WALLACE & GROMIT’S GRAND ADVENTURES: EPISODE 1 Review
For you die-hard, yet new-school Geekscape adventure gamers out there, you probably are more than aware of Wallace and Gromit’s new adventures available on your PC and XBOX Live – for those who don’t: everyone’s favorite claymation duo is finally invading your digital world!
Yeah, it’s WALLACE AND GROMIT’S GRAND ADVENTURES. It’s the new adventure series from the guys single-handedly keeping the genre alive for modern players: Telltale Games. It’s a fine game, whose promise is still in the seedling stages, but nevertheless, a game that will please fans and adventure-curious gamers…
Telltale, if you don’t already know, is an exemplary modern game company who strive to give gamers real value for their money. All of their games are released episodically, meaning they put out a new three or four hour segment of a game series every month or so. This approach fits well with the classic adventure-style game they so lovingly build. This is especially true for the occasional adventure fan like your truly. It’s always been hard for me to sink many hours into a classic adventure game (think a Sierra or LucasArts type , as the pace is inherently slower and less action-focused. When a game such as this is broken into episodes, it ensures that gamers can play a segment, get a good bit of enjoyment out of it, then move on to other types of games that might give a gamer like me a dose of less cerebral but more action-oriented thrills. Also, it keeps the interested party into the game and it’s plot for not just a few days or weeks, but as long as they keep making new episodes (which, for the new SAM & MAX series, has been almost two years!).
We got our hands on the first episdoe of WALLACE AND GROMIT, and incorporating the classic W & G pun-riffic title, it’s appropriately called FRIGHT OF THE BUMBLEBEES. We find our heroes in the throes of their newest business venture: a honey distribution company named “From Bee to You.” As you might imagine, honey production is down, while demand is up, leading the duo to begrudgingly fulfill an overwhelming order, while overcoming larger and larger odds.
You play as both Wallace and his pooch Gromit, alternating between the two, scouring the house on Wallaby Street, and the surrounding town square for unlikely items to combine and use to solve problems. Controls this time around have changed a bit (from previous Telltale games), as you are given full control of the characters. No longer must you use a pointer to have your characters move from one place to the next, as in the classic adventure games of old. The full control adds a bit of fun to the proceedings, and makes the game feel a bit more action-oriented, though the game’s conventions are still thouroughly old-school. All your answers lie in collecting unlikely items to keep in your inventory. When the time comes, you must use these items together to solve the myriad of puzzles.
It all works reasonably well, as Telltale has done a great job of nailing not only the visual style so unique to the animated shorts, but the audio as well, as they have collected a fine group of voice actors to grace the game’s characters. Sadly, the core of the series’ inherent comedy, the inimitable Peter Sallis as Wallace does not lend his voice to the proceedings, but his sound-alike does an admirable job – and by the end, I had mostly forgotten that it was someone else. Where the game differs from its source material is the seeming effortlessness the shorts provide in pulling out gag after quick gag – Wallace ponitificating, the frazzled, hard-working Gromit shrugging off trouble after trouble… This is not a knock against the game’s designers in any way. Only, the conventions of the “adventure game” are difficult to meld with any pre-established source material. As audience members, we thrill to the ridiculous, lightning-fast solutions engineered by the animated shorts’ Wallace. Actually helping him figure out things in the game by ridiculous trial and more ridicuolous error becomes a bit of a loopy chore.
Still, if you’re a fan of adventure games at all, then WALLACE AND GROMIT’S GRAND ADVENTURES could be something you might really like. The style and humor of the series remains intact, though the first episde is not as immediately charming and lovable as it’s source material. This is the good thing about episodic content, of course, as we’re sure to see improvements and extra excitement as the game continues. For it’s smaller price tag, we gotta encourage the curious to check it out!
