Stylistically the artwork tends toward the cartoonish and iconic, but feels no less “real” for that: Ben is an amalgamation of all those tough-but-good, giant and anvil-jawed, gravelly-voiced bikers that you’ve always known are out there, who fights the fight that’s been placed in his lap: not a hero, but he’ll be one if you need one, then ride off into the horizon without the girl when all is said and done. Canyons and desert lie imprisoned to black asphalt, junk yards, and odd bits of machinery in a world ruled by biker gangs. The world of FTis typically dark and overcast, like Akira’s, but has an Old West-or current West-feel (more like Mad Max): the landscapes are more rural than metropolitan, and saloons, mink farms, and old mine roads are among the locations you’ll visit. Mad Max and Akira seem like especially good points of contrast, given their fascination with the automotive, and in the case of Akira, animation. The game is set in a post apocalyptic future, so comparisons, deservedly or not, will naturally be made to movies like Akira, 12 Monkeys, and the Mad Max films. Art director Collette Michaud, who also worked on such titles as The Dig, Day of the Tentacle, and Sam and Max Hit the Road, really outdid herself on this one. Yet Full Throttle’s world is one of the most beautiful and well-realized that I have seen in any game, let alone an old-school point-and-click. Indeed, Ridley Scott has been hailed as a great filmmaker in large part because of his ability as a “world maker,” a demiurge, a “maker of the universe.” And for good reason: worlds like those of Alien, or Legend, even Blade Runner or Black Hawk Down may stay with a viewer long after most plot points and characters have faded from memory.įull Throttle’s status as a “classic adventure game” works against our appreciation of it, because the world is conveyed in a rather conventional, cluttered way: it’s just the backdrop for pointing and clicking, and a mess of inventory, after all. First person games like Myst tend to hit the player immediately with their in-your-face beauty, and lack of distracting interface, and many indie games these days get looks for their creativity and originality-the old clickers, by contrast, are appreciated mainly by old clickers at websites that highlight those games in particular. There are numerous films that have become canon textbook fodder based almost entirely on their ability to build up an impressively realized world, apart from particularly grand achievements in storytelling or characterization. Or is it? What happens if we forget all that? If we come at a game like Full Throttle with new eyes, intent to take away everything that the game has to offer? Let’s approach this thing from the bottom up.įirst of all, we can’t overlook Full Throttle’s aesthetic achievements, however much we might want to dig into gameplay. We’ve played adventure games, and that mode can only be so successful at conveying story, at expressing mood or emotion, at highlighting the unique brilliance of the interactive medium. The question, though, is how to approach a game like Full Throttle: a game so grounded in an established genre that it makes little, if any, attempt to explore new gameplay ideas? What to do with a game that relies on established mechanics so completely that it seems to seek to legitimize itself entirely through aesthetic, character development, and plot? Some might dismiss such a game out of hand as irrelevant: games haven’t done a whole lot for us in the past twenty years, right? So anything good must come from innovation, pushing the boundaries, doing something different, and new. Full Throttle beckons me because it’s different from the stuff I’ve been reviewing of late, because it’s not a game that typically receives critical attention, and because it’s full of memorable characters and settings, which continue to meander through my mind. I like variety, and it’s my goal with this site to review all manner of games, commercial and independent, old and new. I considered reviewing the more predictable Blueberry Garden (winner of this year’s Seumas McNally at the Independent Games Festival), but with Beaconand Seiklusstill so fresh on the front page, I felt like going in a different direction. Looking over the games I’ve played and completed in the last few weeks, the one that won’t leave me alone is, perhaps surprisingly, Full Throttle, which I recently played through with my wife. I only review games that I have either just played, or replayed, as I want to make sure that they’re fresh in my head.
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