Full Throttle

aka: Full Throttle: L'aventure plein tube, Vollgas
Moby ID: 940
DOS Specs
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Description official descriptions

Future technology paved way to the creation of hovercrafts, which began to gradually replace motorized vehicles. Ben is the leader of the Polecats, one of the toughest biker gangs on the road. One day he drives over and damages a hovercraft limousine which belongs to Malcolm Corley, owner of Corley Motors, the last domestic motorcycle manufacturer. Later, Ben is having a bit of good clean fun at the Kick Stand Bar when Corley drops by for a bit of reminiscing. This leads to a meeting with Corley Motors' vice president Adrian Ripburger, who has his own sinister plans concerning the company, the Polecats, and the future of motorized vehicles. Ben refuses to co-operate and must now face the consequences and do everything in his power to bring Ripburger to justice.

Full Throttle is a third-person puzzle-solving adventure game. The graphics are cartoon-style, similarly to LucasArts' previous adventure games Day of the Tentacle and Sam & Max Hit The Road. The game features a revamped interface: instead of choosing a command verb or an action icon and then interacting with an object, the player can now simply point at it, and the available action icons will appear automatically. These include the standard "use", "examine", and "speak" actions, but also a separate foot icon for kicking.

As in other LucasArts adventure games, the player can select different responses during most conversations. However, compared to their previous works in the genre, Full Throttle is more streamlined, with less exploration, dialogue options or puzzles. Cinematic cartoon-style cutscenes are used to advance the plot. The game also includes a few simple action driving sequences, during which the player is required to navigate a motorcycle and fight hostile bikers by punching and kicking them, as well as using crude weapons such as chains and planks.

Spellings

  • Полный газ - Russian spelling

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Credits (DOS version)

270 People (196 developers, 74 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 82% (based on 39 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 324 ratings with 13 reviews)

Great experience; poor adventure game

The Good
An interesting game world with amazing characters. Superb voice acting, music, sound and graphics that even today hold on

The Bad
Short. Annoying action sequences that you cannot skip. Some puzzles are disgracefully easy, while others are not intuitive and feel more like a desperate attempt to lengthen the game.

The Bottom Line
I actually played Full Throttle when it came out, almost 20 years ago, but never finished it. My friend was the one who had a copy of the game and we played it together on his PC till he had to return it, as he also did not own the game. Let me remind you that we're talking about 1995, a period where games required the installation CD to run, not as an authentication method but simply because the hard-drives were too small to contain an entire disc.

When I saw Tim Schafer play Full Throttle in the DoubleFine YouTube channel, I just had to play it from beginning to end, to finally fill that gap from 1995. So I stopped watching Tim so not to spoil the game for me, grabbed a copy and installed it on my PC.

In my memories, Full Throttle is an amazing piece of work and if I had to write a review strictly based on what I remember it'll probably be filled with compliments and phrases such as "the greatest game I ever played".

But the truth is - Full Throttle is not that great. It is quite an experience, with memorable characters, plot and atmosphere, but it fails as an adventure game. It's puzzles are simply sub-par. Most are extremely easy, and a lot of them consist of kicking stuff (one of the action verbs is kick). Only a few are smart and shine out with Tim's greatness.

Some of the puzzles, while not hard, are simply not intuitive. For example, and without spoiling too much, at one point in the game you need to have a quantity of one of the items in your inventory. However, after you picked up that item and placed it in your inventory, you can only pick it again after you used the one you already have, and while it is possible to use a copy of the item each time - it is not the solution. All items need be used at the same time to resolve the puzzle.

So how do you overcome it? You use the item, so it'll be removed from your inventory, but once you've used it, you pick it up again. You will now have in your inventory what the item contained, which is actually what you needed in the first place, and the item itself will be generated again and be available for pick up. Yes, this is the puzzle solution and not a bug in the game.

Other then that, there are action sequences peppered throughout the game. Their biggest problem is that the controls are poor and unresponsive, they're not fun at all and if they do have some sort of strategy in them then I've missed it, as I managed to pass them all by mashing buttons. And the worst is that you cannot skip them!

Tim mentioned in his play through that in order to make the protagonist believable as a tough biker guy, he had to kick stuff, including people, and that's the reason for having them in the first place. I don't think that an adventure game should force on it's players, who would've purchased an action title if they wanted, action sequences that cannot be skipped.

