Please login to submit a screenshot

Quite possibly the most frustrating game I've ever played on the Spectrum. Nonetheless, this motorcycle racer was the best thing on two wheels to appear for years. Like Micromega's earlier title Deathchase, the author was once again Mervyn Escourt. You'd be forgiven for thinking that he was a bike nut, but apparently he had not even ridden one before he worked on this game. In Full Throttle you get to race on ten of the world's top circuits on your 500cc motorcycle, competing against 39 other riders. Should you bash into another bike, rather than both of you tumbling into the grass verge, you merely slow down, while the other guy races into the distance. This can make you blue with the sheer injustice of it! It's still a compelling racing game though, and certainly the best of its time.

TT trail blazer

GRAND PRIX motorcycling has increased in popularity tremendously over the past few years, so it was probably inevitable that someone would attempt to simulate the sport on a computer. Following the path blazed by Psion with the Formula One simulation, Chequered Flag, Micromega have produced Full Throttle, a hair-raising version of the Grand Prix 500cc TT races.

The game involves a race against forty bikers around any one of ten carefully simulated tracks. The controls are simple - accelerate, decelerate, left and right. There is also a practice mode to give you a chance to familiarise yourself with the track.

The simulation is not as accurate as Chequered Flag, with 0-175mph in under three seconds, but the controls are extremely sensitive, and the bobbing and weaving of the riders lends considerable atmosphere. You should aim to take the left-handers fast and the right-handers slow - if you hit the edge of the track you lose speed, and if you collide with another rider your speed drops to zero.

Graphics are not of the best quality, but on the whole match Chequered Flag, with a similar mountainous horizon and smoothly shifting track. The bikes themselves flicker, but with at least three or four in view at a time that is not surprising.

Beware; Full Throttle is maddeningly difficult. It took us many hours to achieve 39th out of 40 on the easiest circuit; the best attempt was 25th in Yugoslavia. Despite that the game is as addictive as any race game on the market.



Chris Bourne


FULL THROTTLE Memory: 48K Price: £6.95 Joystick: Kempston, Protek, Interface 2 Gilbert Factor: 8

FULL THROTTLE
Micromega / £6.95

Roger: As a long-standing motorcycle fetishist, Full Throttle's simulator promises were fatally attractive to me and it absorbed far more of my time than I originally planned - however, I couldn't help having one or two misgivings.
Program content initially exudes Grand Prix bike racing authenticity; the player is offered a menu of 10 of the greatest Grand Prix circuits in Europe. Throttle, brakes and steering all function in an apparently realistic way - the 'racing line' you take through the corners is critical to speed - but complete control is difficult on the keyboard. The 3D graphics are fairly good but, compromised by a lumpy horizon, each track has a habit of looking the same. Worse still, an absence of visual reference make 'learning' each circuit almost impossible, so anticipation is seriously limited; just naming the corners of each circuit would have helped.
Unfortunately, the whole thing crumbles into arcadia when the player gets fast enough in the saddle to ride with the pack. The other 40 riders hop about like a bunch of idiots ... and bang goes the realism. Aspirant Barry Sheenes will bite Sinclair's finest with abject frustration as the opposition crank through the turns without ever crashing. 4/5

Ron: I found this game quite impossible to play - the only way I got to race with the rest of the pack was to let them lap me. 2/5

David: It's not the most colourful game I've seen, but it's certainly the best bike-racing game by far. Impressive 3D bikes and a selection of race tracks made this a winner. 4/5

Roger 4/5
Ron 2/5
David 4/5

Roger Willis, Ron Smith, David Lester

Full Throttle
Producer: Micromega
Memory required: 48K
Retail price: £6.95
Language: machine code
Author: Mervyn Estcourt



A new game from Micromega has become something to look forward to since Deathchase and Code Name Mat. Each one seems to be carefully crafted for a specific purpose from this software house that releases relatively few games. Full Throttle is the latest program from Mervyn Estcourt (Luna Crabs, Deathchase) and continues his theme of bikes, this time on the race track. Interestingly enough, Mervyn had never ridden a bike before work on this game. Towards the end, he felt he ought to get some experience, borrowed a friend’s and rode off into the sunset, or something, leaving Micromega worried for his safety. As you can now see, he was okay!

Full Throttle is to bikes what Psion’s Chequered Flag was to racing cars BUT with the addition of competition in the form of 39 other riders on the track. Unlike Deathchase where you only saw the handlebars of your machine, in Full Throttle your biker and machine are in full view ahead of you on the track. Maximum speed is 175mph and you can race on any of ten of the world’s top circuits with your 500cc motorcycle. The circuits provided are Donnington (UK), Mugello (San Marino), Jarama (Spain), Paul Ricard (France), Nurburgring (W. Germany), Misano (Italy), Silverstone (UK), Spa-Francochamps (Belgium), Rijeka (Yugoslavia) and Anderstorp (Sweden). Information is provided on recent circuit records, average speeds and the winning riders name.


The display screen is elegantly simply in layout with circuit name, speed, position and lap number superimposed over the landscape. This consists of the grass, moving background and the track itself, black with white centre lines and cross-hatched shaded edges. Circuits are selected via a full display map of eacti using SPACE to select and ENTER to return to the main menu. The number of laps to be raced may be selected between one and five. It is possible to practice without other riders on any circuit.

Full Throttle is also unique in that it is a serious racing game because there are no spectacular explosions should you crash. Leaving the track results in your slowing down — running into other riders will result in almost total loss of speed as a penalty.

CRITICISM
‘Have you ever seen Atari’s Pole Position racing car game — yes? Well here is Full Throttle and it’s a very similar form of game but on bikes. What’s more — it’s superb! The 3D is some of the best (if not the very best) I have seen. The game itself is fun to play and is exhilarating (I bet you can remember swaying on your seats playing Deathchase! This one will prove just as exciting). I found it extremely addictive partly due to the fact that the other riders are obviously of world class standard, and it will certainly be a while before I can pop any champagne corks! But I bet Micromega will be! With ten circuits to choose from, if (and when) you become champ at one, the rest will still prove very hard to conquer due to the fact that they each have their own characteristics, fast, lots of bends, even hairpins. Gotta be a Crash Smash!’

‘Atari will have to pull up their socks if they want to out throttle Full Throttle! Perhaps Pole Position will have more colour though. The 3D graphics in Full Throttle are marvellous, the most realistic looking yet. The effect of the road going into the distance works brilliantly — you can see double bends before it vanishes. The other riders are all green, same colour as the grass, and a first slight disappointment turns to admiration as you realise why this simplicity — it adds to the realism. Also it avoids those ugly Spectrum colour attribute problems that tend to so bedevil 3D road games. The physical behaviour of your machine is also quite realistic, skidding with speeding too much on bends, very controllable with use of brake and accelerator, just like the real McCoy. A neat control key touch is That the brake will always override the accelerator, so you never have to take your finger off the acceler