DAY 17 / GAME 17 Full Throttle

DAY 17 / GAME 17

Full Throttle



                Full Throttle was another one of those games that was genuinely picked from the mind of Tim Schafer.  An adventure title from LucasArts that featured comic humor yet oozed heavy metal style.  

I'm using this picture again.  On the right is my copy of the Adventurer signed by Tim Schafer!

             I'm actually playing through this again right now.  And for anyone who wants to play old SCUMM games you can get for free the SCUMMVM (virtual machine) for play on pc or mac.  (Even if the original copy is PC).  Low resolution or not, games like this age so well.  Point-and-click isn't very clunky, and some of these newer titles had really refined the whole inventory and verb interface.  Part of Full Throttle's charm was the sweet tattoo verb/inventory widget.  You click the eyes of the skull for the 'look' verb, the gloved hand for the 'grab/touch' verb, the foot for 'kick' and the mouth/tongue for the 'talk' verb.  The talk verb which responded with 'I'm not putting my lips on that' if you decided to 'talk' to an inanimate object.  

             The whole Ben character was a great departure from the usual silly heros of LucasArts; Guybrush, Hoagie, Lavern, Bernard and more of a step toward the humorous but strong protagonist we see a lot of now.  Characters like Eddie Riggs from Brutal Legend and Manny Calavera from Grim Fandango.  But in the end he still embodies a proper solid protagonist that holds a solid story together.  The story of saving the Polecats (your biker gang) and stopping an evil man from turning Corley Motors (Read: Harley Davidson) into a minivan producing boredom factory.

              Apparently there was a sequel and an animated series planned to accompany this game; neither of which got made, sadly.  I'd really love to see what they could do with Ben and his story today, especially after seeing how honest Broken Age handles a classic gaming style with modern technology.  But I'm happy in the end knowing that this game may have really been more of a stepping stone for Tim and others to bring us some of the best games we have today.

"Some joker took my keys.  I don't like that."  - Ben