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| The Entertainment Review |
| Genre: Action Developer: Telltale Games Publisher: Telltale Games |
It is obvious that Telltale Games owns the episodic games genre with series like Strong Bad, Sam & Max and now Wallace & Gromit. With its first appearance on Xbox Live Arcade, another thoroughly enjoyable
adventure title load with humor and personality comes in the form “Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures Episode 1: Fright of the Bumblebees.” Telltale Games has licensed the popular Wallace & Gromit series of
animated British films in order to present players a game that unfolds just like players would expect from an interactive Wallace & Gromit cartoon. The writing in the game is witty and it is very family friendly without being
too cheesy. This isn’t to say that the game isn’t cheesy to begin with, because of the fact that Wallace has a large hunger for all things that are cheese. The point is that this is a great adventure game for Xbox Live
Arcade. The one drawback is that the animation has a few spots that slow down and stutter all over the place, much like it did in the Wii version of “Sam & Max: Season One.”
Wallace & Gromit has been entertaining audiences in the form of animated features for years and the story of “Wallace & Gromit Episode 1: Fright Of The Bumblebees” might remind players of the 2005 film, Wallace &
Gromit: Curse of the Wererabbit. Business has dried up for Wallace and his canine pal Gromit’s honey delivery service when he receives a very large order of honey. If he is going to meet the demands of the order, he
needs to come up with a way to grow a large amount of flowers to feed to his bees. In order to do this, Wallace must create a miracle grow formula in order to produce some huge plants in order for his bees to
pollinate. The formula has some unexpected side effects for his though, and hilarious action begins very quickly for the two main characters.
Unlike most of the games created by Telltale Games, this isn’t exactly a point and click adventure. Players have direct control of Wallace and Gromit at different points throughout the game with the left stick and can
highlight interactive objects in the environment with either the right stick or bumpers on the controllers. The right stick selection is a little bit difficult to control, but jumping from one object to another with the bumper
works very well. Puzzles are usually solved by using one object found in the world with another object, a time honored tradition in adventure games of this type. There are also a lot more action oriented scenes, like a
shooting gallery where players must shoot down flying bees with porridge. However, there is a lot more thought that must go into it than simply shooting down the flying fiends, and that is what adds to the fun of the
game, missing things up a little bit from the usual.
“Wallace & Gromit Episode 1: Fright Of The Bumblebees” includes a great contextual hint system that finds character wondering out loud about what might helps players to solve their current problem in the game.
Players can set the level of help that they will get or turn the feature off entirely for those hardcore players who don’t want any help whatsoever with the game. The whole game will only take players a couple of hours to
make their way through. Though that isn’t much game play for a $10 price tag, but nearly every hour of game play is packed with laughs and fun puzzles for players to solve. The issue that will bother most players is not
so much the length of the overall game is the replay value of the game. There isn’t anything to discover after the game have been beaten once, unlike most of titles released by Telltale Game, such as Strong Bad’s Cool
Game. The only reason most players will want to return to the game again is to get any achievements that they may have missed the first time through the game.
The Wallace & Gromit animated series began as claymation series although the studio is not producing its features with computer animation instead of the old style of claymation. Telltale Games did a great job of
recreating the clay model look and feel of the cartoons and at a single glance players may mistake the game for a new film. However, the game doesn’t run very smoothly. Almost every action and scene change causes
the characters to skip and sputter a little bit, which gets to be a little bit of an annoyance. Of course this doesn’t ruin the whole experience, but it keeps “Wallace & Gromit Episode 1: Fright Of The Bumblebees” on Xbox
Live Arcade from being as polished as its PC counterpart.
The Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures series gets off to a fun and clever start with the first episode of the series. The look, feel and sound of the animated features have been recreated here almost perfectly, with
the exception of a jumpy frame rate. Playing the game is like trying to control a Wallace & Gromit cartoon, complete with witty British humor, the crazy inventions of Wallace and a peculiar fixation on cheese of all types.
