Hot off the heels of their Back to the Future game, Telltale is back with another license close to the heart of my youth: Jurassic Park. It takes risks, leaving behind the traditional point and click interface of their past games for something a little different.

The first of the two demos I played was exclusively an action scene. Several of the game’s protagonists were stuck on a roller coaster and I had to prevent them from being eaten by a pack of dinosaurs. The solution? Successfully complete a lot of quick time events including button presses and quick flips of the analogue stick. You could sum up the entire action demo simply by saying “Space Ace”.

But there was a weird layer of detachment added to this scene. The character whose actions were affected by my inputs constantly changed. This made me feel less involved with what was happening on screen since no singular character represented the player. Occasionally I’d fail and watch a death scene before snapping back to the last checkpoint. I watched my cart go on the wrong track into a pack of dinosaurs, a young girl falling out of the car to her death and more, all while my death counter rose.

If this was all the game was, I’d be pretty sad. Thankfully the second demo I played was far more interesting, though still different than Telltale’s previous games.

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Telltale has just made the first episode of Back to the Future: The Game free.

You read that right.

The are assuring everyone that this is no April Fool’s prank and that there is no expiration or cut off date. So if you’ve been on the fence about trying their latest episodic adventure, you are officially out of excuses.

You can head over to the Telltale games website right now and download Back to the Future The Game: Episode 1: It’s About Time. If you like what you play, the complete five episode series is only $24.99.

Sometimes, a mystery is surrounded by a puzzle; sometimes dozens of small, intricate puzzles that would confound and befuddle your average government agent.

Hidden away in the depths of FBI headquarters is the office of Nelson Tethers. Tethers is the top (and only) agent in the bureau’s Department of Puzzle Research. When a conundrum is too discombobulating for the rest of the FBI, it is up to Agent Tethers to elucidate the situation in Telltale’s latest, Puzzle Agent.

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Meanwhile, on a very special seventieth episode of “Barrel Roll! A Video Game Podcast”, the Rainbow Suspenders of Justice Friends meet at the Hall of Justice to take down Lex Luthor and his cohorts in the Hall of Doom. Will their fashion sense be enough to save the world?

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"Our #1: The Blue Footed Bubi"

On a very special sixty-second episode of “Barrel Roll! A Video Game Podcast”, we discuss our Top 10 Birds of the Year (thus far). Sure, the goldfinch may have other outlets’ votes sealed up, but with their wingspan getting them solid 9′s across the board, the Blue Footed Bubi is putting up quite the show.

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“Can I have that bucket?”

“Why?”

“Because it’s there.”

“Tales of Monkey Island: The Siege of Spinner Cay”, the second episode in Telltales new Monkey Island episodic series, picks up immediately where the first game left off. While most Telltale episodic games can be played out of order without leaving the player completely lost, this is not the case with Tales. These episodes are written along the lines of old movie serials.

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"Here There Be Monkeys"

Can I first start by saying, seeing the Lucasarts logo at the front of an adventure game again really gave me a warm fuzzy feeling? Because it did.

Now it is time to come clean. While I love Lucasarts’ classic adventure games, pirates, and comedies, I have never actually played a Monkey Island game. This gave me a unique perspective going in to the new “Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal”, the first in a new episodic series from Telltale games.

In a way I’m glad, as the game did not have to live up to some high bar it’s predecessors have set for many gamers. I have played several of the Telltale adventure games already, so there is the second bar, another high one, that I’m sure many will be judging this game by.

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