The International House of Mojo

Hell on Eyes, or Why Full Throttle Sequels Failed

Much has been said about the two canceled Full Throttle sequels, Payback and Hell on Wheels. So much, in fact, that we have decided to take a quick look at both of them, and let you know what went wrong through facts based on rumors.

Full Throttle: Payback

The first canceled sequel came into "official" light after the cancelation of Hell on Wheels, and the fact that Curse of Monkey Island vets Larry Ahern and Bill Tiller were at the helm as project lead and art director respectively had some fanboys wetting themselves over the death of Payback.

One can't help but wonder, though, if the game had been embraced has it actually been announced, or even entered true production. First, this was to be an action-adventure game. Remember how well action-adventures were embraced by the adventure community in 2000? The correct answer: "not at all."

Furthermore, Payback was aimed squarely at the PS2 market. That's not to say there wouldn't have been a PC version, but either way... That would have been an afterthought, and something considered a particular sin in the early 2000s.

The game would have centered around Ben fighting a conspiracy revolving around an evil governor plotting to remove all highways and replace them with family friendly hovercars, and... Wait, doesn't this sound suspiciously like Escape from Monkey Island's plot?

Regardless of the less than original storyline (which also was to include a hilarious clumsy reporter sidekick. Nothing says "awesome" like funny sidekicks!), the concept art sure looked good, and the game could very well have been fun. Or maybe it wouldn't have been. We never got to find out, largely thanks to internal LucasArts mismanagement, and a higher-up who considered himself somewhat of a game designer. For the sake of reference we'll call him Dandy Green.

Now many things can be said about Dandy -- some "hidden" Escape from Monkey Island art seems to indicate he sucks -- but the famous anecdote about him questioning why Payback would include a "Conefish" biker gang probably sums it all up nicely. If only he had played the original before letting his creative juices flow...

Apparently some managers also had some trust issues with Ahern, and largely credited Jonathan Ackley for guiding Curse of Monkey Island through to completion. Fair? Probably not. "Micromanagement" comes to mind, and Ahern was reportedly squeezed out. Soon after, Payback was dead.

Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels

Affectionately known as Hell on Eyes by fans after some less than stellar screenshots were released, the second Full Throttle sequel fared a little bit better than Payback. But not much. It did, of course, enter production, but was famously canceled in 2003.

While Bill Tiller has stated in interviews that this incarnation had little to do with Payback, there seems to be certain plot elements that carried over. Terms like "conspiracy" and "destruction of roads" were mentioned in interviews, and it can probably be assumed new project lead, Sean Clark, was pulling a Dig on it. (That is, going in and re-imagining a previously designed game.)

That's not to say there weren't changes from the original idea. In fact, there seemed to have been many of them. Action, for example, seemed to have a greater emphasis than Payback, and while the game was announced for the PC as well as consoles, it seemed very... Console-y... The biking portions, for example, seemed to have been taken straight from Road Rash.

And, of course, it was hell on eyes. Some... or many as it was... Mojo-ers compared the technical quality to PS1 games. The artistic quality?

Of course, the game had some hardened defenders. Defenders who came out of the woodwork with every piece of artwork that was released. Defenders who, after a quick view of the Mojo logs, could be traced back to LucasArts. Yikes.

Of course, the game could very well have been a fun romp and all, but again... We never had a chance to try it for ourselves. And while St. Simon Jeffery's word that the cancellation was due to LucasArts not wanting to "disappoint the many fans of Full Throttle" with a sub-standard game might have sounded nice, word has it that there was a bit more to the story than that. "Missed milestones," in particular, was something being mentioned quite often. One can speculate that LucasArts had little interest in having Hell on Wheels go too far over budget as a sequel to an adventure game was less than a certain money maker to start with. (Even though Full Throttle was reportedly LucasArts' highest-selling adventure game title.)

Hell on Wheels, then, went the same way as Payback.

And with it, probably any hope of ever seeing a Full Throttle sequel again. So it goes.

-- Remi