Along with Sam and Max, Day of the Tentacle and Monkey Island, Full Throttle has that LucasArts charm which was so prominent in the mid 90's. It's story is compelling and the settings and characters are truly superb. Even today, it's cartoon like presentation looks great, not to mention it's rock soundtrack and excellent voice acting.

However, in the end, Full Throttle is an adventure game, and as one it should present challenging and interesting puzzles, and not rely on action sequences or odd puzzles to squeeze the (very) short gaming experience.

Windows · by Scytale (41) · 2014

This game is one baddass mofo...

The Good
One has to ask oneself what's the key to the sheer success of the LucasArts adventure games, they are virtually identical gameplay-wise, they aren't extreme quantum leaps technology-wise, and heck! They are adventure games! A genre chastizised by many as games where the concept of gameplay is "guess what the designer wanted you to do"...! So what gives?? What could possibly turn those things into succesful games?? Let me tell you what: Creative content.

LucasArts crammed each and every one of their games with inventive plots, fantastic characters and some of the most original moments in pc gaming history... case in point?: Full Throttle, truly the most badassed adventure game ever made, a rock&roller adventure with a story that flows like a good action movie in which renegade biker Ben (total badass) gets framed for snuffing out the benevolent president of the country's leading motorcycle company and has to run from the law. Since he is such a baddass, Ben sets out to set the record straight, get the bad guy and kick some shit around. Doesn't sound like much on paper, but when you transport that to the stylistically crafted gameworld and twist it in the already familiar cartoony ways of LucasArts, you have a fantastic experience in your hands. All the elements are there: baddass anti-hero, baddass babe, baddass bikes, baddass soundtrack, biker gangs, corporate pigs, dumbass rednecks, barbrawls, you name it... Full Throttle has the "zing" and by zeroing on all the right "kickass" elements manages to stylistically blend them and turn a rather simple storyline in one of the most exciting experiences ever to grace a computer screen.

Furthermore, the game has LucasArts already famous production values, which translate into stellar voice acting (which deserves special recognition as perhaps the best one ever for a computer game), killer graphics which merged cartoony (yet-realistically proportioned and animated) characters with pre-rendered bikes and lush scenery and backgrounds, as well as an absolutely bitching soundtrack by The Gone Jackals, a legitimate down-and-dirty rock&roll band from whom Lucas licensed their entire album Bone to Pick, and which only needed Steppenwolf's "Born To be Wild" and AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" in order to become the ultimate biker soundtrack

The interface moved a step up from Sam&Max, by re-working the old mechanics and introducing a floating menu from which you selected your action AFTER you selected the location, the result is even less clutter, and easier adventuring and puzzle management. And the whole thing is layed out as Ben's gang logo! How cool can this thing get??

The Bad
It's really easy, and it's really short. You can try dressing that one up all you want, but the reality of it all is that Full Throttle is REALLY short and is REALLY easy. Proof positive of what kickass content it has is that despite being an introductory-level adventure with the length of a demo it still rocked,...but...

The Bottom Line
It's the most kickass thing in the history of kickassed-ness!!(?). Full Throttle is like Walter Hill's "The Warriors", a simple straightforward story that due to it's sheer style in execution and understanding of source material becomes a stylistical masterpiece. Get it. Get it now, "Caaaaan Yoooooouuu Diiiiig Eeeeeet???".

Besides, the game has a "kick" command!!!.... WHAT THE HELL MORE DO YOU WANT????

DOS · by Zovni (10504) · 2001

How the hell does LucasArts manage to create such perfect games?

The Good
After they completed Sam & Max Hit the Road, LucasArts wondered what they do next. Their solution was to create a more serious, less humorous adventure game, with a bit of suspense added to the mix. Full Throttle tells the story of Ben Throttle, leader of a motorcycle gang known as The Polecats who are not the type of motorcycle gang to mess with.

Story: Malcolm Corley is the president of Corley Motors, the last motorcycle maker in the country. Unfortunately, Corley is about to retire from the motorcycle business, and his vice president, Adrian Ripburger, wants to take his place. He soon murders Corley and blames Ben and The Polecats for his murder, so Ben must prove his innocence. When he is about to die, Corley tells Ben that he wants his daughter, Maureen ("Mo") Corley, to take over as president, as Ripburger as president would bring disasterous consequences for the company. Ripburger plans to stop producing motorcycles to make way for minivans - something that Corley Motors isn't ready for.