Hopefully, the frame rate of the game can be dealt with by Episode 2 because this is a great and welcome addition to Xbox Live Arcade.
adventure title load with humor and personality comes in the form “Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures Episode 1: Fright of the Bumblebees.” Telltale Games has licensed the popular Wallace & Gromit series of
animated British films in order to present players a game that unfolds just like players would expect from an interactive Wallace & Gromit cartoon. The writing in the game is witty and it is very family friendly without being
too cheesy. This isn’t to say that the game isn’t cheesy to begin with, because of the fact that Wallace has a large hunger for all things that are cheese. The point is that this is a great adventure game for Xbox Live
Arcade. The one drawback is that the animation has a few spots that slow down and stutter all over the place, much like it did in the Wii version of “Sam & Max: Season One.”
Wallace & Gromit has been entertaining audiences in the form of animated features for years and the story of “Wallace & Gromit Episode 1: Fright Of The Bumblebees” might remind players of the 2005 film, Wallace &
Gromit: Curse of the Wererabbit. Business has dried up for Wallace and his canine pal Gromit’s honey delivery service when he receives a very large order of honey. If he is going to meet the demands of the order, he
needs to come up with a way to grow a large amount of flowers to feed to his bees. In order to do this, Wallace must create a miracle grow formula in order to produce some huge plants in order for his bees to
pollinate. The formula has some unexpected side effects for his though, and hilarious action begins very quickly for the two main characters.
Unlike most of the games created by Telltale Games, this isn’t exactly a point and click adventure. Players have direct control of Wallace and Gromit at different points throughout the game with the left stick and can
highlight interactive objects in the environment with either the right stick or bumpers on the controllers. The right stick selection is a little bit difficult to control, but jumping from one object to another with the bumper
works very well. Puzzles are usually solved by using one object found in the world with another object, a time honored tradition in adventure games of this type. There are also a lot more action oriented scenes, like a
shooting gallery where players must shoot down flying bees with porridge. However, there is a lot more thought that must go into it than simply shooting down the flying fiends, and that is what adds to the fun of the
game, missing things up a little bit from the usual.
“Wallace & Gromit Episode 1: Fright Of The Bumblebees” includes a great contextual hint system that finds character wondering out loud about what might helps players to solve their current problem in the game.
Players can set the level of help that they will get or turn the feature off entirely for those hardcore players who don’t want any help whatsoever with the game. The whole game will only take players a couple of hours to
make their way through. Though that isn’t much game play for a $10 price tag, but nearly every hour of game play is packed with laughs and fun puzzles for players to solve. The issue that will bother most players is not
so much the length of the overall game is the replay value of the game. There isn’t anything to discover after the game have been beaten once, unlike most of titles released by Telltale Game, such as Strong Bad’s Cool
Game. The only reason most players will want to return to the game again is to get any achievements that they may have missed the first time through the game.
The Wallace & Gromit animated series began as claymation series although the studio is not producing its features with computer animation instead of the old style of claymation. Telltale Games did a great job of
recreating the clay model look and feel of the cartoons and at a single glance players may mistake the game for a new film. However, the game doesn’t run very smoothly. Almost every action and scene change causes
the characters to skip and sputter a little bit, which gets to be a little bit of an annoyance. Of course this doesn’t ruin the whole experience, but it keeps “Wallace & Gromit Episode 1: Fright Of The Bumblebees” on Xbox
Live Arcade from being as polished as its PC counterpart.
The Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures series gets off to a fun and clever start with the first episode of the series. The look, feel and sound of the animated features have been recreated here almost perfectly, with
the exception of a jumpy frame rate. Playing the game is like trying to control a Wallace & Gromit cartoon, complete with witty British humor, the crazy inventions of Wallace and a peculiar fixation on cheese of all types.
Hopefully, the frame rate of the game can be dealt with by Episode 2 because this is a great and welcome addition to Xbox Live Arcade.
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