed it quite a bit. While it mostly relied on "hey remember this guy/thing from the movies?", they still provided some clever writing and interesting plot turns.

I had some technical issues, but they were negligible. As long as they rely more on their own writing and introduce more setpieces (and timepieces) through the season, then it's all good in the hood.

(full review for those who care.)

Also, on the radio in the soup kitchen, the sportsball announcer clearly says "here goes Rodkin" or something to that effect. I couldn't pick out any other TT names, though.

[Nappi]

In my opinion, unfortunately, the first episode was not even close to the quality of the latest Monkey Island and Sam & Max offerings. There were annoying bugs such as the cicadas that kept buzzing throughout the cutscene even after changing the scenery and the keyboard controls that got broken when you moved from one screen to another. Some of the puzzles were pretty poorly designed as well ("Oh, I have to try to leave the bar to see a way to solve the puzzle in the bar!") and the episode felt shorter than previous Telltale Games episodes.

It wasn't all bad though, and I'm still looking forward to the next episode. I hope that there will be a change of scenery (or period) at some point though.

[ThunderPeel2001]

It wasn't all bad though, and I'm still looking forward to the next episode. I hope that there will be a change of scenery (or period) at some point though.

Hehe, from the trailer it looks like you won't be getting that until Episode 3 at the earliest.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I had some technical issues, but they were negligible.

Looks like they may have fixed them. They had a real release-day clunker.

[Nappi]

Hehe, from the trailer it looks like you won't be getting that until Episode 3 at the earliest.

Yeah, that saddened me a bit, although Telltale Games recycling locations wasn't really all that surprising.

[Hermie]

Looks like they may have fixed them. They had a real release-day clunker.

I played it last week. Some dialogue didn't play when it should, and shadows of characters were broken in one way or another on every settings.

Also, like Nappy said, the new clunky Telltale controls, optimized for consoles. 3:

[ThunderPeel2001]

I played it last week. Some dialogue didn't play when it should, and shadows of characters were broken in one way or another on every settings.

Also, like Nappy said, the new clunky Telltale controls, optimized for consoles. 3:

Yep, on release day there was a bug that wouldn't even allow the game to load. (It would keep downloading itself, and then installing itself over itself. A real clunker.)

[Forbin]

From Kevin Smith's Smodcast episode. [NSFW language]

dGm6n9aK5RE

[Ben X]

Holy shit, tears are streaming down my face!

[Kolzig]

Still not really got into playing the game, but do you guys have similar problems ever with Telltale games?

A while ago I installed BttF ep 1, Sam&Max 1x01, Wallace & Gromit 1x01, Puzzle Agent, Tales of Monkey Island ep 1 to my computer and I just started each game to set up all the graphics to max setting so when I eventually start playing I can just start them up.

Last week I noticed that all files except the files for Puzzle Agent and Sam&Max had disappeared into thin air, only the installation folders were there but no files inside. This has happened to me before on Windows 7 so is this something weird happening because of Win7 or is there some poltergeist inside my computer messing things up? As this is not actually the first time this weird issue has happened and it has only happened with Telltale games. I'm 120% sure that I have not uninstalled anything by accident.

[elmuerte]

Still not really got into playing the game, but do you guys have similar problems ever with Telltale games?

Yes, I still have quite some S&M to go through.

[HPopper]

Still not really got into playing the game, but do you guys have similar problems ever with Telltale games?

A while ago I installed BttF ep 1, Sam&Max 1x01, Wallace & Gromit 1x01, Puzzle Agent, Tales of Monkey Island ep 1 to my computer and I just started each game to set up all the graphics to max setting so when I eventually start playing I can just start them up.

Last week I noticed that all files except the files for Puzzle Agent and Sam&Max had disappeared into thin air, only the installation folders were there but no files inside. This has happened to me before on Windows 7 so is this something weird happening because of Win7 or is there some poltergeist inside my computer messing things up? As this is not actually the first time this weird issue has happened and it has only happened with Telltale games. I'm 120% sure that I have not uninstalled anything by accident.

It's probably a poltergeist.

Call a priest.

[Kolzig]

So I finally got up and played through a Telltale game (last time was Sam&Max 1x03 maybe two years ago). I finished Bttf episode 1 and I got quite a lot to say about it.

AJ LoCascio is great and sounds perfect from Marty's voice, almost exactly like MJ Fox himself. Christopher Lloyd is himself and truly is Doc Brown like always. Also Michael X Sommers is really nice find to voice George/Arthur McFly! The voice suits that role surprisingly well.

Dialogue in the game is great in exception to Kid Beyond/Andrew Chaikin who just doesn't sound like the movie Biff Tannen that much and Kid is apparently voiced by a different actor Owen Thomas. I can't hear no Tom Wilson impression there at all and that makes me a bit sad. Makes me wish Tom Wilson was there after all, but such is life and you can't always get what you want...

Also I didn't catch who is the voice actress of old Edna, but it sounds a lot like some young woman trying to act as an older person? That should've been done with some actual older voice actor instead of this way. Is the same actress Rebecca Schweitzer as both young and old Edna?

So that leads me to my question: what's up with the very poorly done dialogue texts in game that relies on a lot of dialogue? Did anyone even proofread the texts? There were several occasions where there were typos.

The worst was in the end with the text about next episode promising it to arrive in February 2010, I know this is a time travel game, but I'm pretty sure "Get Tannen!" did not appear one year ago.

The other examples are Edna and Doc in the past.

soicalized = socialized (Edna's line when talking with her in the park)

paritcles = particles (young Doc in his lab talking to Marty)

EMMET! = EMMETT! (judge Brown shouting to young Doc)

anscestors = ancestors

There are propably even more, but I would have to play through it again to have a closer look.

