REVIEW: Full Throttle

October 10, 2006

Time for an old school review! I played Full Throttle a long time ago, but never beat it. To be honest, I never got past the first area before I got side tracked. So I thought rather than letting it sit there, I was gonna load it up and play it. I am glad I played through it again. Not only is it a great game, but it let me re-live what the days of when LucasArts made some truly ass kicking games (rather than the mostly Star Wars bullshit they bring out year after year.) I guess the only really bad thing I have to say about the game is how damn short the game is. It was over before I even knew it.

Lets start off with the graphics. Like most of LucasArt's games back in the day, Full Throttle uses the SCUMM engine. So if you have played a game like Monkey Island, you should already know what to expect. This is not a bad thing by any means. To be honest, I really wish LucasArts would continue to use it. It just gives it that hand crafted look that you miss so much in many of the games you see today. There is nothing like it, and I just wish there was even more of it... oh well.

Next, sound. Great job all around. The voice acting is fantastic with and makes it even more enjoyable to play through. There are some noticeable people you may of heard of that do alot of the games voice work. Mark Hamill being one of them. Roy Conrad (RIP) who does the voice for Ben has to be my favorite though. That bassy, gravelly sounding voice is just perfect. Even though this game has a serious side to it, the voice acting just gives the humorous parts that extra punch. Its kind of hard to explain... you really just need to play it. Great music too!

And for the last part in this short review is the gameplay. Again, if you have played any type of LucasArts game before, you really know how to play already, only this is a little different. Rather than having that bar where you could choose certain options like "Pick up" or "Talk to" etc. In Full Throttle, you use a "verb coin" system (Curse of Monkey Island uses a system like this if you are looking for an example) You would hover over a certain item, and hold down the left mouse button, and a "coin" will pop up where you can choose what you want to do. Really easy to use.

Also just like SCUMM engine games, this is pretty much a puzzle game. If you aren't good at all with puzzles, you may have a really hard time trying to get through Full Throttle. That being said though, I found the puzzles in Full Throttle to be very easy. Maybe I am just used to the type of puzzles in a game like Monkey Island where you need to think outside the box a little bit, but the puzzles in Full Throttle were pretty much common sense when you where thinking about it. Not a bad thing by any means, but maybe thats why I was able to beat the game so fast. I guess if I could get through them, you can too! :)

If some how by reading this review you felt you needed to go out and just play this game, there are a few things to remember. One, your best bet is to look for it on eBay. You won't find it in stores anymore, and its getting harder and harder to find it on eBay. And two, it won't run on XP. No need to worry though. There is a great little program called ScummVM that will run the game just fine. You just NEED to have a copy of the game. :) So what are you waiting for? Play it already!