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Wacky adventures abound in the Wallace and Gromit universe. A staple of British culture and American dorm rooms everywhere, Wallace and Gromit are taking their polite sense of British humor and sense of adventure to the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade. Crazy contraptions, get rich quick schemes, and maddening mayhem ensue in this point and click adventure game that captures the spirit and charm of the Wallace and Gromit franchise beautifully.
Fright of the Bumblebees, the first in a series of four installments in Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures from Telltale Games, sees the British gentleman and his trusty canine getting into the sticky business of honey - and business is booming. Unable to keep up with the orders, Wallace whips up a quick-grow formula for the flowers to keep his worker bees happy bees, but as you soon find out, it's causing more than the flowers to grow...
As a longtime fan of the series, I can say with all confidence that Telltale Games have done an incredible job of recreating both the look and humor of the source material. The Grand Adventures series of games is creating new and wonderful stories in the Wallace & Gromit universe without the help of series creator Nick Park, but you'd never know it from the quality. Rather than feeling like a game based on the Wallace & Gromit franchise, Fright of the Bumblebees clearly comes across as a new entry in series canon. Few developers seem as capable of adapting narrative media to interactive media as Telltale Games, and here as before they've proven themselves more than up to the task.
While this isn't Telltale's first attempt to bring their delightful brand of point and click adventure to a home console (they have previously released both their Sam & Max and Strongbad series on the Wii), this is the first time they've had to tackle a traditional gaming controller. As a result they've made some creative choices that have simplified things a bit. Unfortunately these changes don't necessarily work as well as we'd hoped.
Since a standard gaming controller lacks a formal pointer like a mouse or a Wii remote, Telltale had to work around this. Rather than using the right stick to duplicate a pointer -- something that always feels slow and clunky -- they opted to use the right stick to cycle through all of the possible selections on screen at any given time. What's more, pressing the Y button will highlight all possible selections in the room.
In theory it's a great system, but the execution leaves something to be desired. More often than not you'll point the right stick in the direction of the object you want to interact with and it will select something else. Sometimes you may end up guiding the right stick in the direction you want four or five times before it really knows where you want to be.
In addition to control changes, other tweaks were made to the standard Telltale formula as well. Rather than presenting you with a host of options when you select a target, you'll only be able to make a single interaction with each item or character - usually talking with people and picking up objects. It may sound limiting at first, but stepping away from the dialogue tree that so many other games rely on is an excellent fit for Wallace and Gromit. So much of W&G's comedic genius relies on visual humor that forcing dialogue options into every interaction would have felt out of place.
With limited dialogue scenarios, puzzling in Wallace and Gromit relies heavily on combining items. Early scenarios like preparing Wallace's breakfast are rife with noodle scratching challenges. What item will I need to use to keep the squirrel from stealing the toast? How can I get the crazy egg-frying contraption to carry the egg to the hammer? Very few challenges in Wallace and Gromit can be solved in a single step. Some tasks which seem to have a simple enough solution at first may involve more than a dozen problem-solving scenarios before you can reach your goal.
The puzzles in Wallace and Gromit are deeply satisfying and can always be figured out with a little creative thinking. They offer a moderate level of challenge but never leave you with that annoyed "how was I supposed to figure that out?" feeling. Telltale has become something of a touchstone in the world of point and click adventure games over the last few years, and Wallace and Gromit does nothing to diminish that reputation.
Somewhat disappointing controller issues asides, Wallace and Gromit: Fright of the Bumblebees offers a fantastic ride from start to finish (which should only take you 3-4 hours). Whether you're looking for a good challenge or a good laugh, Fright of the Bumblebees offers up something you've never seen before; a must-try point and click adventure on the Xbox 360.
