Bob Gale, Tom Wilson on-hand for world premiere

Las Vegas — IGT, a world leader in the design, development and manufacture of microprocessor-based gaming systems, unveiled its flagship slot machine under their "Advanced Video Platform" product line for licensed brand themes — Back to the Future™.

In development for the past year & a half or so, the company proudly unveiled the hi-tech game on Tuesday, October 5, 2004 at the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) held at the Las Vegas Convention Center, with BTTF alums Bob Gale and Tom Wilson on hand for the world premiere.  Bob, who wrote and directed all of the new video segments, graciously made sure that BTTF.com was invited to the exclusive premiere of the game, and I was extremely honored to attend the event as a personal guest of Tom's.

As BTTF.com first reported earlier this year (BackTalk; May 5 '04), the game features bonus modes with brand new HighDef footage of Christopher Lloyd reprising his role as "Doc Brown" for the first time in over twelve years.  I asked Bob if he found any difficulty in revisiting the series after having last directed the second season of the animated series way back in 1992.  "I easily got back into the swing of writing Doc Brown dialog," says Gale.  "But it was pretty amazing seeing Chris in character again, and he got back into it very quickly."

I must say, it's quite obvious to me now as to why IGT is considered the leader in their field — they pull out all the stops in delivering a mind-blowing experience for attendees to their "World of Games" & "Systems World" booths, which encompassed more than 14,000 square feet of exhibit space this year spotlighting some 185 brand new games.

While I'm certainly a bit biased, I don't believe that there's any denying the fact that IGT's Back to the Future™ slot really delivers on all sensory levels.  The basic "plot" of this game has Doc Brown unveiling his latest experiment — the Flux Interocitor, which converts time into money.  Just seeing Christopher Lloyd donning that white wig again will really send shivers up & down the spine of any fan!

Given the fact that I'm not a gambler and that the convention hall was extremely loud during our brief overview of the game, I later had to quiz Bob for a more detailed explanation as to how this game is played.  "I’m not a slot machine player myself, so bear with me on this — I don’t totally understand everything either," admits Gale.  But the cool thing on video slot machines are the bonus rounds.  In the old days (and on mechanical spinning reel machines), when you matched the right symbols, you got a big payday — a jackpot."

"Now, however, instead of an immediate jackpot, you go to a jackpot bonus round.  You are guaranteed to win some sort of jackpot, the only question is, how big will it be? Our game has two types of bonuses: the 'Clock Tower Bonus', and the 'Back In Time Bonus'.  I’m not clear myself on how these are triggered — I think the Back In Time Bonus requires you to get three flux capacitors in a line, but I’m not positive."

"Anyway, on the Clock Tower Bonus, you go into the new video footage of Doc’s lab where Doc invites you to participate in his latest experiment: to prove that 'temporal passage is equivalent to financial remuneration.  Or, time is money.'  There are actually several different intros, so you don’t see the same one twice."

"The player presses a button on the screen (it’s a touch screen), and that makes the gears spin on the clock device that sits above the video display.  The inside has bonus numbers and the outer rim has multiplier values.  You’ll get a value, and then it will be multiplied by the number on the outer rim, and that’s your total bonus."

"The Back In Time Bonus is a little different.  All of the symbols on the video reels change to 1955 images, and the reels spin backwards.  When you get a flux capacitor (I think), you get a big bonus amount that goes into one of four boxes at the bottom of the screen.  When all four boxes have values, you get the opportunity to “improve history” — in other words, redo one of the spins that gave you the lowest value.  Gale concludes, "This bonus round can apparently go in for a long time."

After seeing the game in person, my hopes of owning a "free-play" unit for home use was quickly dashed  — the thing must be at least 15 feet tall!  But, inquiring minds must know, so I asked Bob what he knew about the price of these beauties and what configurations they'd be made available in.  "I don’t know how much they’ll cost — they’re not cheap!" exclaims Gale.  "And yes, most of the fancy machines are available in less elaborate versions, depending on the casino’s budget.  Sometimes machines are sold outright and sometimes they’re leased.  I have no idea what the business plan on this machine is."

We were later whisked off to attend IGT's Sales Party later that evening at Cili, Bali Hai Golf Club where the company expected approximately 1,700 people in attendance to celebrate IGT's newest games.  I finally got to spend a few minutes speaking with Michael Klastorin — Unit Publicist for both BTTF sequels — whom I had seen earlier in the day at the unveiling.  It was a distinct pleasure to finally meet Klastorin, who's certainly no stranger to the BTTF fandom, having written the now out-of-print Back to the Future™ - The Official Book of the Complete Movie Trilogy as well as the captions for Topps' 1989 Back to the Future™ Part II trading cards and the "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot Race" and "Verne Hatches an Egg" episodes of Back to the Future™ - The Animated Series.

Among IGT's "World of Fun" attendees were celebrity guests by the likes of Drew Carey, Ron Popeil, Cassandra Peterson (Elvira — Mistress of the Dark), and Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth (TV's The Apprentice).  A definite highlight of the evening was having the opportunity of being able to listen to Tom swap stories with fellow standup comedian Paul Rodriguez about the late Rodney Dangerfield (who had passed away just hours earlier) — both comics had opened for Rodney on the comedy circuit earlier in their careers and had fond memories of the beloved comic legend.

It was at the gathering that I learned that Joe Kaminkow, IGT's VP of Product Design, had also been responsible for 1990's Back to the Future™...The Pinball machine when he worked for Data East.  "He’s always been a big movie fan, so he aggressively licensed movie titles, a practice that caught on with Williams, the other pinball company (which no longer makes machines)," explains Gale.  "Joe did games based on Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Batman, RoboCop, Lethal Weapon, and many more."

I first heard about the game in August 2003, so I was curious as to exactly how long that the game had been in development.  "Joe had been trying to get the license for awhile, and kept me posted," confesses Gale.  "I think he finally closed the deal around December 2003, and I had a meeting with Joe and the game development team probably in February or March 2004.  I know I was writing dialog in March."

Ironically, it appears that the machines will be showing up almost exactly 20 years after the first film hit theaters.  "I was told it will be a good nine months before these will appear in casinos," Bob explains.  "There is a whole process a machine has to go through to be certified in various states as well as in other countries, and since it involves the government, it can take a very long time.  Star Wars debuted at last year’s show, and I believe it’s just now popping up in casinos."

The event was seemingly a huge success, and it was an incredible honor & distinct pleasure to be invited to attend the event with my good pal Tom.  We had a ton of laughs over the two-day excursion, and as usual, he left me with lasting memories far more numerous than what remaining space will allow me to disperse here.

In closing, Bob wanted to reiterate what he had told me back in May in regards to the machine's odds of winning.  "Again, the odds on a BTTF machine are no better than on any other — I definitely do not encourage people to play slot machines, or gamble at all.  However, if playing slot machines is something you do already, then the BTTF machine is an extremely entertaining machine — hopefully, you’ll have fun even if you lose."

Select photos from IGT's World of Games & Sales Party:

For more photographs from this event, click here.

— Stephen Clark

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