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LucasArts' Secret History #10: Full Throttle Screw That Guy: What Does Everyone Else Think?

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Byron Hooper

If it weren't for Full Throttle, I might never have even heard of adventure games. In early 1995 I was a pretty frustrated gamer. I found I was terrible at any console game I picked up and though I had moved on PC games, everything I'd tried up to that point (RTS, FPS, rail shooters, driving) either frustrated or bored me. The only game I'd gotten that I'd actually enjoyed was X-Wing (and later Tie Fighter) from a little company called Lucasarts. I was a full fledged Star Wars nut, and X-Wing was my introduction to Lucasarts. The next Star Wars game they were putting out was Dark Forces, and even though I despised FPS games, I got it anyway. I don't remember too much about the game itself (other than I had to use God Mode to beat it and see the whole story) but what I do remember is firing up the demos.

There were two demos on the CD. I fired up the Star Wars one first, the lackluster Rebel Assault 2 (which of course I ended up buying) and then another one I'd never heard of... Full Throttle. I loved every second of that demo. There was a small section of "action" but it was pretty easy, and the rest required not a hare trigger reflex, but a brain to come up with a logical solution. A REVELATION. Finally a game I could play! And it was more story and character driven than action driven. I had finally found my niche.

Everything about the game from the intro sequence to the spectacular finale is classic. Great characters, hilarious dialogue, ultra-appropriate soundtrack, and fantastic story all blend to make a really excellent game. Also, I didn't appreciate it at the time (due to my lack of experience with other games), but the puzzle design is very clever in its straightforwardness. It wouldn't make sense for Ben to go through all sorts of convoluted hoops and steps to get through a locked door when he can just KICK IT THE HELL DOWN!

Now there are two primary complaints about Full Throttle that usually get bandied around. First is its length, second are the action sequences. I'll address the action sequences first. My first time playing through, I slogged through the Mine Road fights, beating each opponent trying to get the right weapon to take on the next opponent until I could FINALLY get that damn board to crank the cavefish with so I could move on. It was fun at first but it eventually got OOOOOOOOOOLD. On my second run through, however, I found the way to get the chainsaw really early in the Mine Road sequence and suddenly that long arduous sequence suddenly became much shorter. The demolition derby however, can't be skipped, and was really annoying to get through the first time. The cutscene payoff was worth it though.

As for the complaint about the brevity of the game, I argue that the short length is actually a strength. It makes it so easy to sit down and play the over the course of just a few hours, like watching a favorite movie. Another good reason for the relative quickness of the game is that to drag it out would have ruined the game's brisk pacing, and padding the length with overly complex puzzles wouldn't have made sense in terms of the game's main character or it's universe.

Full Throttle is easily one of my favorite games to this day and I think it stands with the best that Lucasarts created. I wanted to talk about so much more, but holy crap this is long already.

Capn Nacho

Full Throttle's a hell of an interesting game. Easily its greatest accomplishment is the fact that it plays like a really superb animated film, especially considering its prolific (and excellent) voice cast which includes Maurice LaMarche, Tress MacNeille and Mark Hamill. The characters and story are among the highest ranks of Schafer's creations, and the game has a really wonderful balance of drama, comedy, and outright satire. The similarities to film aren't exactly hindered by the game's length, either. A lot of people have complained about this, but I can't claim to understand them. It's perfect. It's long enough for things to be developed as much as they have to, but brief enough to have really perfect rising action all the way to the crazy finale.

Another great strength is that the puzzles and control, save for a few stumbling blocks, are completely intuitive and easy to grasp as long as you've got a fair grasp of adventure game mechanics. Again, there aren't any enormous leaps of logic that take you out of the game's atmosphere, preserving the suspension of disbelief. That isn't to say that the game isn't flawless (from a gameplay standpoint), as a few of the game's action-based sequences don't work out all that well, especially the disorienting demolition derby scene, in which a clear goal is established through a wealth of cutscenes and then torn down by weird controls and strange expectations on the part of the developers. But then, bam, the cutscenes swoop back down and save the day once you've gotten it figured out.

And the game's visual appeal is just enormous for me. I'm not really as big a fan of COMI's look as most people I know, and mostly because I'd already played these great old 2D LA games. COMI may be 640 by 480, and its animation a bit more thorough, but Full Throttle has much more dynamic and creative keyframing and direction in general, wonderful muted and natural color design, and an excellent graphic 2-D/CGI aesthetic that could have gone terribly wrong but instead is so, so right. It reminds me of Don Bluth's Titan A.E. at times, though better written.

