Game review: ‘Full Throttle Remastered,’ when I’m on the road, I’m indestructible
By David Craddock | Shacknews.com (TNS)
ESRB rating: T
Mode: Single-player
Genre: Graphic adventure
Platforms: MS-DOS, Classic Mac OS, Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita
Developers: LucasArts, Double Fine Productions
“Full Throttle Remastered” is LucasArts’ best adventure game. It’s also the only LucasArts adventure I’ve ever played.
While several publishers vied for the crown back in the genre’s heyday, the cream of the point-and-click crop came from Sierra On-Line and LucasArts. The game you played first tended to determine which publisher camp you threw in with. I happened across a copy of “King’s Quest VI: To Heir is Human” in the bargain bin at my local Kay B Toys. Between the awesome-looking minotaur on the cover and, later, Jane Jensen’s exquisite Gabriel Knight and its sequel, my allegiance to the house that Ken and Roberta Williams built was unwavering.
Growing up, I was fortunate to have an uncle who encouraged me to learn (and play with) computers by sending me a new desktop every two or three years, and games much more frequently. One of those was “Full Throttle.” The cover showed a burly biker catching air on a tricked-out motorcycle with flames boiling over behind him. That was more than enough to go on, but the game’s snappy writing, post-apocalyptic metaphor, and catchy tunes carried me the rest of the way.
“Full Throttle” and its remaster — polished to a fine sheen by Double Fine Productions courtesy of Tim Schafer, the game’s director back at Lucas — casts you as Ben, the leader of a biker gang who’s framed for the murder of Malcom Corley, head of the Corley Motors motorcycle company. Ben’s mission is to absolve himself of murder by catching the real culprit. That’s important and all, but Ben is also concerned about the future of Corley Motors: Without the old man behind the handlebars, a diabolical new owner is poised to scrap motorcycle production and start cranking out minivans.
I played “Full Throttle” for the first time at 13 years old, when I was old enough to begin appreciating literary devices. The game’s metaphor of a post-apocalyptic future where motorcycles are on the endangered species list and minivans symbolize conformity was delicious to take in. The game’s writing did it justice, and is more on point than ever today.
“Full Throttle” is on the short side — you can probably breeze through it in a few hours even if you get stuck a time or three — but every minute crackles with witty dialogue and spot-on delivery. Ben, Maureen, Malcolm, and the rest of the gang made an impression on me 22 years ago. I still quote favorite lines, and was pleased to find upon digging into “Full Throttle Remastered” that my fond memories weren’t the result of peering into the past through rose-tinted glasses (or Cavefish goggles).
“Full Throttle Remastered” received the same HD-makeover as 2009’s “The Secret of Monkey Island” and 2015’s “Grim Fandango Remastered.” It’s a remaster, not a remake, so you have your choice of a new paint job and touched-up soundtrack, or, by pressing F1, you can indulge nostalgia by fading in a warm-and-fuzzy veneer of pixels and MIDI music. The transition between new and old is quick and smooth, and I took an inordinate amount of pleasure in jumping back and forth, marveling at how the chunky, old school veneer did nothing to diminish its personality.
I likewise took a ridiculous amount of pleasure in recalling a few of the game’s puzzles. You can get a hint by holding down the Shift key to highlight interactive items in the background, but only with HD graphics active. Fortunately I was able to figure out most of the ones I’d forgotten through simple intuition. That drove home a surprising realization that I could only have had in hindsight.
“Full Throttle” made waves for selling over a million units when most point-and-clicks were lucky to crest 100,000. I have my fingers crossed that “Full Throttle” will become successful twice over, and tempt publishers to put a little more “game” in their adventure games.
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