Today everybody seems to remember the CDi, 3DO and maybe Mega-CD as platforms for clumsy attempts to do revolutionary FMV games on CD, but the truth is a lot of the early generation CD-ROM titles in general were either enhancements of the floppy versions or might not hold up very well today with pixelated cutscenes in tiny window boxes.

Lucas Arts had to dump $1.5 million into Full Throttle pushing the envelope on the point'n'click genre they helped to define. Despite the legendary status over here in Europe those games had not exactly been a cash cow, so backing Tim Schafer's pitch for his debut as a leading producer can be seen as a bold move on behalf of graphic adventures.

Unlike today, there wasn't a nostalgic way of referencing classics like Maniac Mansion or The Secret of Monkey Island. Whilst it usually still is the intention of most of the old designers to renew and reinvent the genre, that motto was as much intrinsic as mandatory. But does that excuse what came out as Full Throttle?

It's not like they didn't try. I'm tempted to say Full Throttle came out like Reservoir Dogs, which sure had an impact on movies and impressed many people at the time, but with its limitations looks rather unwieldy compared to True Romance and Natural Born Killers for which Tarantino also didn't have control what happened to his scripts. But when Pulp Fiction was released, that was the big bang.

Obviously Grim Fandango burned too much budget to deny it might have rather killed point'n'click adventures monetary and as I've promised after Broken Age, I will have to catch up on Schafer's 1998 release to decide if I'm on the side of the fans, but there seems to be a generation remembering it benevolently.

It's true that I missed both, Full Throttle and Grim Fandango, because I wasn't owning a PC that was more than a better typewriter at that time. Whilst I enjoyed Discworld and Broken Sword on my PlayStation, I only got to play some genre titles like Day of the Tentacle, Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail or The Curse of Monkey Island at friend's places. I might have confused Full Throttle for a racing game anyway because the title is not exactly an adventure trope.

Whilst it might be true the previous Lucas Arts point'n'clicks had been somewhat cartoonish, I wouldn't see them as family friendly as some compare them to a "more grown up" Full Throttle. It just so happened a lot of us played the earlier games as kids, but at least Sam & Max Hit the Road is far away from what I'd call suitable. With Full Throttle being a gritty unique noir blend of The Wild One, Yojimbo, The Road Warrior and Akira it might as well have been part of the Heavy Metal anthology movie and that way stands out as more adult.

That might also give a hint it's short. Now, I've suggested for Detective Gallo that less is more and I actually have nothing to say against the story. Full Throttle has everything that's needed for a gnarly one man show of stumbling into being the innocent suspect for a murder. An interesting point here is that neither whodunnit nor howdunnit are ever in question. The worst thing to happen in this semi-apocalyptic parallel dimension is the production of minivans.

Thematically, I would have loved Full Throttle back in the day, being a movie buff since I'm able to think and digesting an increasing number of genre films as a teenager in the early nineties. At the same time, I transitioned into the more adult side of franco-belgian comics and beyond, especially from the seventies.

Another thing to point out, I think, is that Full Throttle has a rather independent female in mechanic Maureen, though in a short period of time defined by Tank Girl and Barb Wire or girly brats like in Clueless the Eastwood/Bronson type somehow reflected in protagonist Ben feels a little out of time, especially as above mentioned comics often had female leads maybe even out of place.

Full Throttle on one hand forces us to use violence instead of talking sometimes, but on the other hand limits us with what we can actually use our mouth or extremities on via the newly introduced icon based radial interface a lot of us learned to love in point'n'clicks. I'd sure have wreaked much greater havoc if they let me, like in Edna & Harvey: The Breakout, that's pushing the boundaries of nonlinearity in graphic adventures.

Whilst the main engine remains SCUMM, Full Throttle also profits from the INSANE animation engine previously used on Star Wars: Rebel Assault II - The Hidden Empire. Being the first Lucas Arts adventure solely released on CD-ROM, this actually comes at a cost.

Because now there's room for professional voice actors like Mark Hamill, a quite decent licensed rock score by The Gone Jackals (they sadly couldn't afford "Kickstand" by Soundgarden) and extensive full motion video sequences with good enough compression to work full screen, there doesn't seem to be much left for an actual genre game within the cinematic presentation.

Despite the success and cult status of Full Throttle, for me, this is a bitter pill to swallow. And I'm not talking out of disappointment over the new artwork of the Full Throttle Remastered edition. I've looked deeply at both versions and as I don't have any nostalgic relation to the original, I like it as much as I think the remaster doesn't only look more up-to-date, it also brings Full Throttle even closer to the above mentioned Heavy Metal style. I could have lived without the shiny 3D modeling, but that seems to be true to the original that might have looked like the remaster had it been state of the art back then.

