My impressions - Full Throttle Remastered
Turns out I really goddamned hate Full Throttle. Wow. Standards change as time goes by. I still love the opening, I still love Maureen, the ending still rocks, but everything in-between...
Actual impressions:
Full Throttle still has the best adventure game opening. (Only slightly messed up by the Remastered changes really ruining the illusion of speeding along the highway)
Wow, I'm amazingly unoriginal. Not a single screenshot I took was at a moment a dozen other players didn't upload on steam.
You know what? I think that having everyone's eyes be black slits except during certain closeups is a shit style. It looks bad.
Correction - best adventure game opening up to, but excluding, the slap fight. Nothing was done to fix the game's "somewhat lacking" combat system.
"So this is an illegitimate Corley operation.
I prefer to think of it as a RENEGADE Corley operation."
:)
I appreciate the fact that you can move to a new location without walking all the way to the exit/entrance (new feature?) but hate the fact that Ben's walking speed is unchangeable. So many screens where he parks his bike and any misclick will send him slowly ambling across the screen.
Two unskippable intro screens when you start the game (only seconds each, but still) and a new main screen, complete with bad art and that shitty country song someone was really in love with.
There's a "skip dialog" button. For some stupid reason, it's not bound to a mouse button, but to "." Can't be changed, either.
Even with the new "highlight interactable objects" button, some things are hard as fuck to spot. I had to resort to a walkthrough for a game I've beaten 2-3 times. Never mind the fact that for "this big machine is interactable, but doesn't do shit, except for this tiny part" it's just misleading. No idea if that's the original artstyle or the remaster.
Good thing I do remember the hose puzzle from previous playthroughs. This must have been a nightmare for the intended audience in the pre-walkthrough era. Who the hell would think that licking the hose is a good idea on their own?
An incredibly frustrating time trying to get the bike booster. Shitty walkthrough told me that the chainsaw would work, and combined with Father Torque's even shittier "it's all about the timing" hint, I was sure the problem was with my lack of skill.
But really - the entire bike combat minigame is just a series of puzzles. Use the fertilizer on the chainsaw girl, the chainsaw on the 2x4 guy, the 2x4 on the cavefish, and the chain on the booster Vulture. The minigame doesn't add to anything, and just confuses people (like the walkthrough person) by making them think skill or timing have anything to do with success.
For some goddamned reason, half the time, the game reacts to "look" and "interact" the same way. Really, the game just as well might have a context sensitive single interact button.
Fuckdamit. EVERYTHING I look at gets the very relevant and clarifying reaction "Hmm". JUST TELL ME WHAT I'M LOOKING AT AND WHAT IT DOES, PLEASE.
None of the puzzles are really good or interesting or memorable.
The ending is still good though.
6 hours total (probably 4 and some idling), and at least the Remaster didn't add amazingly shitty new elements (unlike, say, Gabriel Knight)
Ok, memorable puzzles from Full Throttle: Kicking the bar door in and "the Bar" (still a part of the opening, which I concede is awesome). Kicking the door in Tod's face. The gorge jump itself is memorable, but everything leading up to it - not so much.
Shit puzzles: Locking the junkyard chain, because the lock is on a screen you're "done" with (entering from the map screen takes you right past the part with the lock), and is colored to blend with the floor.
Trapping the dog, because there's a misleading mechanic for dropping cars on top of cars, and it's easy to assume that the more difficult and complex solution is the correct one.
Combat section, as noted extensively above. The fact that the biker spawns are random, and you don't get to retry a puzzle you messed up is the cherry on top of a shit sundae.
The bunnies section as well - yeah, the actual Wagner bit is neat, but the fact that you have to release the bunnies from the box, then pick them back up for the box to be restocked at another location is the epitome of "bumble around until you set up a totally unrelated progression flag".
Ruining Ripburger's speech: there's nothing to tell you which combination of levers actually messes up the machine (no indication that a specific combination of levers will mess up the machine on a permanent basis). You have to trial and error your way through, with a cutscene interrupting you and forcing you to go back and forth every time you get it wrong. And the right combination doesn't even trigger things right away, which means that you can stumble into it and just click on past.