It's been two months since the release of Ep1 and I don't think these have been fixed since I just recently installed the game after downloading it from Telltale store.

There were some sound issues that are propably part of the voice compression sadness.

The main menu interface is really nice and easy to maneuver, but I got lots of issues with the actual game interface, too many big buttons that are visible all the time, a quite clunky inventory that isn't the easiest to use and what's up with the information popping up even though all pop ups and hints I disabled right away in the menu settings? It's also kind of worrying that it's easier to control Marty with keyboard WASD or arrows rather than just using mouse. There should be an option to leave out the PSN/Xbox direct controls and just use mouse on PC if the user wants to do so, after all the mouse cursor is there.

All in all a really surprisingly short episode with quick and easy puzzles, but it's still nice to be back in "the world of Back to the Future" and overall experience was positive even though I'm picking up all the negatives more in this post. Did Jake and Famous have much to do with the game, the credits went by so fast that it was not easy to see who did what? Did I understand correctly that you guys are not that much connected to the movie projects BttF and Jurassic Park?

[ThunderPeel2001]

Wow. I'm surprised (and glad) I didn't notice that stuff.

It's becoming to clear to me that TellTale's QA department has either been seriously scaled back, or has been re-populated with monkeys.

(Apparently, word on the street is that TTG has no intention of fixing the stat-erasing bug in Poker Night. Nice.

Also, the original bug in BTTF Ep1 that prevented users of Vista and Windows 7 from playing the game (if they didn't elect to play the game immediately after installation) is still shocking to me.)

[Kolzig]

Weirdly no email notification message from Telltale, but I was kind of suspecting something yesterday. The whole site was down and forums even were giving some database error for open thread windows I had there in my Firefox.

Now suddenly Get Tannen episode 2 is available.

I'm about 5 minutes away from starting it, I'm wondering will Telltale ever fix the issues with the first episode or will they just push on and don't care?

Also apparently the free episode is now available.

EDIT: Ok, got quite far in the game in while just playing one hour, actually I almost went late to work because I was sucked in by the game and lost track of time.

Shame that there are several typos again in the game. Also heard weird beeping noise twice while

talking with Doc in the Inn where he is staying when he was explaining to Marty about the history.

Still they are spelling Einstein as both Einy and Einie in various occasions. Isn't Einie the correct term used in movie subtitles? This same mistake was in the first episode also.

Also young Doc's one full line of dialogue in the park is apparently missing as I saw the subtitles, and his mouth was moving, but there was no voice sound coming out.

I am wondering is there really not much QA done before the final product is shipped out?

However there is lots of fun stuff in this episode. I had to quit and go to work, but I'm sure going to continue this as soon as possible.

I played until I reached the speakeasy bar of Kid's and Trixie started singing.

There really is the feeling of BttF in the game, I'm happy that they also managed to make Hill Valley look more alive in the past. There are NPC's walking around and even cars.

Edited February 17, 2011 by Kolzig

[Nappi]

Jesus, I guess this is the first time I have played a Telltale Games episode with proper sound system or something. My ears are bleeding blood. And they left the cicadas on for the entire opening again.

With 12 new Telltale Games games coming out this year it's probably safe to assume that they will keep on not working on these issues and reduce the amount of QA further. Which is a shame, and could hurt sales through me not buying their every game anymore.

I haven't played enough to comment on this episode, except for one thing: Cover mechanics? Really?

Edit: this post was overly negative.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I'm surprised I had to set my resolution and graphical settings again... can't it see what I used on the previous episode?

I don't wish to sound spoiled, but I've given TellTale Games a lot of money over the years... but their attention to detail seems to be getting worse, instead of better. It's weird... Are they trying to boost their profits? If so, I'd suggest upping the prices instead.

[MrHoatzin]

I don't think they care. I've complained on their forum before to absolutely no answer from anyone official.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I don't think they care. I've complained on their forum before to absolutely no answer from anyone official.

Same here. Them getting rid of Heather was one of their worst decisions from a user's point of view.

[ThunderPeel2001]

In more positive news: Episode 2 has a really strong opening act. Totally pulled me in and wouldn't let me go until it was over

[Kolzig]

With 12 new Telltale Games games coming out this year it's probably safe to assume that they will keep on not working on these issues and reduce the amount of QA further. Which is a shame, and could hurt sales through me not buying their every game anymore.

I completed the game now and I'm worried about this also. When you are expanding on new horizons and really making all the teams busy, is there any time for quality assurance and bug fixing. Especially after the product has been shipped?

I was really wondering about the length of the episodes. Storywise the episodes have ok length, but with the puzzles and set pieces being on super easy level, everything just seems too easy. With Sam&Max season 1 I got some real brain exercises with some of the puzzles, but here I know exactly what, when and how to do in each situation because the the amount of interactive hotspots is really low and the amount of items ranges from 1-5. I usually have lots of brain crunching troubles with adventure games, but I breezed through both episodes in less than two hours and I tried to carefully listen to all dialogue that is possible in the games and not hurry.

I saw Jake's and some other dude's name in the UI design and was it artwork in the credits. I don't think I saw Famous' name there.

I was completely using WASD and mouse to just interact with characters, seriously not digging the mouse controls with the "dragging".

Edited February 18, 2011 by Kolzig

[Thyroid]

I don't think they care. I've complained on their forum before to absolutely no answer from anyone official.

I've been unhappy about this myself. Poker Night was riddled with bugs, to the point where I couldn't play it anymore. I avoided Back to the Future (partially) for that reason (my non-enthusiasm for it was almost made-up for by the price). Seriously, Telltale. Be professional...