Full Throttle – Full Throttle – Multiplayer.it

What happened … is a directory on a regular basis trying to bring to light those franchises that for one reason or another have fallen a bit ‘on the back burner, telling the story, with the hope to see them again sooner or later on our screens.
 

Tim Schafer have praised again and again on these pages, defining it as a genius of the games industry. Besides, glancing to his resume, which boasts among other things work on some of the best point and click adventures of the story, from The Secret of Monkey Island, of which our wrote most of the texts with Dave Grossman , the beautiful Grim Fandango to Full Throttle, one can not but recognize the talent. Just Full Throttle was probably the adventure a bit ‘less successful Schafer, yet one that more than any other has marked a turning point in his own way in the production of LucasArts. Compared to the classic works of the company founded by George Lucas, in fact, the title had more serious tone, and was impregnated by an unusual amount of violence and cynicism. This is despite the team to Schafer had been some taxes limitations by LucasArts, which led for example to discard from play a sequence in which the protagonist, after ingesting a peyote, lived a real psychedelic experience (the idea is then reused by the game designer in his next Psychonauts).
 

Curiosities

Ben is the protagonist of the adventure, but in the game it is not ever mentioned the surname, however mentioned in the manual as Whatsisname, probably invented after the completion of the game. Tim Schafer stated there that the character should have been called Ben Throttle, but was forced to delete this surname in development for fear of legal action by producers of Biker Mice from Mars, which had cast a character called Throttle .

Born to be wild

But it was not just the issues or certain situations “adult” to differentiate the product from titles such as The Secret of Monkey Island. Just Ben, the protagonist of which you can read some more details in the box on the side, had nothing to do with people like the shy and bumbling Guybrush. Indeed, to be honest it was pretty much the opposite: tough, confident, did not disdain to use strong-arm tactics to get on top of certain situations, and even to kill some bad. Besides the story lauded in its own way the atmosphere “on the road” of films such as Easy Rider, but also those of films set in a dystopian future Mad Max and the lifestyle of the unconventional American motorcycle gang members. In detail, the story told by Ben and his gang of bikers called Polecats, that following a series of events were falsely accused of the brutal murder of the President of Corley Motors, the largest local company that produces motion, that Malcolm Corley. In fact to make the murder had been the vice president of the company, Adrian Ripburger, eager to take over the reins to start the production of other types of cars. The members of the Polecats were then trapped and arrested, while Ben, who had been knocked out by thugs Ripburger and abandoned in a dumpster before the criminal act, was given to a fugitive. For the man began, a long flight across the desert to escape the police and rival gangs, but also a desperate struggle to try to rehabilitate his name, save his gang and prevent plans Ripburger might go to completion. Full Throttle was a bit ‘different from other point and click adventure games from LucasArts for some mechanical. For example, boasted of arcade stages characterized by fighting with other bikers along the roads on the motor, using the mouse for commands. Also new was then formed by the introduction of a new type of interface (hereinafter also used in The Curse of Monkey Island) which effectively “eliminated” from the screen the permanent presence of the list of actions that the protagonist could accomplish and l ‘inventory. Both could then call by holding down the left mouse button near or over an object with which it can interact. At that point in the video appeared to open a menu overlay depicting a tattoo, through which it was possible to select the actions to be performed to Ben. Similarly, to view inventory was sufficient to press the right button. Regarding the technological part, Full Throttle was using the graphics engine owner INSANE and version 7 of the famous scripting language called SCUMM, created by LucasArts when it was still called Lucasfilm Games (from 1982 until the early 90s). The result was a product visually edited for the time, especially at the level of cutscene, present in large numbers, with a good aesthetic characterization of the characters and an adequate number of animations to make it more natural movements. Although to stand out most was probably the sound: that effect Full Throttle, distributed on CD-ROM, had a pretty rocking soundtrack and dubbing of excellent workmanship, which boasted in the original voices of professionals of the caliber of the late Roy Conrad (Ben), Kath Soucie (Maureen), the Cooke of Lost Odyssey, and those of Maurice LaMarche (Nestor), the future voice of Kif Kroker in Futurama, and Mark Hamill (Ripburger), the actor who played Luke Skywalker in Star Wars saga. In Italy Full Throttle was imported from C.T.O. and was out first in a preliminary version in English, and later in an edition dubbed and subtitled in Italian.
        

The sequels never completed

For these reasons, although he had been “accused” of being a bit ‘too linear, short and limited in some aspects, such as not allowed users to combine inventory items from each other, the game received generally positive reviews from critics and the public, that over time the then elected as one of the cult titles between LucasArts adventures. The latter was determined by the way in developing a sequel to the game on PC and PlayStation 2 seems, and twice tried to finance a project. The first, called Full Throttle II: Payback, had been entrusted to Larry Ahern as project lead, and William Tiller as artistic director, after Schafer had left the company.
 The story would be shared by Ben and his gang, this time facing a hostile governor, trying to defend Father Torque death threats, and new rival gangs. But as development proceeded shipped collecting among other positive feedback among the other employees of LucasArts, the game was inexplicably deleted from the top of the company in November 2000. According to Tiller, who together with Ahern left the company after this incident, the cause of the stop would be attributed to a series of internal disagreement on the development of his team and a character “influential” within the management. A second attempt was then made in 2002, when it was announced Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels, project entrusted this time to veteran Sean Clark, designer of games such as Sam & amp; Max Hit the Road and Escape from Monkey Island, and a new group of developers. The product was in the works for PC, PlayStation 2 and Xbox, would have to present a new 3D graphics, a different story than Payback, and a radical change in the gameplay, more focused on action and on melee combat with lots of combos and weapons (it had been planned even forty). Even this production proceeded fairly shipped, and even at E3 2003 was also shown a playable demo.
 But a few weeks after the event in Los Angeles also this sequel was canceled by LucasArts, officially because the company was not satisfied with the overall quality of the work, especially from the aesthetic point of view, and not therefore considered worthy of publication. In fact with this move LucasArts wrote probably the last word on the franchise: to abort two projects on a number within a few years of each other, and after having spent time and money, probably leaves little hope to the possibility that one day to some of the executives may wanna groped the operation for a third time. But as we remain incurable dreamers, always crossed his fingers and we sit waiting, hoping that one day, in the distance, fans of Ben and Polecats may suffer the roar of an engine, and check to see the silhouette of the horizon a large two-wheeled vehicle by a Coguidato Mascelloni with leather jacket.