Game Review: Full Throttle Remastered

May 10th, 4:44pm May 10th, 4:44pm

Adam Mathew

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Console gamers were more or less shafted out of the adventure genre when it was in its early Nineties hey-day. Controllers with analogue sticks weren’t standard yet, and about six people bought peripherals like the PlayStation One Mouse. That’s not the largest install base to justify point-n-click masterpieces like 1995’s Full Throttle, sadly.

This particular road adventure represents Tim Schafer – of Monkey Island and Brutal Legend fame – at the height of his powers. You’re required to slip into the unbelievably cool motorcycle boots of Ben, just “Ben”, a grizzled bikie who must surely gargle whisky and gravel everyday for breakfast.

Your gang, The Polecats, has recently become embroiled in the hostile takeover machinations of one Adrian Ripburger (Mark Hamill). He wants to turn this universe’s equivalent of Harley Davidson Motorcycles into a mini-van producer. This will not (kick)stand.

As Ben, you’ll need to puzzle-solve and punch your way out of a series of messes. The former approach requires a lot of item collection and outside-the-box thinking, and the process is made easier thanks to a “flick between hotspots” function. (This beats the hell out of dragging a cursor about.) Speaking of beatings, the aforementioned road-rash combat moments have not aged well.

They’re little more than one-button mashfests that are heavily reliant on trail-and-error weapon selection. But, hey, you don’t ever buy Lucasarts adventures for the action.

Buy Full Throttle Remastered for the slick dialogue, stellar VO, fascinating dev commentary, and a dark, lovingly-redrawn alternate-future world. It also has that wonderful magic button mechanic which instantly switches graphics back to the blocky, 4:3 ratio eyesore gamers had to endure 20 years ago.

Now that everything has been illustrated into focus, the world looks bad-assedly bleak and heavily inspired by Mad Max. Back in the day, many folks assume it was set in a post-apocalypse. Totally isn’t.

All of this praise and nostalgia-feels must come with a word of warning, though. Full Throttle comes from an era before the wide-adoption of the Internet; a time when a lack of walkthroughs would likely make players scratch their noodles for hours.

If you play this as intended, we imagine the runtime would be close to 4 hours. If you insist on cheating, and beeline where you need to be, this can be speed-ran to 2.5 hours.

Don’t do yourself that disservice, however. Test your lateral-thinking abilities, revel in every shred of optional smart-ass dialogue that fleshes out this highway revenge tale.

This is classic gaming heritage, genre-defining stuff that modern companies like Telltale still have difficulty replicating. If this doesn’t kickstart your heart and compel you to seek out more of Schafer’s work, you might not own one.

Score: 7.5