Full Throttle Remastered

Turns out The Last Jedi won’t be Mark Hamill’s only big comeback this year.

1995 Biker Thriller – Full Throttle – is getting the Remastered treatment from Double Fine over twenty years after its original release and he plays sinister big bad, Adrian Ripburger.

It’s one of LEC’s most memorable adventures due to the way it’s acted and directed and is notable for being the first solo project from Tim Schafer.

The new lick of paint really benefits Full Throttle – arguably more than Day of the Tentacle. Ben is oozing with detail compared to the blocky DNA of old, as is the rest of the sub-cast, and the backdrops have never been so gritty and post-apocalyptic.

Most impressively, the game has full 4K support and is boosted by both Playstation 4 Pro and High-Resolution 3D on PC.

As with DOTT and both Monkey Island games before it, you can jump between the classic and remastered versions of the game with the tap of a button.

The transition is smooth and reliable throughout the game and it impacts both graphics and audio. On top of that, there’s an informative and intriguing director’s commentary that runs over the top, as well as loads of concept art from the original game.

Ben is part of a biker gang called The Polecats, and is voiced by the excellent – but now sadly deceased – Roy Conrad. Ben and his gang have a chance encounter with Malcolm Corley of Corley Motors when driving along the highway.

Ripberger has a plan to wow the Corley Motor shareholders by having a biker gang escort for the next meeting, but when Ben turns down the proposal, he sets off a sequence of events that will change the face of the motorcycle industry and his own gang.

One of the main complaints about Full Throttle is how fast you can breeze through the game. That’s still the case, and it’s not only one of the shortest LEC games, it’s also one of the easiest. But the narrative is so strong and the characters so enriching that you get swept up in the action and forget yourself.

It’s actually a surprisingly deep world with the different biker gangs and fleshed out backgrounds surrounding the characters.

The verb system has now been replaced and in its place something similar to the image wheel you saw in DOTT Remastered. You can look, taste, touch or kick by using an inflamed Polecat symbol on any interactive object.

Full Throttle plays better than ever, and the mixture of action and adventure is still masterfully woven together. The controls during the bike combat sequences – particularly – have had a necessary upgrade, and are a natural fit for a Playstation controller, making it feel more like a modern Road Rash. It still makes us yearn for that sequel we never had, though.

There are some audio issues, however, particularly during scene transition. The soundtrack tends to cut off abruptly, and the voice acting sometimes seems tinny compared to the beautifully remastered soundtrack and audio.

I also found some issues with the auto-cursor when switching between different points of interest. On certain scenes, it seemed to skip over some of them, forcing me to go back to the old-fashioned way of play and manually moving the cursor around the screen.

But all things considered, it’s been an absolute joy revisiting Full Throttle and I’m so excited that a new generation of gamers will get to experience it for the first time.

I only hope it warrants enough success for us to finally see Full Throttle 2 Payback, or even that Hell on Wheels action-thriller that was canned for consoles. Not only does this reimagining of a classic hold up extremely well twenty years later, playing Full Throttle Remastered has reaffirmed that Ben and the Polecats need one last ride.

Pros
+ Fantastic narrative direction and acting
+ Beautifully recreated visuals and audio
+ Remastering allows for more effective control

Cons
– Some abrupt audio cut-off
– Maneuverability not seamless throughout