By Kieron Gillen on September 2nd, 2010 at 9:00 am.
Courtesy of the PC games powerhouse that is USA Today comes the first solid details of the previously reported Telltale Back To The Future Games. It’s another seasons-worth-of-five-episodes model, apparently done in collaboration of screenwriter of the movies Bob Gale. It has the likenesses of Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, and Lloyd doing the voice of Doc Brown. It’ll feature the DeLorean, set in Hill Valley and the time-periods included will include 1985. Note the implication. “Includes”. As in, there are others. THERE WILL BE TIME TRAVEL IN THE BACK TO THE FUTURE GAME! High fives all round!
02/09/2010 at 09:02 LewieP says:
“It’s about time, McFly. A video game based on the Back to the Future movies is in the works.”
I must have imagined playing Back to the future 2 on the master system.
02/09/2010 at 09:15 wm says:
Ah, you did that in the past, see, but now we’re in the future. It’s an alternative timeline, so as far as *they’re* concerned, it never happened.
02/09/2010 at 16:08 El Stevo says:
@wm
So it did had happened, but it doesn’t has happened any more.
02/09/2010 at 17:52 Vinraith says:
@LewieP
You’re not thinking fourth dimensionally!
02/09/2010 at 09:14 Rich says:
Great scott!
02/09/2010 at 09:20 Paul says:
This is heavy!
02/09/2010 at 10:27 Rich says:
Weight has nothing to do with it.
02/09/2010 at 16:34 Paul B says:
@Paul – There’s that word again; “heavy”. Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the earth’s gravitational pull?
02/09/2010 at 09:29 Trollface says:
Those concept sketches make me sad BECAUSE the final game will be in 3D models, and the final models will not look nowhere near as good as those concept sketches :(
02/09/2010 at 11:01 Adrian says:
what concept sketches? I only see one in the title! What im I missing out? TELL ME!!!!
02/09/2010 at 09:31 robrob says:
Finally, something to make use of my 1.2JW PSU!
02/09/2010 at 09:49 jon_hill987 says:
It is “GW”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigawatt#Multiples
In the film Back To The Future the term is pronounced “jiggawatt” in reference to the 1.21 GW of electricity needed to power the fictional Delorean time machine. Though obscure, the “j” sound is still an accepted pronunciation.
02/09/2010 at 10:11 robrob says:
My joke, she is ruined.
02/09/2010 at 13:25 Wildeheart says:
Actually you’re not quite right there. If you watch the special features it’s revealed that they were quite aware of a gigawatt and the term they are using is in fact jiggawatt. It’s a play on the old way of using gibberish words to suggest a number of such size it’s incomprehensible. It’s much the same as using the term “a gazillion dollars”. Jerricho’s joke stands.
02/09/2010 at 13:26 Wildeheart says:
I did of course mean RobRob’s joke stands. That’ll learn me to post comments three different forums at once!
03/09/2010 at 11:10 Matt says:
Actually a jiggawatt is a unit of power approximately equivalent to one Jay-Z.
04/09/2010 at 01:38 Wildeheart says:
Way to rape my joke RPS. Are we ever going to fix replies?
04/09/2010 at 01:39 Wildeheart says:
And then this one works. What a crock
02/09/2010 at 09:41 Red Avatar says:
I’m worried. I know “Doc” can still do voices but with about MJ Fox? His voice is too recognizable to be replaced. I fear I’ll keep thinking “this isn’t McFly!” all through the game.
02/09/2010 at 10:00 Andy says:
That’s exactly the problem I had with the Wallace&gromitt games, it just wasn’t Peter Sallis.
Ah well, I’ll wait until I hear it before passing judgement.
Looks great though, love the style!
02/09/2010 at 10:29 stahlwerk says:
Depending on the progression of his illness (and also his current medication), it might just be too exhausting for MJF to partake in the voice recording sessions. For many sufferers of Parkinson’s disease it takes intensive concentration not to slur, and even then the listener kind of hears the effort. It would be cool if he’d do it anyway, definately, but it would also lead to a lot of clueless kids posting “ROFL guy’z drunk LOL ^_^”.
02/09/2010 at 13:13 Clovis says:
I think there are like a million people who do imitations of MJ Fox. Like if they made a game based on the Cosby Show, it’d hardly be a disaster if Bill Cosby wouldn’t do the voice. It’d be a disaster because it was a game based on the Cosby Show.
But yeah, we’re talking about voice acting in a video game, so it will be a problem.
02/09/2010 at 16:24 phlebas says:
The other problem would be that a present-era MJF would just sound too old for the part. I suspect a 50-year-old version of the right actor would sound more wrong than someone closer to the right age.
02/09/2010 at 10:49 Xercies says:
The art style i don’t like. Marty looks about 12 and Doc Brown looks like he’s a zombie lol.
02/09/2010 at 11:07 Neal says:
Valve manage it with TF2. These images remind me of the characters from that game somewhat.