Gameplay: Unlike previous adventure games from LucasArts, Full Throttle uses an advanced version of the SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion) interface. The interface itself is easy to use. The game is split into two sections. You have your adventure section, where you can perform actions by holding down the left mouse button while the crosshair is highlighted in a red square. This will cause a bikie symbol to appear, and will have KICK, TOUCH, TASTE, and LOOK actions inside it. The gray area below each action tells you what object that you are interacting with. Also, holding down the right mouse button access the inventory in the form of a giant skull, with all items in the skull's mouth, plus red arrows in the eye sockets if the items don't fit the length of the mouth. Dragging the item outside the skull causes the skull to disappear, and allows you to use it on an object. This is a pretty good metaphor that LucasArts used in this game. You can't die in Full Throttle by performing unusual actions, so you are free to do whatever you like in the game, and even if that action leads you to Ben's death, you won't see one of those death screens or Sierra's death dialog boxes. Instead, you resume at the start of the scene that got you killed, and you must try a different set of actions so you can avoid this.

Most of the characters have got a bit of warmth to them, and from what I read in oleg's review, all the characters are portrayed in real life. Almost all the characters are kind to you, and will offer you help if you treat them with respect. Mo, for example, will fix your bike and be your friend for the rest of the adventure if you tell her the horrible truth about Corley's murder. Some characters, like Nestor, Bolus, and Ripburger himself, hate Ben and wants him dead.

You also have the action sequences. The first one kicks in after you leave the Kick Stand bar. These action sequences require you fighting rival gangs and trying to make them fall off their bikes, and require some skill in order to win, as using the right weapons against them will let you in, and these weapons will be obtained by knocking each gang member off their bikes. At the start, you have no weapons to start off with and must use your fists. However, by knocking gangs to the ground, you can get better weapons such as chain, board, and chainsaw. If you don't use the right weapons, you could be knocked off yourself. You also have the demolition derby that occurs much later in the game, where you must complete a task, not just ram cars to death. These sequences are controlled by INSANE, LucasArts's new scripting engine, apart from SCUMM and IMUSE.

The game consists of day and night sequences. You do most of your actions by day, but some can only be done at night. Full Throttle uses long FMV (Full Motion Video) cut-scenes, that was very popular in the 90's. I like how this is done. Pressing [F5] on the keyboard will bring up the game's control panel, which allows you to change the volume settings, save, restore, or quit a game - exactly the same sort of control panel that LucasArts used in their previous games. The only difference is when you attempt to save over the top of another game, you will be asked if you really want to save over an existing game. You have access to the control panel throughout the game, expect the action sequences.

Graphics: The graphics are in line with cartoon adventure games like Leisure Suit Larry, Day of the Tentacle, and Sam & Max. It is excellent that LucasArts stuck that way with their graphics since when they completed Maniac Mansion all the way up to Escape from Monkey Island.

Music & Sound: The sounds in the game are realistic to the sounds in real life. For example, when the night inside the game kicks in, you'll hear crickets, owls, and other living creatures exactly as they sound. This means they used a sound file of a real creature hooting and cooing. Most of the music inside the game is of heavy-metal like, and blends in with the situation that you are currently in. Some of the tunes that you hear were actually written by bikie band "The Gone Jackals", who obviously did the music for the start and end credits, and had their songs edited for use inside the game. No, you can't listen to CD-Audio tracks outside the game for the full song since there isn't any. You actually can hear three or four of their full songs at the end, but you are encourage to buy the CD from the company listed.

The Bad
Personally, I much prefer the interface to Sam & Max where you keep clicking the left mouse button to cycle through the available actions in the game, and then clicking the left mouse button to perform that action. The installation program that comes with the game wastes a bit of time, since it copies some files to your hard drive, instead of just placing a small configuration file inside a folder, like Day of the Tentacle and Sam & Max did.

The Bottom Line
Full Throttle is the first LucasArts game to be released only on CD-ROM. That means that if you don't have a CD-ROM/DVD drive, you won't be able to play the game. Overall, if you like games with a lot of action and suspense, as well as adventure, then you should find this game exciting.