All that said, Full Throttle is just an awesome game. It's marred by a few issues, most of which seem the results of failed experiments with the classic formula, but the incredible presentation and production values really make it a charming and fun adventure and, appropriately enough, a great piece of machinima.

David Eggers

Okay, I'll admit it: Full Throttle was the first LucasArts adventure game I ever played. And it was probably the first adventure game I ever beat, after being driven away from the genre by the more rigid and cruel—at times hilariously so—offerings from Sierra during the early 90's.

I'd been aware of LucasArts inasmuch as they made X-Wing and the Super Star Wars series, but I hadn't heard of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, or even Sam & Max. It wasn't until I got a demo CD that was split cleanly down the middle between Dark Forces and Full Throttle, (and wasn't until I couldn't run the Dark Forces demo on my computer), that I stumbled upon the array of original titles that LucasArts had to offer. But what an introduction! Full Throttle provides an awesome, concise narrative, and mixes humor and fun with moments of great sadness and a bleak atmosphere, with more depth than any other game I'd played to date, and only bested by a handful of others that I've played since.

Controlling Ben was a refreshing alternative to some other, frailer adventure game protagonists, and he actually had a personality and a bias toward taking action. Where some other lead characters might combine the wrong two things in their inventories and explode to death, or miss the correct dialogue option two hours back, Ben gets beaten up, deceived, chased around by a junkyard dog, beaten up again (on a bike), wrecked, and exposed to various other kinds of abuse, but keeps going. Ben's a tough guy in a world of liars and dirt, and you come to rely on his characteristic toughness as much as your own wits to get through the game.

Also, the Old Mine Road rules, so shut up.

DeadKyle

I loved Full Throttle, I think the first Lucasarts game I played all the way through. The story is cool, but I like the art more. I even tracked down a copy of the Gone Jackals CD just for the theme song. I've always wanted those goons on American Chopper to make a Full Throttle bike, all those pipes! I'm almost glad the sequel got canceled, the concept art was cool but the screen shots looked horrid.

Gabez

I remember when Full Throttle first came out, it got a lot of flak from being so short. Nowadays, everything needs to be short as we all have three second attention spans: so the length of a the game is actually a bonus!

Someone once told me that they were replaying Full Throttle in order to take their mind off the death of their grandfather. Much like a good novel, this game can very quickly take you into another world, in a way that few other games can. Once it has you in that world it doesn't let you go: and whilst the experience is relatively brief, it is all the more intense for that.

There's no filler with this game. There aren't any boring parts. It's as near to perfect as you can get from anything created by mortal hands.

Icebox

I'm Going to talk about Full Throttle.

Full Throttle is neither the greatest nor the most valuable of Schafer's gems. It does not gleam with an ominous, bewitching lustre as MI2. Nor, indeed, does it echo peacefully, emanating paradise and turmoil, as Grim Fandango did, and does. No, Full Throttle is a game of sullen resolution, in bitter contrast to Hit The Road's wacky whispers, Full Throttle ends things resolutely, with a bang. So, too, does it showcase Tim's unerring devotion to Vonnegutian ideals, life after apocalypse, the death of sad old men, the like. But at its heart is a wholly different tale, one of bold new horizons, an endless passage which must be walked.

The sad thing is that beginning with this creaking hulk of a tale, Tim's stories would start to go unfulfilled. This is what disturbs me. Full Throttle places the character in a seemingly infinite armageddon, with limitless potential for new adventures, but as Lucas Arts neared the end of its days, no grand sequel or expansion would culminate from the smoking ash. We see only fragments of his vision, the smouldering husk of Melonweed, all houses locked; totemic government copters, shadows of a dim influence. Limitless worlds and journeys lie across the gulf of desert, and beyond and before the Corley factory, lies a road which may spiral into chaos, dizzying heights, or terrifying lows.

Yet, maybe that is its magic, that from the limitless abyss, you walk the ways of the factory, a long and winding journey leading to it, Corley's fate and Ripburger's doom your only end. The Story itself more of an instance than anything, for Ben, being the rover he is, may sample Maureen's tale, without being consumed or wrought by it, but rather add it to the baggage of his mysterious and grizzly past.

