Full Throttle

From LucasArts

Brief Description

Some time, in the not too distant future, there is but one company that still produces motorcycles. As the story opens, Ben (you) meets old man Corley of Corley motors. He makes you an offer that you refuse, and you soon find yourself a victim of a plot that involves you and your gang. None of you are to survive.

Game play

The interface is pretty neat. As you move the cursor around, just crosshairs means Ben can do nothing with this object. If a red square outline appears around the crosshairs, you can do something with the object. Hold the left button down to be able to grab, kick, talk to (or lick) or look at an object. The right mouse button brings up the inventory, if Ben has anything.

You must duel other cyclists on the road. This is actually not very difficult as you learn which opponents need which weapons used on them. Also the basic strategy of the duel is to push your cycle as far to the right of the screen as you can as you hit the opponent with the selected weapon. (Hint, you should have 4 choices of weapons for your opponents. If you have three, leave the Mine Road and start exploring the highway.) If you try a couple of times, and you still can't defeat one opponent, you'll need a better weapon.

There is a trick to winning the demolition derby. It involves the ramps.

Gripes about the game

The first gripe is that the game is really very short. I finished it over one weekend, and I wasn't really trying that hard on the game.

The second and very major gripe is that there are two sets of 'action' sequences in the game. The duelling cyclists wasn't too bad, but the demolition derby had me screaming "It's not fair!" Even when I knew the trick, it still wasn't easy or fair. I don't play adventure games to develop my sense of timing. I loathe that scene with all my heart.

Conclusion

I really quite liked the style of this game. The storyline was great, the interface was interesting, and I found it entertaining. However, it won't take long to finish the game.

The game is probably best suited to people who enjoy action games mainly, but would like to try an adventure game. The puzzles in the game are pretty simple. Probably the action sequences are too, if that's what you normally play.

Some final thoughts on the game.

As one part of the LucasArts Archive 3, this was a nice idea. But I wouldn't recommend anyone spend serious money on this game. It just isn't worth that.

If you can sit through the entire credit list, things get pretty silly towards the end. Things like "Thanking the following cats" and "Tim would not like to thank any cats". Warning, the credits may take you longer than playing the game!