I can sit back for good cut scenes, that isn't an issue either. But the few puzzles kind of annoyed me entirely. It's ok most of them are more environmental than icon based, but they're all but self-explanatory. Even though that characteristic is typical for Lucas Arts if you're thinking of moon logic and pixel hunting, Full Throttle for instance does nothing to lead you to the idea you might have to hide in a situation or use a fluent sequence of actions.

It's possible the original gave away hints in the manual that doesn't come with the GOG release of Full Throttle Remastered and the idea might have been to mimic Another World/Out of this World, but framed for an actual point'n'click adventure this is almost as irritating as the real action passages, which ruin an otherwise still pleasurable game for me.

I know, this isn't a first in Lucas Arts adventures and I've read at least for the original that you could bypass the bike fights and destruction derby with a code, but then there's not much of a game left to beat, honestly. So I've gone through everything with a mouse, which isn't the best way to control a vehicle.

It's not a license game for Batman '89, where the chases weren't exactly highlights and if I wanted to play Super Cars II, R.C. Pro-Am or at best Rock'n'Roll Racing, then I'd do that. In my impression the designers just wasted space here for very linear minigames that awkwardly rely on you to find that one path to get past them.

And I get they canceled a planned peyote trip scene for glorification reasons, whilst I might have liked a complete bike gang subplot that seems to have been dropped as well. I would have preferred that over any of the agility parts I neither expect nor miss in a graphic adventure, just like the chance to try again doesn't compensate for the time limits during the final scenes that will make you die and watch the same FMVs over and over.

So with the credits rolling after two sessions cut even shorter with a guide when I was absolutely clueless what Full Throttle wanted me to do, I was still kind of relieved it's over. And that's probably an issue with the game being made when it was made. A CD-ROM of course has new limits again if you pack it with data and the fancy presentation can only get you that far if besides cinematics the game is rather weak.

It has to come with an expiration date when you alienate your puzzle geeks that aren't satisfied with a few items to look for, even though two things had been hard to spot, in trade for an underdeveloped upgrade that appears like a few unfocused ideas cobbled together. Full Throttle Remastered doesn't fix that, which would have been a chance, actually, but an extended director's cut would have needed more budget and the support of the fans.

In conclusion Full Throttle Remastered is the refreshed look of a game that is more style than substance anyway. It can't have the same impact, because it doesn't come with the same unique selling points it had when it was first released. It would have been a nice base to work from nonetheless, but two game sequels had been canceled during production and pitches at MTV and Disney+ seem to have failed.

With the death of Ben's voice actor Roy L. Conrad in 2002 any real follow up is out of the question and so we might take this as an actual reason Full Throttle Remastered wasn't expanded. The question though is, who really needed this then, besides people like me wanting an available version to close another gap?

Too hung up on trying something else Full Throttle just lacks the charme and challenge of the early Monkey Island games for example, that are written so well they work in any version, from Amiga to Special Edition.

The only game I’ve ever played with an automatic screen burn-in prevention system, so credit for that alone. Very much a Lucas Arts™Game™, both to its detriment and advantage. In a game so concerned with atmospheric establishment, perhaps its most interesting facet is the score’s fluctuations between creeping film noir sounds and original rippers by a group called The Gone Jackals, who sound like a paper-thin Rollins Band ripoff. Roy Conrad’s VA work carries the game on Ben Throttle’s wide shoulders, because, shit, something’s gotta be remotely compelling about these characters in this breadcrumbed setting. You can find Scrappy-Crew-Bands-Together-and-Fights-Evil-CEO in many other, better places. Funny enough to be solid, I guess.

Welp, Grim Fandango this ain't.

A serviceable but entirely inconsequential point & click adventure game from a team who were usually quite reliable when it came to this sort of thing. This remaster is my first time playing Full Throttle and I can see why the game's reputation is so muted compared to more celebrated LucasArts fare like Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango. FT fails to make a strong impression in any department other than maybe its soundtrack. Its protagonist is a stoic, no-nonsense biker of few words. That means there's little in the way of pithy dialogue or a well-placed zinger; the dialogue in general is just very dry. You'd expect much better from the likes of Tim Schafer and David Grossman. It's a very short game, and the story is told in such a hurried, ramshackle way that you can practically see the cut content and overworked game developers sleeping under their office desks while playing. There's an ill-conceived minigame about halfway through that involves fighting numerous enemy bikers in order to obtain new weapons that is ill-conceived at best and torturous at worst. So on and so forth.

It's not a dreadful game by any means, but it's one that's hard to compliment and absolutely won't linger on in the mind after completion.

