Back to the Future: The Game Message Board older than one year ago

GameTrailers has the debut moving-picture preview for Telltale's episodic Back to the Future game and, if you ignore the animation and lip-synching, it's looking pretty ... um -- hey, how awesome are those movies? They're on Blu-ray now, you know. Maybe we'll forget all about this awkward teaser when the first episode of the point-n-click adventure is made available for free sometime soon.

Revealed as a five-episode series, Back to the Future begins this month, before taking a winter break until February, when it'll pick back up with a new episode each month until the finale:

• December: "It's About Time" (Episode 1)
• February: "Get Tannen!" (Episode 2)
• March: "Citizen Brown" (Episode 3)
• April: "Double Visions" (Episode 4)
• TBD: "OUTATIME" (Finale)

Back to the Future will be available for PC, Mac, PS3 (via PSN) and iPad. Previously, Telltale announced plans to launch the PC and Mac versions first. Check out the trailer after the break, or don't ... if you're chicken.

#clips This is our first look at Telltale's upcoming Back to the Future series of adventure games. If you enjoyed any of the three films, even in the slightest, you must watch this clip. More »

#backtothefuturethegame Back to the Future will take players back to Hill Valley with Marty McFly and Doc Brown. It's hard to know if the game will get up to 88 miles per hour, but these latest batch of screenshots look promising, future boy. More »

Great Scott, Marty, it's the very first screenshot of Telltale's much-anticipated Back to the Future episodic game. The company has shared a few shots of the title in action for the first time and, as you can see above, the look is more stylistic than realistic. That's certainly Marty and the Doc, but visualized with a little more flair than their real-life counterparts.

Only Marty will be playable and, as an adventure game, most of the gameplay will revolve around collecting and using objects (which you can see a glimpse of in the corner up above). The game also has an extensive dialog system, and the story is a full sequel to the three movies. It starts out "set several months after the events of the third movie from Marty's perspective," but of course with time travel, the game could revisit any of the previous three movies or head off to anywhere else. Heavy.

There will be some familiar locations -- you can see the 1955 billboard from the end of the second movie in another screenshot below, and you'll visit both Doc's lab and the Hill Valley town center (with clock tower, of course) as well. And you'll "see them in ways you haven't experienced before," promises Telltale. There won't be any roads, though -- where we're going, we won't need 'em. (Okay, there'll be roads -- we've just been dying to say that.)

Telltale's episodic adventure exposed.

Telltale games has released a free Back to the Future game on Facebook called Blitz Through Time. It's a pretty straightforward Bejeweled Blitz ripoff, though of course it's skinned up with sounds and graphics from the classic movie series. Your goal is to match three or more same-colored gems in a row, pushing the in-game speedometer all the way up to 88 miles per hour, where you'll ... change the background to a different time and start matching gems again.

Fun? Sure. New? Not really. But if you're a real BTTF fan, "liking" the game on the fan page will enter you in a contest for some related prizes. You can see a short trailer for the game after the break. Of course this is all promotion for the actual BTTF adventure game, which comes out sometime next month.

Telltale's first episode of the Back to the Future game won't be free -- unless you've got power. Specifically, we're talking: "121GIGAWATTS" of power! That code, first spotted in the Blu-ray release of the time-traveling movie trilogy, grants access to a free copy of the first episode of the five-part series on PC or Mac.

Unless you're just "chicken," you can now make like a tree and register in advance for the free episode (which requires a Telltale account). Redeemers will be contacted in the future about when they can go back ... to the future -- in other words, this December.

Game launch begins December for PC, Mac also coming to PlayStation 3 and iPad.

Where we're going, we don't need roads.

Telltale has revealed that it's trimming the list of platforms upon which its next onus, Back to the Future: The Game, will appear. The game will arrive first on the PC and Mac sometime this December, followed shortly thereafter by PS3 and iPad versions. Looks like the Wii and Xbox 360 got the short straws this time -- if only they could travel back in time to before this announcement was made! Unfortunately, time travel isn't real, or else we'd totally have a pet Europasaurus right now.

The game's PC and Mac iterations are currently available to pre-order for $25. Each pre-order includes a free copy of Puzzle Agent (available to download immediately after placing your order) and access to an exclusive "pre-release insider forum" on Telltale's site. Oh! And for every pre-order that goes through the site, Telltale will donate a dollar to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. That's awfully classy, you guys.

Telltale Games is about to fire up the Flux Capacitor.

Actor Christopher Lloyd to voice Doc Brown.

Back to the Future and Jurassic Park games in development.