Wallace & Gromit's first season finale - over par (in a good way!)
Written: Aug 31 '09
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good aesthetics, some great puzzles...
Cons: ... still wish it could be a bit longer!
The Bottom Line: The last episode in season one of Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures is a very good little adventure game. On this evidence I'm looking forward to season two...
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| captaind's Full Review: Wallace and Gromit's Grand Adventures: Episode 4 T... |
The season finale of Wallace & Gromit Grand Adventures, The Bogey Man, sees a welcome return to form for the duo. At the end of episode 3 we found Wallace, due to an unexpected and rather dramatic misunderstanding, engaged (or almost) to his next-door neighbour. As this episode begins the worst thing possible happens - his unintentional proposal is accepted by the neighbour, Felicity Flit - a nice enough woman perhaps, but certainly not right for our absent-minded inventor. Still, a chap can't just renege on a marriage proposal even if it was a complete accident, so it can only be hoped that something makes Felicity change her mind.
That is, of course, your main challenge in this episode. You quickly find out that she despises men playing golf, and guess what? An opportunity arises for Wallace to join Prickley Thicket, an esteemed local golf club. When you attain this you find out that the golf club has certain problems, and the situation is not helped by Constable Dibbins, whose hopes of getting into the club himself are dashed by your successful entry into the hallowed ranks of Prickley Thicketers. Soon enough it's not just the golf club that's in trouble, but the whole of West Wallaby Street is in danger!
As you can see the situations are as madcap as ever, with the small cast of characters creating plenty of humour. There are lots of funny situations and good dialogue in this game, so it'll definitely have you laughing quite a bit. In the game itself you utilise a combination of keyboard controls and a point and click interface to interact with people and items, and of course you can carry certain objects in your inventory. Some parts of the game are played controlling Wallace and others using Gromit, with the same interface but different inventories and slightly different abilities - the most obvious example is Gromit's inability to talk (though that doesn't necessarily mean he can't communicate.) Having already played the previous 3 episodes the interface is pretty much second-nature now; if you've never played a W&G game before, it'll take you a little while to get used to it.
There are some excellent puzzles in Bogey Man and quite a bit of variety. Though the absence of being able to combine inventory items is a bit of a downside, there are many and varied puzzles here, including some logic and timed, which do exercise the grey matter a bit without being impossibly difficult. If you're stuck there is an in-game hint mode, and if even that doesn't help the forums on TellTale Games' website will provide you with the answers you need. The puzzles as a whole are a definite step up from the previous W&G games.
Graphically W&G episode 4 is nice, not outstanding but with decent animation and a good level of detail and cinematic styling. The lip-synching is okay, not brilliant. However overall the graphics mirror the style of the claymation environments very nicely, and there are certainly some very nice touches. The music is nice and definitely appropriate to the action on-screen. The voice acting, on the whole, is very good. Wallace is not voiced by Peter Sallis, unfortunately, but he still sounds very close to the voice we've all come to know and love.
The only real downside with Episode 4 is its length. Even considering the episodic nature of these games I would have liked it to be a bit longer. Still it's certainly not as bad as the very short episode 3, so I'm not complaining too much.
System Requirements:
Operating system: Windows XP / Vista (Vista64 unsupported)
Processor: 2.0 GHz or better (3 GHz Pentium 4 or equivalent recommended)
Memory: 512MB (1GB recommended)
Video: 64MB DirectX 8.1-compliant video card (128MB recommended)
Sound: DirectX 8.1 sound device
DirectX®: Version 9.0c or better
Price: The episodes are $8.95 each, or you can get the whole first season (4 episodes) with collector's DVD for $34.95. Unless you've already bought one or more of the episodes, the whole season is slightly cheaper per episode and you get some bonus stuff (though I don't know how good it will be).
Please note that this review is based on the Press Release of the game, provided by TellTale Games' PR Department. To my knowledge there were no major changes to the public release, and I certify that this review represents my honest, unbiased opinion of the game.
Related Reviews
Wallace and Gromit's Fright of the Bumblebees for PC
Wallace and Gromit's The Last Resort for PC
Wallace & Gromit's Muzzled! for PC
Wallace and Gromit movies:
A Grand Day Out
The Wrong Trousers
A Close Shave
A Matter of Loaf and Death
Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Recommended:
Yes
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