I played the original many times in the past, but not the remastered version. I think I would recommend this version as it's just modest polishing up graphics just like Grim Fandango. Didn't mess with anything else. (With Monkey Island 1+2 I still prefer the original graphics)

Full Throttle is a great biker related point & clickgame with a great story and great voiceacting and great characters and great most things. It's a little short perhaps, and perhaps the action sequences isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I personally like them. Another classic from Tim Schafer and LucasArts.

I couldn't get quite into Full Throttle, and I'm not sure if it's because I just wasn't in the mood for it or because it's a little bit of an awkward ride. There's a classic Lucasarts click n point in its core but it feels streamlined; the locales feel truncated, you barely spend any time in each section and a lot of the puzzles feel perfunctory. Add the tacked-on action scenes on top and it gives the vibe of the team's vision not quite coming to life in practice, like they wanted to make an action film in the guise of an adventure game but couldn't quite pull it off. An adventure game that doesn't want to be one. Whilst absolutely superb in presentation the actual gameplay felt lacklustre, especially if you compare it to Lucasarts' other greats.

Recommended
4.3 hrs at review time
Gameplay 5/10
Music and sound 5/10
Screenplay 5/10
Technical 5/10

Leta páně 1995 nechyběly Full Throttle nemalé (r)evoluční ambice „jak přistoupit k adventurnímu žánru jinak“. Snažil se o jiné zasazení než bylo v žánru zvykem, o dospělejší přístup, o filmové podání příběhu, hvězdné dabéry, o oživení zažitého ovládání SCUMM adventur, akční minihry apod. Neměl toho v merku zrovna málo. A výsledek byl v mnoha ohledech rozporuplný, v mnoha jiných předběhl dobu; přesto své nepopiratelné kvality i kouzlo měl, ne že ne. Vznikla tedy kultovka (umocněná léty trvající nedostupností digitální verze), která nyní po více než dvaceti letech přichází s remasterem v graficky učesané podobě (i možností původního vzhledu) a s několika málo zásahy do designu (zrušen otravný pixel hunting u dvou tří hádanek, přidány achievementy).

Hlavní kámen úrazu tehdy byl krátký rozsah umocněný nulovou výzvou a nudnými minihrami. Což v době vzniku, kdy adventury byly na výslunní, nabízely těžké puzzly a dlouhou herní dobu, byl nezvyk a šok. Co tehdy, ona herní doba necelých čtyřech hodin, ze kterých nemalou část zabírají animace a čas se nahání skrze neadventurní vsuvky „jezdi na motorce prašnými cestami, systémem kámen-nůžky-papír bojuj s jinými motorkáři a čekej až se ti náhodně vygeneruje to správné setkání, aby si mohl pokročit dále“, zarazí i dnes. I tak je to solidní přímočará adventura, kde však druhá polovina kvalitou i nápady zaostává za tou první a kde díky až příliš hrrr ději pocitově schází jeden až dva akty před utnutým finále, které navíc vyznívá do ztracena a otevřeně pro případné pokračování. Jako by tvůrcům došel čas či rozpočet a tak finální pasáže poněkud odfláknuli. Ostatně cca hodinu před koncem (po třech odehraných hodinách) vám hra ukazuje, že jste „teprve“ v polovině, aby pak nesportovně načítala mnoho procent dokončení čistě za minoritní úkony, takže než se nadějete, je zničehonic konec. Paradoxně tak je první polovina delší té druhé; jakkoli nelogicky to zní.

Co se naopak povedlo je stylizace, neohrané zasazení (něco mezi prvním Mad Maxem a Sons of Anarchy), skvěle napsané dialogy, drsnější humor, který se necpe do každé věty, postavám padnoucí dabing, nejeden vtipný easter egg a v zásadě i dějová linie (až na zmíněný závěr a to, že se to odehraje mezi příliš málo postavami čili vznikají nepravděpodobné náhody). Řešení puzzlů samotných není špatně vymyšlené (byť nápadité také ne; výjimky jsou dvě řešení pohrávající si s výběrem akce), neobsahuje nelogické nesmysly, ale díky tomu že máte k dispozici sotva dva předměty, jednu dvě lokace a tři aktivní body, tak se nelze zaseknout, ani kdybyste na krásně chtěli. Schafer tedy hned svou prvotinou dokázal, že nápady ani vize mu nejsou cizí, ovšem zároveň že ne vše co si usmyslel, uměl dotáhnout ke kýženému i zábavnému výsledku. Bylo to jasné již tehdy a dnes je to ještě více do očí bijící.

Not the biggest fan of point and click genre but overall I enjoyed Full Throttle. I played it with classic visuals but remastered audio, which I recommend.

-The visuals of the remastered version is ok but nothing special about it. I prefer the classic; maybe it's because I like pixelated arts or maybe I feel like it has a soul. Overall it depends on you and which you prefer to play with; both are well done.

