Nukezilla Review: Back to the Future Episode 3: Citizen Brown (PC)

In the first installment, Doc Brown went missing. In the second, Marty was fading from existence. In the third episode, Citizen Brown, it’s Doc’s turn again.

Citizen Brown effectively parallels the ideas of Back to the Future II. Marty, returning to 1986 after the events of the second game, finds himself in an alternate 1986, a totalitarian “utopia” run by Citizen Brown and his new wife, Edna Strickland (sister of the trilogy’s Principal Strickland). The “perfect” Hill Valley, surrounded by large walls and covered in surveillance cameras, governs its citizens with a strict set of rules of conduct, right down to laws against hand-holding in public.

Oh, and Marty’s destroyed the DeLorean again. Jerk.

Citizen Brown represents a marked improvement over the first two games, and despite all of the in-joke references to the films that have been liberally included in all three installments, Citizen Brown is the closest to the movies yet — again, helped in no small part by this having all been done before. The fact that characters from the original films are finally being introduced into the game (notably, in Citizen Brown, George and Lorraine McFly and Marty’s girlfriend Jennifer [the original actress from the first film, Claudia Wells, returns to provide her voice; a nice touch]) instead of relying on a bevy of new characters who have little to no impact on the rest of the time stream brings a Back to the Future-ness to the game that constant film references cannot.

This marks the first episode where Marty doesn’t have to save anyone (Doc, his grandfather, himself); rather, much like the first two films, he simply has to navigate this alternate future and figure out how to get back to his own present (while admittedly changing things along the way). This deviation from the previous episodes — as well as the heavy parallels to Back to the Future II — may ostracize as many fans as it may draw in. It’s evident that the episode stands as a means of filling in the story to connect the first two episodes with the final two, and unlike the game’s previous entries, Marty’s goal is not to save Doc/himself and escape back to 1986. Rather, Marty’s only goal in his new 1986 is to secure a meeting with Citizen Brown. While the game may not have an immediate aim of Marty returning home (again, see Back to the Future II), the storytelling bridge created here is well done, and I sincerely hope it continues through to the end of the series.

In fact, the standout element of Citizen Brown is without question the story. The idea that lovable, eccentric scientist “Doc” Emmett Brown could somehow through a chance encounter in time turn into such a stoic, well-groomed, detached dictator is horrific in the eyes of any fan of the series — and given what’s going on behind closed doors in the world of Citizen Brown, it’s actually kind of dark. That Marty truly is alone this time around, with no help from Doc in any of his previous incarnations (young, old, cowboy) — only Citizen Brown, who has no knowledge of or interest in time travel — is somewhat heart-wrenching, and provides him a chance to grow and prove that he’s learned from his past (and future, heh) experiences, and I’m interested to see what he’ll do.

And quite honestly, that’s exactly what’s still redeeming the game in my eyes: the story. I credit Telltale Games for their attention to detail when it comes to the Back to the Future trilogy, but that can only take a game so far. Telltale has always been good at storytelling in their games, and Back to the Future is no exception: after kind of a slow beginning, the overarching story that winds between these episodes is finally starting to kick into gear, and I can say that I’m genuinely excited to play the fourth installment when it comes out later this month, even though it appears we’re going back to boring old 1931 again. Only this time, there’s going to be three Martys in Hill Valley, and I hope Telltale Games does something with that scenario, since they all but ignored it the first time around.

Disclosure: We were provided with a free copy of the game by Telltale Games.