02/09/2010 at 11:33 Fergus says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36ihFPErYD4
That was last year, and you can obviously see the signs of Parkinson’s in his movement and there’s the odd slurring of the words here and there, but his voice seems to be fine for the most part. And he’s been appearing in some American shows lately like Rescue Me and The Good Wife.
Of course, this is more giving me false hope than anything. I think I would explode with excitement if Fox and Lloyd lent their voices to these guys again.
02/09/2010 at 12:20 Kast says:
Oh, ‘mazin as a mate of mine would say. Any excuse to listen to the Back to the Future theme song is good enough for me. I also vaguely remember an Amiga game of BTTF, particular a Paper-Boy esque side scrolling level where you had to avoid getting bashed by Biff’s car and reach the bunting hanging from the Delorean at the end of the level. These are the stuff my childhood are made from.
Didn’t I hear there was going to be a Back to the Future reboot in the works, with MJF playing Doc Brown?
02/09/2010 at 12:48 DosFreak says:
Will we have to use our hands to play it? ;)
02/09/2010 at 12:53 Azazel says:
Michael Douglas is in my sunglasses.
02/09/2010 at 13:21 JackShandy says:
Telltale are too set in their episodic ways to make a truely perfect time-travel adventure game. They’ll just have a linear puzzle where you have to change one specific thing that they want you to, that will change one specific thing in the future to solve a puzzle.
The ideal back-to-the-future game would be set in a tiny space, but you have access to it across all of time, with everything reacting to your time-travel tinkering to create emergent gameplay puzzles. Alas, I doubt we’ll ever see it…
03/09/2010 at 11:11 Matt says:
DotT?
02/09/2010 at 13:34 Navagon says:
GO TO corner store
BUY plutonium
02/09/2010 at 14:10 Luttman23 says:
Best time travel point and click game ever was Day of the Tentacle, I doubt it will be as good as that. Still worth checking out though, will be interesting to travel to the magical future of 2010 and see all the amazing 3D sharks and hover-boards we’re bound to have…
02/09/2010 at 14:23 StingingVelvet says:
I wonder what platforms they will eek this one onto… this would surely be a successful one on the console services if they can get it sold on all three. Console blogs are reporting this news as if that is a forgone conclusion, but it isn’t judging by TellTale’s history.
02/09/2010 at 14:57 roryok says:
2015
02/09/2010 at 15:27 Fred Wester, CEO of Paradox says:
Right.
02/09/2010 at 17:22 Unaco says:
Do Not Want!
I’d much rather the people responsible poured their time, money and effort into developing Hover-Boards. Seriously. Hover-Boards.
02/09/2010 at 17:26 tomeoftom says:
Whoah. Hover-Boards.
Also, I constantly read your name as Unatco. You needed to know. I’m sorry it had to come out like this.
02/09/2010 at 18:13 ran93r says:
I dusted off my PS2 copy of Airblade not long ago, about as close to hoverboards as we are ever likely to get. Interested in this but I’m with Trollface, the concept art looks awesome, game could easily be a giant turd.
02/09/2010 at 17:50 LionsPhil says:
Why must Telltale’s hideous, mangling claw touch everything that was once good?
04/09/2010 at 01:36 Wildheart says:
I got 88 problems but time travel ain’t one
04/09/2010 at 01:37 Wildeheart says:
I got 88 problems but time travel aint’ one
02/09/2010 at 09:48 robrob says:
Oh fuck off! Now they’re cross posting from different threads. It’s only a matter of time before they become self aware and soon we’re living in a spambot controlled dystopia where the only clothing are NFL jerseys and Christian Laboutin handbags.
02/09/2010 at 09:54 Red Avatar says:
I was VERY confused there for a while, thinking he was talking about the art of the game.
02/09/2010 at 09:58 Sarlix Wester says:
It’s shoes actually, not handbags. Which apparently giving a very narrow sense of living space!
:D
02/09/2010 at 10:15 Crane says:
We’re in a comments thread, he’s a spambot; he’d rip through us like tinfoil!
02/09/2010 at 11:07 jon_hill987 says:
It is even more confusing now the post you commented is gone…
02/09/2010 at 11:16 robrob says:
My comment, she is ruined!
02/09/2010 at 12:15 Rich says:
Now your post makes absolutely no sense.
02/09/2010 at 12:15 Rich says:
What’s up with the reply system?
02/09/2010 at 13:01 Sarlix Wester says:
Someones angered the reply god’s again?
p.s my posts never make sense :-*(
02/09/2010 at 13:01 MWoody says:
You shouldn’t reply to spam because, when they inevitably delete it, the posting system sets the replies free back into the wilderness, to frolic and play with their other comment friends. And once you set a threaded reply free, it can never be threaded again.
02/09/2010 at 13:02 wm says:
Time slips.
02/09/2010 at 13:04 wm says:
That was a reply to Rich’s question, “What’s up with the reply system?”
02/09/2010 at 13:09 Jerricho says:
What a shame.