Actual impressions:
Full Throttle still has the best adventure game opening. (Only slightly messed up by the Remastered changes really ruining the illusion of speeding along the highway)
Wow, I'm amazingly unoriginal. Not a single screenshot I took was at a moment a dozen other players didn't upload on steam.
You know what? I think that having everyone's eyes be black slits except during certain closeups is a shit style. It looks bad.
Correction - best adventure game opening up to, but excluding, the slap fight. Nothing was done to fix the game's "somewhat lacking" combat system.
"So this is an illegitimate Corley operation.
I prefer to think of it as a RENEGADE Corley operation."
:)
I appreciate the fact that you can move to a new location without walking all the way to the exit/entrance (new feature?) but hate the fact that Ben's walking speed is unchangeable. So many screens where he parks his bike and any misclick will send him slowly ambling across the screen.
Two unskippable intro screens when you start the game (only seconds each, but still) and a new main screen, complete with bad art and that shitty country song someone was really in love with.
There's a "skip dialog" button. For some stupid reason, it's not bound to a mouse button, but to "." Can't be changed, either.
Even with the new "highlight interactable objects" button, some things are hard as fuck to spot. I had to resort to a walkthrough for a game I've beaten 2-3 times. Never mind the fact that for "this big machine is interactable, but doesn't do shit, except for this tiny part" it's just misleading. No idea if that's the original artstyle or the remaster.
Good thing I do remember the hose puzzle from previous playthroughs. This must have been a nightmare for the intended audience in the pre-walkthrough era. Who the hell would think that licking the hose is a good idea on their own?
An incredibly frustrating time trying to get the bike booster. Shitty walkthrough told me that the chainsaw would work, and combined with Father Torque's even shittier "it's all about the timing" hint, I was sure the problem was with my lack of skill.
But really - the entire bike combat minigame is just a series of puzzles. Use the fertilizer on the chainsaw girl, the chainsaw on the 2x4 guy, the 2x4 on the cavefish, and the chain on the booster Vulture. The minigame doesn't add to anything, and just confuses people (like the walkthrough person) by making them think skill or timing have anything to do with success.
For some goddamned reason, half the time, the game reacts to "look" and "interact" the same way. Really, the game just as well might have a context sensitive single interact button.
Fuckdamit. EVERYTHING I look at gets the very relevant and clarifying reaction "Hmm". JUST TELL ME WHAT I'M LOOKING AT AND WHAT IT DOES, PLEASE.
None of the puzzles are really good or interesting or memorable.
The ending is still good though.
6 hours total (probably 4 and some idling), and at least the Remaster didn't add amazingly shitty new elements (unlike, say, Gabriel Knight)
Ok, memorable puzzles from Full Throttle: Kicking the bar door in and "the Bar" (still a part of the opening, which I concede is awesome). Kicking the door in Tod's face. The gorge jump itself is memorable, but everything leading up to it - not so much.
Shit puzzles: Locking the junkyard chain, because the lock is on a screen you're "done" with (entering from the map screen takes you right past the part with the lock), and is colored to blend with the floor.
Trapping the dog, because there's a misleading mechanic for dropping cars on top of cars, and it's easy to assume that the more difficult and complex solution is the correct one.
Combat section, as noted extensively above. The fact that the biker spawns are random, and you don't get to retry a puzzle you messed up is the cherry on top of a shit sundae.
The bunnies section as well - yeah, the actual Wagner bit is neat, but the fact that you have to release the bunnies from the box, then pick them back up for the box to be restocked at another location is the epitome of "bumble around until you set up a totally unrelated progression flag".
Ruining Ripburger's speech: there's nothing to tell you which combination of levers actually messes up the machine (no indication that a specific combination of levers will mess up the machine on a permanent basis). You have to trial and error your way through, with a cutscene interrupting you and forcing you to go back and forth every time you get it wrong. And the right combination doesn't even trigger things right away, which means that you can stumble into it and just click on past.