Full Throttle Remastered Review

General game information

 

Game name: Full Throttle Remastered

Release date: April 18, 2017

Price: US$ 14.99

Available on: Steam

Genre: Point and click adventure

Developer: Double Fine Productions

Publisher: Double Fine Productions

Launch trailer






 

Full Throttle Remastered is, as its name indicates, an enhanced re-release of the classic 1995 Lucas Arts point and click adventure Full Throttle. Gamers control Ben Throttle, a likeable tough guy who happens to be the leader of a motorcycle gang in a futuristic world that considers motorbikes as a thing of the past. A meeting with the second in command of the last motorcycle manufacturer in the country goes south, and our hero gets knocked out and awakens in a dumpster, beginning a relatively short adventure full of puzzles, quirky characters and excitement.

The story is surprisingly grounded for a graphic adventure released in the nineties, and the quality of the voice cast helps to bring it to life in a way that competing titles could only dream of back in the day. As expected from a Lucas Arts point and click adventure, the game never shies away from the opportunity to crack a joke, but it also carefully avoids being tasteless when it comes to dealing with serious themes. I particularly enjoyed the way Full Throttle introduces Ben’s character, as the writers expertly reveal facets of his personality through his actions and words, rather than just dumping a load of information on the player and moving on. Certain aspects of the story ensure that the pace of the adventure never lets up, with players racing against time to prevent bad things from happening while an excellent soundtrack punctuates every moment with fitting rock tunes.

Of all the Lucas Arts classics, this is probably the one that feels the most modern, thanks to its relatively short length and grounded setting. Since Full Throttle Remastered is still a mid-nineties adventure game, we’ll encounter some exponents of the dreaded “adventure game logic” where the developers intend for the player to solve puzzles in esoteric ways, but most of the time we will actually be able to guess what we should be doing thanks to visual clues present in the scenery and common sense.

Ben Throttle’s repertoire of actions incluides picking up objects, interacting with certains parts of the environment, punching, kicking… and licking things, with the latter action creating funny situations most of the time. The punch/kick command serves as a keen reminder that we are playing as a member of a biker gang, so in some scenes brute force is the only course of action that Ben can take (or that his natural pride would let him take). Gamers who have just started playing point and click adventures will probably be happy to learn that the amount of objects that we’ll have to pick up and combine in order to solve puzzles is rather small, and in most cases they can be found in the same screen that we’ll have to use them, a welcome change from earlier Lucas Arts titles that forced players to pixel hunt for dozens of items that would only become useful many screens after they were picked up. The remastered visuals also do a great job separating interactive objects from the background.

Aside from the classic point and click gameplay, we’ll also have to engage in combat sequences at some points of the story, and even though the Double Fine team did a great job revamping the controls for these action packed scenes, I sometimes wished that they’d removed them altogether, since they have aged badly, and only serve as an indication of the game’s age. There is a welcome element of strategy and puzzle solving in the biker fight sections, but most players will probably loathe them after a few encounters. The 3D graphics used for these scenes also feel out of place in this remaster, and at some points they make the action seem choppy, as if the game’s framerate was tanking, even though that’s not the case.

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Speaking about graphics, Full Throttle Remastered lets players enjoy the adventure in a high resolution mode which replaces all of the game’s textures with far more detailed counterparts, lending new life to both characters and environment, and adding small touches like the text in Ben’s jacket, which was previously only available in the cutscene version of the model and not during gameplay. Purists and gamers who prefer the pixel art style of the original release can switch back at any time with a single button press, and there’s even an option to mix remastered visuals with untouched sounds and music or vice-versa, as the audio part of the game has been significantly upgraded as well.

To sum up, Full Throttle Remastered is an excellent adventure game lovingly remade for the current generation. There are some bumps along the road, as the bike combat sequences still feel out of place and some puzzles suffer from “adventure game logic” syndrome, but overall, Double Fine Productions has done an amazing job with this remaster.

8.5/10 – Great.

 

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