Full Throttle Remastered Review

Full Throttle, an old game back from 1995 which has been remastered. Playing as Ben Throttle, leader of a biker gang, you end up over your head in a story of Motorcycles, Mayhem and Murder. The game kicks off with Malcom Corley, an old man and the founder of Corley Motors -the last motorcycle manufacturer in the country. Corley is on his way to a shareholder meeting together with the vice president of Corley Motors, Adrian Ripburger (who is voiced by Mark Hamill himself). Malcom fears that Ripburger is planning to overthrow him, and take over the company. Ripburger has planned that a biker gang is going to escort them to the meeting, which of Malcom is suspicous. When he sees the gang, the Polerats, Malcom is quite impressed with them, and during a pitstop at a local bar, he chats up and befriends the leader of the gang, Ben. Ripburger offers for the gang to escort them to the meeting, in which Ben declines. He recieves a knockout punch from Ripburger’s goons in return.

When Ben awakens again he learns that Ripburger tricked the Polecats in to escorting Malcom anyways, and that an ambush are planned for them. Wanting to warn his gang, he realizes that they have tampered with his bike, and he crashes it. Miranda, a young photographer, saves Ben from the crash and takes him to her mechanic friend, Maureen, who treats him. Maureen has learned how to fix motorcycles from her father, and after we hunt down the lacking parts, she fixes our bike and adds a booster to it. This results in Ben being able to catch up with his gang, but he is too late. Malcom is murdered, and the Polerats recieves the blame for it. Miranda, the photographer, snaps a photo of the murder, but her camera is taken by one of the goons. At his dying breath, Malcom tells Ben that Ripburger is planning to take over Corley Motors, and are going to produce minivans instead of bikes.  We learn, that Maureen is Malcom’s illegitimate daughter, and he begs us to convince her to take over the company. One of the goons then tries to kill Maureen, but she manages to escape with the camera.

Ben is now on the run, with his entire gang in prison for murder. Miranda tells Ben about the film roll Maureen has, and he ends up convincing a truck driver to smuggle him in to an abandoned mink farm, past a police blockade, where Maureen has setup a hideout. Ben is then stranded here after Maureen steals his booster fuel and the truck driver steals his fuel line. When running off, the truck drivers truck is blown up by the Cavefish, a rival biker gang, which in turn destroys the bridge we need to cross. Eventually Ben finds a new fuel line, and with some advice from the former leader of his gang, Father Torque, Ben outwits Ripburger’s goons, and beats the rival biker gang in battle. For his trouble he gets new equipment for his bike – booster fuel, hover equipment and a ramp so he can jump over the bridge.

We find Maureen, and learn that she is a member of another rival biker gang called the Vultures. Maureen believes that it was Ben who killed her father, and upon having him executed Ben reveals what Malcom told him about her being his illegitimate daughter. This convinces her to get the film developed with the evidence of the murder, which shows it was Ripburger. They concoct a plan to expose Ripburger at the shareholders meeting, but they learn that it has been set on hold until Ripburger knows for sure that Maureen and Ben are dead. The Vultures then make a plan to fake their deaths, by entering them into the Demolition Derby under false names that Ripburger would see right through.

Ripburger then makes sure that Maureen and Ben’s cars are rigged up with explosives. Being one step ahead, Ben has a fireproof suit, and Maureen can eject from her car before the crash. It all works as planned, and in the process Ripburger’s goons die as well. The Vultures recieve the prize for winning – a special bike built by Malcom and Maureen which has the secret keycode to Malcom’s safe, where Ben finds his testament and will. At the shareholder meeting Ben barges in, and exposes Ripburger by showing them the photo Miranda took of the murderscene. He then plays Malcom’s will, which leaves the ownership of the company to Maureen.

Having being exposed, Ripburger escapes the scene in a truck. Ben and Maureen tails him, and begins to ram into him. The Vultures then appear, flying a cargo plane, which scoops up Ripburger’s truck together with Ben and Maureen. In a dramatic turn of event, the plane ends up hanging halfway out of a gorge, where Ripburger falls down and dies. The Vultures and Maureen escape the plane, which is about to come down crashing, and in the last second Ben is saved by jumping the falling plane with his bike. The rest of the Polerats are released from jail, and they all attends the funeral of Malcom where Father Torque delivers the eulogy. Maureen is now in charge of Corley Motors, and the game ends with Ben riding away into the sunset.

Full Throttle, in true LucasArt fashion, is through and  through a fun game filled with dark humor. Reading through the story of the game it might sound very serious, but that is far from the truth. The game is filled with funny moments, some of them qutie silly. It plays on a lot of motorcycle (and motorcycle gang) tropes, which delivers a very non-serious atmosphere to the game, even though murder is happening all around us. The story is good, and it is fun. What takes it down a bit for me is some of the gameplay, especially some of the driving stages had me rip out my hair in frustration. Besides that, the voice-over was great, so was the music. The upgraded graphics is also a delight, it looks quite good and charming, whilst still being reminiscent of the original. The game is rather short, even if you want to complete all the achievements. The puzzles are not that hard, and should not give cause to any trouble. All in all it’s a fun classic to boot up, especially if you have never played it.