Full Throttle Remastered (PC) Review

First things first. Full Throttle Remastered's upgrading is exactly like the one offered in Day of the Tentacle Remastered, and that's a good thing. It's possible to mix and match older voice-overs and tunes, listen to commentary from the creators, and, most importantly, go from the pixely, vanilla visuals to the new, clean and crispy ones with the single push of a button, and with the transition being almost as fast as the high-tech bike of the protagonist. Great stuff? Yup… However, the modern facelift has ruined part of the original's charm.

Unlike in Day of the Tentacle, which was nothing more than a Looney Tunes cartoon, the new design isn't so successful here, as Full Throttle opted for a more realistic look, despite it still being… well, a cartoon. This basically means that the "dirtier," 1995 pixel art can actually look more detailed at times, while the new vector-like visuals end up feeling bland - although, to be honest, this is just a nit-pick, as some scenes look mighty fine.

Of course… remaster, seshmaster. Who cares, right? What really matters is that younger gamers can finally play this old-school cult classic in the comfort of their widescreen monitors, and without having to meddle with emulators and such - and indeed, this definitely is a classic, albeit somewhat different than the rest of its ilk. Most notably, the storyline is fairly simplistic: just a road movie-like adventure of crime and revenge.

It's about biker gangs in a Mad Max setting, it's about BIG EVIL CORPORATIONS, and it's about hard rock and Route 66-like vistas. In conclusion, don't expect to save the world or anything, without that meaning that the ride isn't any entertaining. As expected of any Tim Schafer creation, though, it's not the scope that matters, but the delivery, and this retains Schafer's great sense of humour, which makes up for the lack of originality, as well as the less epic feel of it all. The problem? It won't last for long…

As a game, it doesn't reinvent the wheel, as it is the typical point-and-click adventure fare - talk around, collect items, use them in all sorts of ways to solve problems. Some new ideas have been thrown in, like a couple of real-time action bits, but these are definitely the worst parts available, and, thankfully, are not that abundant. The real problem, though, is that Full Throttle has always been a tale a few hours too short, not to mention a tad easy for the genre it belongs to. Does this ruin the fun? Not so much, but just don't go in expecting The Longest Journey or something.