Back To The Future : Part 3

Copyright : Image Works | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

Stranded in 1955 after a freak burst of lightning; Marty must travel to 1885 to rescue Doc Brown from a premature end. Surviving an Indian attack and unfriendly townsfolk, Marty finds Doc Brown the blacksmith. But with the Doc under the spell of the charming Clara Clayton, it?s up to you to get them out of the wild west and back to the future.

Graphics

Back To The Future Part III is the final part of thie awesome trilogy that we here at CPC Zone favour much more than the Star Wars trilogy, we?re not going to be biased about the games though as those that read the review for part 1 will already know. Since Electric Dreams made a royal balls up of the first movie license it was bought by Image Works for the final two games of the final two movies, did it help matters? well yes and know. Back To The Future III has some nice graphics (see the screen grabs below) with great colours, wonderfuly drawn characters (see Doc on the horse) and an overall great attempt at bringing a game intended for more powerful machines to the CPC. It?s not without faults though, the collision detection on the first level leaves a lot to be desired and as such makes the game very difficult to play (only a certain amount of attempts before game over), it?s also a lot slower than the 16-bit counterparts but it doesn?t make the game any easier.

Sound

As with the firt installment and indeed the second the music in BTTF3 is on good top form, while a lot of the music from the 16-bit versions has been removed we still get to hear a good old CPC rendition of Alan Silvestri?s musical score. The game itself has the odd good sound hear and there but those that have played 16-bit versions will notice some loss in the CPC version, a good example is the sound of Docs horse running which has been removed from this release.

Gameplay

Gameplay on the other hand is another downer, despite the license being handed over to what is essentially a better software house (Image Works) not a lot has been done to improve the playability or lastability of the series. The game only has a few stages, each stage based on a certain scene from the movie, for example the first level in which you must rescue Clara Clayton from falling into the ravine, which would later be named after her if you don?t manage to rescue her from fate. The second level is from the Hill Valley dance scene in which Marty shows off his "Wild Gunman" skills in an old time shooting game, he also wins the gun in question to use it later against Wild Dog Biff Tannen.
The first level is what will stop you from loading the game again, it?s majorly hard to complete without a cheat mode being active and riding a horse while dodging axes, shooting boxes and jumping holes in the ground can only be entertaining for so long. Marty and Doc wouldn?t be very happy with this computer game and neither are we, sorry Image Works but you?ve hardly done justice to a great movie now have you?