Where were you on November 5, 1955? That was the day that "Doc" Emmett L. Brown slipped on the toilet while hanging a picture in the bathroom, hit his head on the sink, and had a vision, a picture in his head, of the flux capacitor which is, of course, what makes time travel possible. Yes, it's an important anniversary in the fictional history of science as the Internet takes a day to remember the best time travel film trilogy ever made, Back to the Future. We're talking about a franchise that is near and dear to me (right up there with Ghostbusters), and considering that I've written about the films and their role in the world of video games, it's only proper to take a look back on this day at some of my favorite DeLorean-related PTB articles.
Back in the Nintendo Entertainment System era, pitiful game publisher LJN put out Back to the Future II and III, a single NES game pak that contained a single game loosely based on the events of the second and third films in the trilogy. It's an abysmal game, but I keep coming back to it year after year even though I never make any progress in it. Here's a look back at why it's such a compellingly terrible game. Not all Back to the Future games are lost opportunities though. The trilogy was big in Japan back in the day, giving rise to Super Back to the Future II for the Super Famicom, a decent entry in the gaming part of the franchise that was covered here in an installment of The Forgotten. Meanwhile, back in North America, Mr. Eastwood had another piece of pie.
Surprisingly enough, the absolute best Back to the Future video games aren't actually officially licensed Back to the Future products. The fans that love this franchise are growing impatient waiting for an absolute definitive game starring Marty McFly and Doc Brown, and they're doing something about it. The best recent example has to be the inclusion of the iconic DeLorean DMC-12 under the guise of the Jansen 88 Special in Burnout Paradise as part of the Legendary Cars add-on pack (just be sure to listen to the appropriate music when cruising through Paradise City). On the modding side of things, there's an addition to the PC version of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City that changes the game's locale to the setting of the films, Hill Valley, and adds a time traveling hover-converted DeLorean to boot.
Up next, November 12 marks the fifty-fourth anniversary of the great Hill Valley lightning storm, but you're on your own to commemorate that.
