Rain on the Parade
Fright of the Bumblebees, the first entry in Telltale Games’ new Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures series, kicked things off with a solid start packed with jovial humor. The episodic debut of the cheese-obsessed Brit and his silent-but-brainy pooch companion pleasantly captured just the right spirit and vibe of the claymation series its based on, and in adventure game form, the duo’s antics and comedic mishaps mesh well with the nature of the genre. Episode two, The Last Resort, does a commendable job of keeping the adventure feeling fresh but leaves some of the excitement found in the first episode at the door.
When we last saw the peculiar pair, one of Wallace’s crazy inventions had caused havoc at the local grocery store, forcing him to ramp up production of his basement honey-making operation to foot the damages bill. Needless to say, things go awry, sending swarms of giant mutated bees out to terrorize the neighborhood. At the opening of The Last Resort, the bee situation has died down and Wallace and Gromit are eagerly looking forward to a sunny beach holiday. Unfortunately for them, a vacation respite simply isn’t in the forecast. Not only do tumultuous thunderstorms and torrential downpours ruin their chances of a nice holiday, they cause the basement to flood dangerously. This gives Wallace the idea of turning the entire basement into a temporary beachside vacation hotspot to keep the neighbors happy and earn some extra cash. Appeasing guests is harder than it appears, since personality differences lead to some bizarre occurrences and an unfolding mystery to solve.
Sticking to adventure gaming tradition, much of the gameplay focuses on exploring different areas and clicking on everything and everyone in sight to see what unusualness unfolds. There are plenty of items to pick up and fiddle around with and numerous surprises to dig up. You’ll cover a lot of the same ground over and over again in this short adventure, but the situations change as the story and mini-chapters progress, requiring you to retrace your path for new clues. The balance is just about right; it keeps the game from progressing in too linear a fashion but doesn’t make it branch out so far that it becomes confusing to figure out where to go next.
There are a few opportunities to explore out into the village where players tread heavily in the first episode, since The Last Resort focuses more on Wallace and Gromit’s abode. The development team has done a great job of changing familiar environments to make them look and feel completely new, despite the curious location constraints. Thematic adjustments and grand decoration tweaks to the settings make up for the fact there’s only one real new room to explore and you don’t venture far from the house this time around. Many of the same folks from the previous episode appear again, only they’re all packed in the house during much of The Last Resort. Having them all densely located in such close proximity to one another certainly makes character interaction a busier affair, and these encounters help drive many of the game’s puzzle obstacles.
Solving puzzles generally has you relying almost solely on your ability to pay attention to clues in the dialogue and your surroundings and figure out how to get the items you need and where to use them correctly. Some hints are fairly obvious, while others are not. Again, there’s enough balance to keep you from getting stuck easily or for very long. The game makes frequent use of plot twists to send you on scavenger hunts. Other times you’re presented with slightly different puzzles, like having to select from a bevy of random items laid out on a table to trigger snippets of conversation and drive the dialogue to produce the desired end result. Many players will appreciate the games’ cleverness and the way humor is casually woven into most areas of the adventure. In the rare moments where you do find yourself in a bind, the help system can be scaled up or down as needed. When it kicks in, it often repeats important lines of dialogue you might have previously breezed through to jog your memory.
Once again, you’ll control both Wallace and Gromit at different times (it’s about a 40/60 split this episode), which provides opportunities to explore the plot from different angles and engage in a broader range of challenges. Each character’s personality plays into this significantly; Wallace is rather dim at times, progressing the story in a mostly accidental fashion, while Gromit takes more of a sleuthing approach. The controls themselves are skewed towards the console versions, and require PC users to move around with the WASD keys independently of selecting hotspots with the mouse. This pseudo-point-and-click setup can be adjusted, and folks who started with episode one (we strongly recommend you do so) should be used to it by now.
We’re now halfway through the four-part series, and episode two doesn’t quite ramp things up the way we’d have liked. Instead of expanding to new areas, you’re stuck going back over the same places you’ve visited before – aside from the living room, which was blocked off for bee keeping storage supplies in the first installment. Even though there’s been a lot of work put into making existing locales look and feel fresh, the lack of any substantive new locations to explore is a bit disappointing. Additionally, there are some particularly witty puzzles to dig into (and a few truly zany moments), but The Last Resort is missing some of the excitement found in first episode. Though the wrap-up is good, it doesn’t come close to the crazy ending of Fright of the Bumblebees, and there aren’t any moments like the potato-gun shootout to speak of.
The Last Resort falls slightly short of the debut episode. Overall, it’s not a huge disappointment, because the game’s characters are still quite charming and there’s a lot of smart stuff being worked into the series that sets it apart from your average point-and-click adventure. As far as adventure games go, Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures has yet to eclipse Telltale’s previous efforts with Sam & Max and Strongbad, but there’s still hope the next two episodes will deliver on this series’ promise.
RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 4.0 Graphics
Charming as ever. Old locations are nicely dressed up with a new coat of paint. 3.7 Control
Though the controls are not designed with PC gamers in mind, they’ve grown on me slightly. 3.8 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
The voice acting is excellent. 3.5 Play Value
A good, short romp. It’s missing some of the energy of Episode One but carries its own weight. 3.7 Overall Rating – Good
Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.
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