This timeline is seriously messed up…
When I left last Marty McFly, he had flown the DeLorean into a billboard in 1986. That would have been fine, except the billboard had a picture of Doc looking quite different and with a slogan “We have everything under control”. Citizen Brown picks up immediately after this and you run into Jennifer for the first time, except she looks different as well…she’s dressed like a punk who calls you Martin and has apparently broken up with you. Ouch!
After finding a way into Hill Valley, you’ll realise that things are very, very wrong. For starters, Biff Tannen is nice to Marty and the only way to see Doc/Citizen Brown is to break a number of silly rules such as kissing in public and drinking. Of course, these are pretty hard since Jennifer is dating someone else and the only one with booze in the whole of Hill Valley is Marty’s mother, but she’s doing it in “secret”. Marty’s dad has eyes on the whole town through cameras, it’s like Big Brother or something…
It later turns out that Biff’s mind has been manipulated by a program called Citizen Plus, which is set to become mandatory for everyone. When you eventually reach Doc, it’s pretty hard to convince him that you two travelled through time in a DeLorean, but luckily there are plenty of clues hidden around. But it seems as soon as you are getting somewhere, something bad happens that brings you back to square one. The main reason for the timeline getting disrupted is that Doc married Edna and not Clara like he was meant to, so the obvious thing is to correct this fault, but Edna isn’t too happy to find out…
The puzzles in this episode are the toughest yet, but the clues and hints system in place makes the game a breeze for those struggling. It took me about 2-3 hours to complete the episode and it ends just as seems to get going, but leaves you on another cliff-hanger that makes the wait for Episode 4 all the harder! There is some great character development here and it’s great to see Jennifer for the first time this season, although she’s become radically different from the films thanks to the error in the timeline.
The idea of Hill Valley being under constant control is interesting and one that makes sense, considering how controlling Edna Strickland can be and this episode really begins to show her true colours. She’ll stop at nothing to keep things going the way they are…Visuals are the same, but there is some great dialogue to be found, especially between Marty and Citizen Brown.
The Verdict
Citizen Brown is the best episode thus far and leaves me wanting more, but I have to wait patiently for Double Visions…