Perhaps, more inspiring to me, than any of the tormented cast, is the cool and serene Father Polecat, whose voice is deep, whose beard is long, whose wisdom is eternal. He left the life of a leader to live as a bum. That is true Kerouac wisdom. And you speak with him for a time, his words watch over your dead master, but even as pain and suffering befall his former clan, his people, he exists as he always has, and always will, a wanderer. Poetry, haikus to furnish the room of grandpa time, rippling waves at the canyon's core.

This is Schafer's great task, that which he set before him with Full Throttle, to craft stories, funny at times, sorrowful, at others, and above all calming, enriching to the mind. Though folks at Mojo, whomever they are, berate LSD, it may be said that beginning with Full Throttle, Tim's games have possessed a sort of Acid Wisdom, a wild ethos which is only ever partially explained, but is ultimately meditative, and even enlightening. Make no mistake, Full Throttle is dark, people die, faces get kicked, explosions light the desert dusk. But even greater than the darkness is the light, the spirit of a mellow hipster protecting from on high, Corley's legacy reflected even in the eyes of your enemies, and some brand of outlandish justice inevitably righteous, and forever true.

Full Throttle Is Dark,[br /] People get kicked in the face,[br /] Ben is Oh So Cool!

Jennifer McMurray

When Full Throttle first came out it didn’t interest me too much. It is a story about brutal biker gangs with a hard rock soundtrack. Neither of those were appealing to me in the least.

However, when I purchased the LucasArts Archive Vol. III, I decided that I might as well give the game a shot and see what it’s like since I liked every LucasArts adventure game that I had played. I’m very glad that I did, since Full Throttle turned out to be one of my all-time favorite adventure games.

I love a strong story, and Full Throttle has a whopper of one. People say that Full Throttle is short, but I was so engrossed in the story that I never even noticed it’s short length. Another reason I never thought that the game ended too soon is that the ending sequence is my favorite finale I have ever played in an adventure game.

The game has a fantastic cartoon style to it, and the animation is so fluid that it still looks great to this day. And of course, as is true with all of the adventure games by LucasArts, the voice acting was fantastic. I’m not the biggest hard rock fan, but the intro animation to the game really made me love The Gone Jackals’ song “Legacy”. Thankfully for me though, the hard rock songs aren’t used too much, and most of the game has calmer music by Peter McConnell.

About the only thing that I didn’t enjoy was the few action sequences where you had to knock bikers off of their motorcycles on the Old Mine Road. It was frustrating, seemed unnecessary, and was more work than fun. Thankfully, this sequence wasn’t too long, as it was really used for only one puzzle.

The rest of the game was great though, and the one quibble I had with it doesn’t stop Full Throttle from being in my personal top 10. It’s one of the few adventure games I’ve played many times after I’ve beaten it. The story is worth experiencing more than once. :)

John Green

Next to CMI, Full Throttle is my favorite of LucasArt's original IP's (I'm categorizing Indy, and of course Star Wars, separate because they exist outside of the realm of just computer games.)

There's just something about it where everything comes together: the animation, the story, the characters, the locale. I love that it's an action game without actually being an action game. You get to beat people up and kick down doors, but without the mini-game/arcade sequence feel the fights in the Indy games had (though the motorcycle fights are still something I don't need to play ever again.)

The game might be short, but I think that keeps it sweet. It's a damn shame none of the proposed sequels were made, and I wish the game had enough of a crazy fan base to make fan sequels, like the few awesome looking Indy fan games that are out there.

A couple of years ago I saw a "film" someone made of Full Throttle by recording all the cinematics and relevant game play. It's a testament to the game that it actually works, and is a wonderfully entertaining tale without the interaction.

Kroms

Tim Schafer's first solo game! It's hard to believe that this man - this god of a man - only has three solo games to his name so far: Full Throttle, Grim Fandango and Psychonauts. Full Throttle may be the weakest of the lot, but that doesn't mean it's not good. Far from it. What's awesome about Schafer is that each and every game he's done is great, but has different appeals.

If Fandago is his take on Raymond Chandler-by-way-of-Casablanca-and-the-Coen-Brothers, and Psychonauts is a nostalgic take on a Pixar/Harry Potter concept then Full Throttle is a 90s cartoon show gone insane. The writing, the art style, but most importantly the mood of the game - something Schafer excels at - all reminded me very heavily of cartoons I used to watch when I was a kid, like Animaniacs or Pinky and the Brain mixed-up with X-Men or Batman: The Animated Series. But better.

