Full Throttle
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
Groups +
Screenshots
Promos
Credits (DOS version)
270 People (196 developers, 74 thanks) · View all
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[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Discussion
Subject | User | Date |
---|---|---|
Full Throttle/Dark Forces Demo CD-ROM | Edwin Drost (5624) | 2017-01-22 23:55:54 |
Patch? | RJ Pieper | 2008-10-23 05:52:31 |
dog in junkyard | s c | 2008-05-26 23:30:51 |
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
Related Sites +
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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. -
LucasFans
The unofficial LucasArts fansite. -
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 <moby developer="Bill Tiller">Bill Tiller</moby> about the game, as well as the canned sequel, on Adventure Classic Gaming (29th August 2008)
Identifiers +
- MobyGames ID: 940
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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, Swordmaster, Kasey Chang, Jeanne, Apogee IV, Sciere, jean-louis, Patrick Bregger, FatherJack, Zhuzha.
Game added February 29th, 2000. Last modified April 19th, 2023.