Title:
Back To The Future (cart only)
Genre:
Action
Adventure
Puzzle
Top Down Shooter
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Release Date:
1969-12-31
Game Summary:
Another game from the kings of crap, not THQ, LJN; if you didn’t already know, this game is based on the hit movie Back To The Future (or BttF). You play as Marty and you’re trying to set time straight while getting back to the future. The plot of the game doesn’t really follow the movie that well, but then again the game doesn’t really need a plot. From the looks of it LJN rushed this game (they were a little late don’t you think, the movie came out in 85, this game came out in 89).
Graphics: Uhh...let me start off simple, the graphics are bad. The main character, Marty, doesn’t have the slightest resemblance to anything. In the mini-games you can sort of tell that it COULD be Marty. You would think that the mini-games would have better graphics than the running scenes, but sadly they’re not much better. Everything is blotchy and the character animations are sad, with maybe only three animations to each main character. The backgrounds in games are hard to mess up, but somehow BttF pulled it off. The colors in them are all wrong and they pretty much use the same scenery over and over. Bad, bad, bad...
Sound: This is NES music at its worst. It’s like the days of the Atari sound all over again. The music is the same crappy tune throughout the whole game. It’s a really an annoying 6 second tune, too. In other words, it gets old, quick. In the mini-games there isn’t really music at all (except for the guitar mini-game which really isn’t that bad...). Then come the sound effects. They’re the same Atari sounding bleeps and bloops that the music are. They also quickly become annoying. Overall every bit of sound in this game is bad. You might think of it like ”Wow Atari dude, that’s oldskool!” but trust me, it’s nowhere near like that.
Gameplay: For some reason the developers didn’t make anything that you do in the game follow the movie. The bad guys range from bees to hula-hoop girls, and the weapon you use is a bowling ball. What you do in this game is run down the street in a helicopter view of Marty. In the street, the screen scrolls on its own, and you have to collect clocks so that your family doesn’t disappear. You can get a skateboard that makes you go faster and helps out a lot in the game. The annoying part is the timer. It goes super fast and barely gives you enough time to beat each street segment. The street segment is pretty much a shooter game. Once you beat each street segment you will then go to a mini-game, in all, there are 4 mini-games:
Lou’s Diner- In this one you stand behind the counter and must shoot milk shakes at the bad guys who come towards you. The view in this game totally throws you off, it’s a semi-3d view that’s really confusing. To beat it you have to hit 50 bad guys and you get one ”super” milkshake (which really doesn’t do jack).
The School- This one has the same weird semi-3d view as the diner, except now you have to block hearts from your mom. The hearts move amazingly fast. I was playing it one day, and my friend told me he had never seen anyone’s eyes move back and forth so fast.
The Dance- Out of all the mini-games this one is probably the most fun. You stand on stage and have to catch the guitar notes that fly from both sides of the screen. For some reason all the music turns your parents on, and when the meter hits the top they kiss.
The Car- This is the last mini-game you play before the game is over. You have to drive down this road while keeping the car at exactly 88mph. It is actually not as hard as it sounds.
Replay: Many people seem to think this game is difficult, but really it is not all that hard. After you play the mini-games a couple of times you start to realize they’re not all that hard. If you get the skateboard in the street levels, you can become unstoppable. The bees are probably the most frustrating in this game. They’ll start to come from all sides, and they constantly swarm around you. For some reason I found this game strangely addicting. Maybe it was the crappy music blended with the bland gameplay, who knows, but I just couldn’t put the game down. It made me want to play over and over. I think it comes off as one of those ”so bad its really good” type of things. Even after I beat, I found it addicting, finally I told myself over and over how bad the game was, and all my BttF worries went away.
......BOTTOM LINE: BttF is another one of LJN’s games that were produced for the sole reason of cashing in on the movie. LJN made a lot of other games like that, most being horrid as well. Don’t give in to the power of BttF, stay away at all costs, even if you are a fan of the movie.
Graphics: Uhh...let me start off simple, the graphics are bad. The main character, Marty, doesn’t have the slightest resemblance to anything. In the mini-games you can sort of tell that it COULD be Marty. You would think that the mini-games would have better graphics than the running scenes, but sadly they’re not much better. Everything is blotchy and the character animations are sad, with maybe only three animations to each main character. The backgrounds in games are hard to mess up, but somehow BttF pulled it off. The colors in them are all wrong and they pretty much use the same scenery over and over. Bad, bad, bad...
Sound: This is NES music at its worst. It’s like the days of the Atari sound all over again. The music is the same crappy tune throughout the whole game. It’s a really an annoying 6 second tune, too. In other words, it gets old, quick. In the mini-games there isn’t really music at all (except for the guitar mini-game which really isn’t that bad...). Then come the sound effects. They’re the same Atari sounding bleeps and bloops that the music are. They also quickly become annoying. Overall every bit of sound in this game is bad. You might think of it like ”Wow Atari dude, that’s oldskool!” but trust me, it’s nowhere near like that.
Gameplay: For some reason the developers didn’t make anything that you do in the game follow the movie. The bad guys range from bees to hula-hoop girls, and the weapon you use is a bowling ball. What you do in this game is run down the street in a helicopter view of Marty. In the street, the screen scrolls on its own, and you have to collect clocks so that your family doesn’t disappear. You can get a skateboard that makes you go faster and helps out a lot in the game. The annoying part is the timer. It goes super fast and barely gives you enough time to beat each street segment. The street segment is pretty much a shooter game. Once you beat each street segment you will then go to a mini-game, in all, there are 4 mini-games:
Lou’s Diner- In this one you stand behind the counter and must shoot milk shakes at the bad guys who come towards you. The view in this game totally throws you off, it’s a semi-3d view that’s really confusing. To beat it you have to hit 50 bad guys and you get one ”super” milkshake (which really doesn’t do jack).
The School- This one has the same weird semi-3d view as the diner, except now you have to block hearts from your mom. The hearts move amazingly fast. I was playing it one day, and my friend told me he had never seen anyone’s eyes move back and forth so fast.
The Dance- Out of all the mini-games this one is probably the most fun. You stand on stage and have to catch the guitar notes that fly from both sides of the screen. For some reason all the music turns your parents on, and when the meter hits the top they kiss.
The Car- This is the last mini-game you play before the game is over. You have to drive down this road while keeping the car at exactly 88mph. It is actually not as hard as it sounds.
Replay: Many people seem to think this game is difficult, but really it is not all that hard. After you play the mini-games a couple of times you start to realize they’re not all that hard. If you get the skateboard in the street levels, you can become unstoppable. The bees are probably the most frustrating in this game. They’ll start to come from all sides, and they constantly swarm around you. For some reason I found this game strangely addicting. Maybe it was the crappy music blended with the bland gameplay, who knows, but I just couldn’t put the game down. It made me want to play over and over. I think it comes off as one of those ”so bad its really good” type of things. Even after I beat, I found it addicting, finally I told myself over and over how bad the game was, and all my BttF worries went away.
......BOTTOM LINE: BttF is another one of LJN’s games that were produced for the sole reason of cashing in on the movie. LJN made a lot of other games like that, most being horrid as well. Don’t give in to the power of BttF, stay away at all costs, even if you are a fan of the movie.
Platform:
Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
Publisher:
LJN
Developers:
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Input Devices:
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Date Added:
2018-07-03 12:47:10