Yeah, the game doesn't have the fanatical following that Monkey Island does, nor that series's revolutionary design, or its legendary status. It isn't as praised as often as Day of the Tentacle, or Grim Fandango, or Psychonauts - all masterpieces. But it's very, very good, and its fans care about it. When LucasArts were doing those sequels five years ago and the game didn't look-up to scratch, they shouted loud - and hard. I think this goes to show that you don't have to create a masterpiece everytime you churn out something. Sometimes it's OK if you release something that's just pretty good.

L33tfella H

Full throttle is a great game and one of my all-time favourites. the length of the game falls a bit on the short side but everytime i play it i still manage to love it. Ben is a very memorable main character and Roy Conrad, his voice actor did a perfect job in my eyes matching his look and character with the voice. The Puzzles aren't too hard to figure out, but some of them can definently snag you for a while, infact, the more difficult puzzles of the game were the action oriented ones like the derby and the road-rash fights. The Title Theme by the Gone Jackals hits hard when unveiled in the intro and the song playing in the junkyard owner's trailer is a funny tune to listen to every now and then. Overall, When you're playing this game, you'll definently feel like your on the road and indestructible!

Lagomorph

Whenever I smell asphalt, I think of Full Throttle.

I think some of the beauty of these games (this was the third adventure game I played), for me comes from the fact that I was quite young when I first played them. It was like playing a cartoon! Just spending hours just talking and scouting the beautiful locations, without getting any further in the game. I remember spending hours of time in Maureen's town. Just getting into the junkyard, busting Todd's ass, sneaking into the gass tower.

That's something I lack nowadays, and it's a real shame, the patience to just play a game for hours on end without getting any further. That's why these classics will forever remain the top of the Adventure Games for me. The memories and the nostalgia.

Of course it's not all nostalgia, the game is simply wonderfully put together. From the art direction to the music and the voice acting, everything is put in it's place and feels whole. The puzzle design is just right, not giving the answers straight away, but never so hard that you have to scout locations for hours without getting any lead. (Unless your an 8 year old kid with a limited knowledge of the English Language.) That's something else that I just love about this game, it's really made me learn English. Just figuring out the text, imitating the voices that said it. It's learned me to speak perfect accentless English.

The voice acting is something special too. While the previous games from Lucas Arts had voices, this game really took things to a new level. The voice of Ben is so spot on and really forms his character. All the other characters are casted with the same precision and really fit the characters. One of the reasons I was actually glad the second sequel got cancelled was the new voice of Ben, which really didn't seem to suit the character.

One thing I love about Tim Shafer's games is that he creates a whole world around it. Everything just fits into place, whether it's the characters, the locations, the music. Every little detail has been carefully crafted for this game world. Full Throttle is no exception. The whole post apocalyptic world of Full Throttle is put down so realistically, even to the point of the hit "Increased Chances" by "Shitlin's Whiskey and Skirt", that it just grabs you and pulls you into it.

All and all I heard people complain about the lenght of the game. As a kid I never had any problems with this, but as an adult, I can see this might've put some people off. The art direction, voice acting, music and game world all make up for it though. The package just feels complete.

You don't have much choice when trouble's riding your back so tight it makes the leather squeak. Sometimes you outsmart it, sometimes you outfight it, and sometimes you just have to outrun it... FULL THROTTLE

The Tingler

Full Throttle is my least favourite Tim Schafer game. Wow, controversial, I know. While the action bits are quite dull and monotonous, the humour is dryer than that constant arid landscape Ben speeds along, and the puzzles are mostly easy, it's all worth it for Wagner playing as you send Electric Bunnies to their doom.

As usual with LucasArts adventures, the characters are engaging, well-written and well-acted, which is actually very very difficult to get in gaming and should make us realise just how lucky we were. Full Throttle has probably has the coolest lead (not counting Indy), and is the coolest LucasArts adventure to been seen playing. And that's the least I can say about it. Well done again, guys.

Wolf Black

Full Throttle was the first Lucasarts adventure game I ever completed, and it blew me away. From the characters, voice acting, and story, I loved this game. I understand that some consider the puzzles too easy, but what makes an adventure game for me is great story and characters, and Full Throttle has them in spades. There are a couple of small plot discrepancies, but the rest of the game more than makes up for them. Although this game is short, it gives and excellent narrative. After Full Throttle, I decided to complete Monkey Island, and buy Grim Fandango, but I'm still chasing chitlins, whiskey & skirt.

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