-Audio and voice actings are amazing; although I chose the remastered version for this one. As I read, the classic version of the audio is really bad; but they did an amazing job in the remastered. The music is also really good, I only wish there was more of it in the game.

- Gameplay is your basic point-and-click; but sometimes the game tries other things, like when your are on the highway or the stadium mission. The stadium mission is actually the reason I stopped playing the game; I FUCKING HATED IT. Maybe it's because I am too dumb to understand what the fuck I should do, or maybe it's because it's really outdated; at this point my brain can hardly comprehend what is old and what is new.

-The story is alright; that's about it. It gets the job done and the biker theme is really interesting since there aren't many games about them. But you shouldn't expect anything mind blowing from it.

-One thing I loved about this game is that you can chose between the classic version and the remastered one. So you can basically play the original game on a new platform .As I said I chose classic visuals and remastered audio.

(This is the 109th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)

Full Throttle was LucasArts' 11th adventure game and originally released in May, 1995. In 2017, the Remastered version released. It's got updated visuals, sound and QoL improvements, and in typical LucasArts Remaster fashion, you can switch to original visuals with the click of a button whenever you want. It's got dev commentary as well, which makes this remaster a nice little package for a game that you'd be hard-pressed to run on modern computers otherwise. Having beaten the game for the first time, I can say that it's definitely a worthy purchase for adventure game fans. That said, I'd be shocked if adventure game fans haven't played it already anyway. For those curious about the genre and who got enticed by the biker gang theme of the game, is it equally worth it?

Well, apart from the theme and some of the game's distinct features, it's mainly a typical LucasArts adventure. It's shorter than some at a 4-5 hour run time if you watch all cutscenes but what you do in this game follows the formula pretty much. You engage in puzzles that become more and more difficult over time, talk to NPCs and try to progress forward by combining these two parts of the game. These games are notorious for having unintuitive / illogical solutions to puzzles at least once in each of them, and Full Throttle is no exception unfortunately, but it's certainly one of the least egregious examples in LucasArts' catalogue I think. Still, there is one part where you have to ride around in your bike and engage in bike combat, which is a unique feature for this game, and figure out how to defeat each biker by beating one first, getting their weapon and then using that to defeat another. One biker for example is only susceptible to fertilizer, and another to a 2x4, and each failed attempt means waiting for 15+ seconds until the next biker shows up. Another part has you figuring out how to get past a minefield. The solution involves bunnies and it's pretty odd. Finally there is also a part where you find yourself on fire. I won't add much more to it other than what you have to do there is oddly specific and you'll figure the solution out by accident rather than logical deduction.

Still, I thought most solutions were easy enough to figure out and progression overall was much smoother for me than in Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle or their Indiana Jones game. This alongside its runtime work in favor of the story, which feels much better paced and includes less filler than usual. This comes at the expense of fewer characters that you meet than in other adventures of theirs, and I didn't find them to be as memorable.

The plot itself is also pretty simple. You play as the main character Ben, who is the leader of a biker gang called "Polecats" and who plans to stop the evil plan of one Adrian Ripburger, who plans to take over a motorcycle manufacturer and make them manufacture mini-vans, which is obviously a disgusting suggesting as far as Ben is concerned. Ripburger's actions are much more evil than his means however, and he frames Ben for his terrible acts to boot, so Ben has no choice but to put an end to Ripburger's plot. It's rather cliché and simple, as I said, but if you're into bikes and biker gang culture or just appreciate a story about a alpha, badass, funny one-liner spouting character, Full Throttle should scratch an itch for a couple afternoons.

OVERALL | 69/100

There isn't really much else to say about a game like this. If you know LucasArts games, you know them all kind of, at least from this time period. They have different themes but follow a very similar formula and it worked at the time. In modern times, with so many more games to choose from than in the 90s, where your gaming library probably consisted of just a couple games, it might be hard for you to stick to a game that will undoubtedly have you stuck at times trying to find a weird solution. If you didn't like it in other LucasArts games, you won't like it here, but if you did, then Full Throttle is more of the same with a different theme put on. It's a theme that works, which makes this a enjoyable game to play in my opinion.

Full Throttle is definitely point n click at its finest from LucasArts and DoubleFine's remaster does it well. The story is more on the serious side compared to LucasArts games in general, but that doesn't mean it loses its charm.

The gameplay is more or less similiar to previous games, there's a few sequences that could be seen as annoying (the bike fighting scenes, the demolition derby, etc.) but they are more repetitive than anything. Perhaps not a big fan of the "action wheel" at it is at times unclear what each option means (had this issue with Sam & Max as well).

Overall, great game with GREAT soundtrack! They just don't do 'em like that anymore, recommended for all fans of point n click to play.