The International House of Mojo

I'll be the first one to admit I haven't been too into the previous three episodes of Back to the Future: The Game. Writing wise they weren't too shabby, but seeing each episode clocking in under two hours... I suppose they could be referred to as "quickies."

That was then and now is now, and the good news is that episode four, Double Visions, is a bit trickier than the previous outings, and overall feels like the strongest episode of a so-so series so far. Had it not been for those darn bugs this could have been something special.

Picking up just after the events of Citizen Brown, Double Visions finds Marty and Doc tangled up in the "Citizen Plus" program introduced in the previous episode. Maybe I'm being overly sensitive here, but that storyline seems to be taking a rather Escape from Monkey Island-like turn, what with the Orwellian overtones and commentary on "cleaning up the neighborhood!" gone too far.

Regardless, without spoiling the story, it works well here, and is the type a storyline that lends itself better to the Back to the Future universe than to that of pirates.

More importantly, the consequences of time traveling and how they impact the main characters of the Back to the Future canon are firmly put in the front-seat this time around, making the story more engrossing and emotionally invested than previous chapter. Again, I don't want to get too much into details, as this really should be experienced firsthand, but the story of Doc is fleshed out nicely here.

Double Visions excels the storyline forcefully, and I like that, making this the better episode in the series as far as writing goes. The dialogue, which I have enjoyed in the previous games, also feels a bit fresher and wittier here, more in tune with the movies. (Although, I still think it's a bit of an overkill to have a "heavy" and "great Scott!" line in each episode.)

There are more puzzles in this episode, too, though sadly few of them are particularly clever or challenging. Again most are set to a confined space, where a few random combinations of clicking will solve the puzzle. It's like button-mashing for adventure games. Overall, though, it's enough to make the episode a bit longer than Citizen Brown.

The "three tasks" structure is back, which is OK, I suppose. I mean, I like having multiple puzzles going at the same time, but the structure is a bit blatant. That was OK in The Secret of Monkey Island twenty years ago, but I wish they would take the concept a bit further and in a different direction in 2011.

Finally, while the previous episodes were plagued with visual bugs, Double Visions seems a bit more polished. Amusing as it was to see a three-handed Biff in Citizen Brown, those kind of bugs take away quite a bit of the fun while playing a game. Kind of like seeing the boom-mic in a movie.

There aren't too many visual bugs like that here (no driver-less golf carts buzzing around town) yet just as I was ready to let my guard down, along came a major, unforgivable bug. It's not a complete show stopper, but about halfway through the game, when a character is about to give a passionate speech, boom, the voice goes out. No speech, just lipsyncing, and if you, like me, play without subtitles, you'll miss out. Exactly what I missed, I don't know, but it was a long monologue.

That kind of bug is more than an annoyance, and it occurs a couple of times which pretty much ruins the game for me. Nothing can take away from the storyline and the dialogue you actually can hear -- all of that is excellent -- but gameplay-affecting bugs can kill the overall experience, and that is darn close to happening here.

Double Visions is excellent in many ways, the best one in an admittedly flawed series. This could have been a contender, had the bugs been fixed and had more time been devoted to designing puzzles. As it is, it's a good episode that should have been excellent.

Reviewed by Mr Manager, who thinks anyone who calls Back to the Future the best movies ever should watch more films.