Review of Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures Episode I: The Fright of the Bumblebees

Telltale Games has a formula for success and this time they
have added a British compound to their already stellar lineup of
point-and-click, episodic games (Sam&Max, Strong Bad’s Cool Game for
Attractive People).  Wallace and
Gromit’s Grand Adventures begins its four episode run today with “Fright of
the Bumblebees.” 

Wallace and Gromit are the main characters of a British
animated series developed by Nick Price of Aardman Animations.  Using stop-motion clay animation, the series
depicts Wallace, an absent-minded inventor, and his silent, faithful companion
Gromit.  In Telltale Games’ newest
offering you will have the chance to participate in their adventure as you
utilize your gaming skills to play as both characters as you solve a series of
puzzles that will entertain, enthrall and occasionally challenge your patience.

The story of “Fright of the Bumblebees” revolves around two
of Wallace’s new inventions: a cheese-sniffing robot mouse and a daily honey
delivery service.  The robot mouse
trashed the Grocer’s store the day prior and now you must deliver 50 gallons of
honey for the festival that evening to make up for the damage.  You, Wallace and Gromit are on the
case. 

Grand Adventures plays like any other point-and-click
adventure game.  You walk around to all
the available areas looking for clues or objects that will help you solve the
puzzles to further the story line.  The
first puzzle in the game is for you, as Gromit, to make breakfast for Wallace.  You must make an egg, toast and honey, but
you must figure out how to get the egg from the hen to the pan, etc.  The controls are flexible since this was
developed with both the PC and Xbox 360 in mind, you can use a keyboard and
mouse or a connected Xbox 360 controller. 
They have also aided us by framing usable objects to reduce the amount
of pixel hunting you must employ.

The clay animation world of Wallace and Gromit translates
really well into the graphic style Telltale chose for the series.  I was impressed with how smooth textures
were and the amount of detail they put into each frame.  The graphics are very sharp for how little
this will tax your PC. 

There were a couple areas for improvement in this offering,
namely the music and some frustration felt during a puzzle or two.  While it was disappointing to find out that
Peter Sallis, the voice of Wallace was not a part of this project, it was not
much of a problem since the music often drowned out the voices of the
characters.  My frustration with a particular
puzzle or two is a little more difficult to describe since I do not want to
spoil the adventure for you.  Let’s say
that I had the item I needed and knew what I had to with the item but for as
much as I tried, the game just would not let me do it until roughly the eighth
time of trying to simply accomplish A+B. 

Wallace and Gromit’s Grand Adventures is an enjoyable
and sharp offering from Telltale Games. 
It is a game full of stylized graphics and humorous writing, along with
little jokes written into the background to give the experience of living in a
Wallace and Gromit animated short.  I
look forward to playing the next wacky adventure entitled “The Last Resort,”
due out in May of this year with the third and fourth installments coming
monthly thereafter.  You’ll be able to
find this on PC at the Telltale Store and on Steam, as well as the Xbox 360
LIVE Arcade.

I give it a 7.9 out of 10.