Rating: ****

DOS · by Katakis | カタキス (43092) · 2004

[ View all 13 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Full Throttle/Dark Forces Demo CD-ROM Edwin Drost (9295) Jan 22, 2017
Patch? RJ Pieper Oct 23, 2008
dog in junkyard s c May 26, 2008

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Full Throttle appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Cancelled sequel

A 3D sequel was in development, called Full Throttle: Hell On Wheels, but it was officially canned on 7th August 2003. A brief statement from LucasArts president Simon Jeffery said: "We do not want to disappoint the many fans of Full Throttle and hope everyone can understand how committed we are to delivering the best quality gaming experience that we possibly can."

Development

In addition to the SCUMM engine, lead programmer Stephen Shaw and Mark Crowley used Vince Lee's Rebel Assault engine for some of the action scenes. This was pretty hard to do since both programs have their own calls to the processor and means of handling data. However, the R.A. sequences were kept discreet and the SCUMM engine was reworked so it could multi-task and keep all of is variable states in their location while the R.A. engine started up, allocated its own memory locations, and shutted down.

The use of the R.A. engine also caused problems in the art department. Since the engine was originally conceived to be as photo-realistic as possible, when the art team placed Peter Chan's drawings as texture maps over the 3D hills they started getting 15-20 k of data per frame of animation, thus causing the desert terrain too look overly realistic in contrast to the rest of the game world. The Over-rendered terrains as well as other features (like parallaxing sky and optimized data flows) were then scaled down to create a continuous game world.

Full Throttle uses 3 engines: SCUMM, INSANE and iMUSE.

Mini game

Following what Lucasarts had begun with Sam & Max (mini-games inside the game), Full Throttle has one special 'game' in it. If you wanna play what Emmet is playing in the Kickstand (that is, after you leave the town where you first meet Maureen and the police set up roadblocks) all you gotta do is ask him several times (and I DO mean several times) using the "I can do that" dialogue option. You won't get any prize if you succeed in using the knife without cutting your hand but, hey, you won't lose anything by chopping it up either!

References

  • At one point in the game, Miranda, the reporter says "Help me Ben, You're my only hope!" This is, of course, a reference to Star Wars.
  • The Cavefish's suits are of course based on the Tusken Raiders (or Sand People) that you see in A New Hope.
  • Emmett the trucker has an Imperial logo tattoo on his right arm.
  • Some of the Vultures are named Razor, Wendy, and Sid - all names of characters in Lucasarts' Maniac Mansion.
  • When you've stalled the blue car in the demolition derby, run over to the box seats. Max's head (from Sam & Max) should be one of the posters on the wall.
  • The sequence near the game's end (with Ben and Ripburger fighting in a plane that's teetering on the edge of a cliff) is a parody of a similar scene in the 60s heist movie The Italian Job.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack to the game is basically its own CD, available at many record stores around the country. A San Fransisco biker band called the Gone Jackals did most of the "biker" music for the game. Their CD Bone to Pick features almost every song from the game, along with many other songs. It became the best-selling item in the LUCAS mail order catalog.

Also included is a non-Gone Jackals song: Increased Chances.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • June 1996 (Issue #143) – Adventure Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #9 Most Memorable Game Hero (Ben Whatsisname)
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #5 Most Memorable Game Villain (Adrian Ripburger)
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #10 Most Rewarding Ending of All Time
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 12/1999 - #89 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking

Information also contributed by Apogee IV, Itay Shahar, James1, Macintrash, Maw, Mitch Kocen, n-n, Swordmaster, Tiago Jacques and Zovni

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Related Sites +

  • Full Throttle - FAQs & Guides
    A collection of walkthroughs and hints by members of GameFaqs.com
  • Hints for Full Throttle
    These hints give you just the nudges you need so you can solve this great game yourself.
  • ScummVM
    Get Full Throttle to run on modern systems by using ScummVM, a legal freeware program.
  • The Kickstand
    The largest Full Throttle site, with features like biker haiku, movie casting call, and a listing of in-jokes
  • The rise and fall of Full Throttle
    an interview with Bill Tiller about the game, as well as the canned sequel, on Adventure Classic Gaming (29th August 2008)

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 940
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Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by MAT.

Antstream added by lights out party. Macintosh added by Jason Savage.

Additional contributors: Trixter, Terok Nor, Mickey Gabel, Kasey Chang, Jeanne, Apogee IV, Sciere, jean-louis, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack, Zhuzha.

Game added February 29, 2000. Last modified January 23, 2024.