Full Bore (PC) Review

To all of the people who ever wanted to play as a bore and mine for gems in a seemingly endless and confusing mine, congratulations, as game developer Whole Hog Games has created a game specifically for all five of you.

I’d love to do a joke review for this, as I honestly have very little to say about it, but seeing as this is a written review and not a video, I cannot sit here and blow raspberries for several minutes. Well, I could try but I have more taste than that, though I guess I could blow… blueberries (Ha! puns puns puns puns!).

Okay, I’m done screwing around now.

The storyline of Full Bore starts out with you (playing as a Bore- in fact everyone is a bore) somehow ending up in the executive office of a mining company. When the CEO assumes that you’ve stolen gems from his precious mining vault, you are forced into labor for him. This starts out the gameplay. (spoiler warning: it’s not that fun).

Full Bore seems to be a tile-based, puzzle, adventure… bore… digging simulator (congratulations, the award of The Most Genres I’ve Ever Covered in One Game Review goes to Full Bore). The tile-based puzzles get frustrating extremely quickly, because unless you have the foresight of a psychic, it will be hard to complete most of them and acquire the gems which are an integral component of the title’s gameplay. Basically, you have to dig your way through the mine to uncover stuff and reach new areas.

Of course this being a semi open world game, you can actually decide (for the most part), how you gain access to a gem or how you proceed to the next puzzle, most of which you can choose to simply not bother with if you like (or you get stuck). I screwed myself over many times during gameplay and had to use what was probably the most fun element to this game, that being Time Reversal, over and over again.

There is a map to help navigate the tunnels though and light your way in the darkness. Well, there is if you squint your eyes and push your face against the screen as close as you can. Basically, that was a really overdramatic way of saying the map display is a bit too small for my liking.

Now onto the music! My first impressions were as follows: “Oh my God, I think my ears are bleeding!!” My second impressions were: “What? I’m sorry did you say something? I can’t hear you… are my ears bleeding again?” To put it a little lighter, it’s not very good, doesn’t match the setting, and wasn’t nice to listen to.

I do have a funny little story to tell however. When I first started playing the game, even more unfitting music in the orchestral style was playing. I wasn’t sure what was going on, nor why what sounded like a dramatic symphony was playing to accompany a title like Full Bore.

When I closed the game a little later though, I realized that I’d accidentally left the Game of Thrones start menu on for the last several hours. After restarting the game to hear what the correct music sounded like, I instantly wished I’d left on the Game of Thrones menu.

Final Thoughts

Basically, Full Bore isn’t that good. It’s wasn’t fun enough to keep me playing for more than I had to to write up this review and there’s just not enough variety going on. While the game did get better, the first half is so maddeningly frustrating, since you have no idea what’s happening really, that it’s almost impossible to get through unless you’re maybe a puzzle prodigy.

It’s not my game type though, and unless you’re one of the aforementioned people, I don’t think this game will be your type either.