I came across Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure in volume 8 of
the Fallout Bible, where Chris Avellone
interviewed Bill Dugan, the producer of the unfinished Meantime. It had been generally thought in the
Wasteland community that Meantime would have
been a sequel to the former. Instead, it turned out, it was just
based on the Wasteland code, but would have been something
entirely different—something like Bill & Ted's Excellent
Adventure.
Bill S. Preston and Theodore Logan, students in San Dimas, have
flunked every section of their history class.
Unless they get an A+ on their final oral exam the next day, they
will be, well, flunked. Luckily Rufus, a time travelling dude
from the future, gives them—and thus you, the player—use
of a time-travelling telephone booth. Originally, this booth was
blue in a reference to Dr. Who, but while it's still blue on the
covers, I think only the NES version retains this detail in-game.
With the phone booth, you go back in time to many different eras,
collect items, and get historical dudes
to follow you. Some
dudes
won't come unless you can bribe them with the right
object. You must get them to follow you back to modern times so you
can pass a history report and keep your band, the Wyld Stallyns
together.
Escape from Hell, another Interplay title
using the Wasteland engine, is also a sort of parody of Bill &
Ted's Excellent Adventure, as should be obvious from its full title:
Richard & Alan's Escape from Hell. Just as Bill and Ted have to
bag their dudes
from history, Richard adds historic personalities
like Stalin and Genghis Khan to his party and learns archery from
Thucydides. This movie must have been quite a smash hit back then
to warrant all this attention—and I completely missed it.
(Actually I think I did watch it once on video, but wasn't all that
impressed.)
Apart from this Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is interesting because the versions for the various platforms are so completely different. On the PC, it is a typical adventure game with "panoramic" view. On the NES, it is more similar to an RPG, and one of the earlier isometric games. On the Gameboy, it is basically a side-scrolling platformer. On the Lynx, generally considered the hardest version, there was an additional task of saving a princess:
Bill and Ted are about to embark on their most excellent adventure through time and space. Those two beautiful babes from Medieval England, Joanna and Elizabeth, have been kidnapped by the most heinous Grim Reaper. Bill and Ted must use the circuits of time to find the princesses. Will they be most triumphant? Only you can help!
The screenshots on MobyGames give a good overview—and while you're there, take a good look at the picture hanging over Sigmund Freud's couch…
comprehensive collection of information related to the Bill and Ted cult.Under merchandise you will find info on the various games, with some screenshots and scans (JPGs, unfortunately).
