Wallace & Gromit Grand Adventures: Fright of the Bumblebees is the first of four episodic games from Telltale games based on the much loved Wallace & Gromit series. Wallace, the loveable, bumbling inventor and his faithful dog (who can knit, drive vans and fly planes) Gromit have set about creating a business based around selling honey. As you can expect things quickly turn bad and it’s up to the affable duo to put things right using their wit and ingenuity.

Wallace & Gromit Grand Adventures: Fright of the Bumblebees Review

Wallace & Gromit Grand Adventures: Fright of the Bumblebees
Developer: Telltale Games
Platform: Xbox 360 (reviewed), PC

One thing that should have been vital in the development process of this game is to capture the charm of the original series. And they have done just that.

Gromit is confused by the exsistance of cheese

Graphically, the game looks very similar to the stop motion TV shows. There are a few corners cut in terms of graphical quality for background items, but the objects that matter look like they have been pulled straight out of one of the shows. The lip sync is slightly off the majority of times which closely mirrors the way that the characters speak. There are both old and new characters introduced in the game and they all look as if they were made by the original artists. The two lead characters both move in their signature styles with Gromit’s high leg movement and Wallace’s ‘limp wristed trot’ that will delight many a fan when wandering around.

You know something is wrong when someone exclaims this much

The music suits the visual style almost to perfection. Its jaunty upbeat tunes coincide with the happy-go-lucky style of the characters. When working on the same stage for long periods of time the music can beginning to wear on you a bit as they are slightly on the repetitive side. The voice acting is generally very good, and one character who spends most of the time shouting out of a window really steals the show. In the original episodes, there are little to no recurring characters so the only main voice actor is that of Wallace. The voice actor sounds different to the one from the TV episodes but does a fairly good job of impersonating the bumbling tones.

In terms of gameplay, Fright of the Bumblebees is a fairly standard adventure in which the main goal is usually to collect objects to obtain other objects in order to make something else work, thus completing the goal. There is nothing that really stands out about the gameplay in that sense but it works well enough mechanically but it may not be engaging enough for serious adventure game players. The controls are fairly ordinary although actual character movement can be a little clunky at times and turning around can be a somewhat laborious task in certain situations. Objects are examined / obtained by clicking on them and the same happens with initiating actions.

This lady REALLY likes purple flowers. Also, her chest gets a teabag. No really.

The game is mainly set around the area surrounding the home of Wallace and Gromit with a simple map system to easily jump between areas. These areas are well designed and they fit in well with the rest of the visual style. There are some great cutscenes in the game as well including a fantastic egg-frying mechanism involving a badger on a thin wire and a giant mallet.

The difficulty level is about regular for an adventure game with some puzzles a lot more obvious than others. There is a hint system integrated but it is not really much of a help. Your character will usually just repeat their goals with no indication of how to go about completing them. This can lead to situations where the player may have missed something but then have no idea of how to go about rectifying the problem. The lack of supportive hints can wind up being frustrating and leading the player to investigate objects randomly in order to try and progress.

This bee just stole your vinyl record. How do you feel about that?

The game lasts for a few hours which is about par for an episodic, downloadable game but there is no real replay value given the nature of episodic titles. For what the player gets out of the game though it is definitely worth the money and well worth the fairly short amount of time that the player will invest to complete it.

The story is the typical Wallace & Gromit storyline of things going wrong and the two having to solve the issues that Wallace has created, with Gromit pulling most of the strings and cleaning up his owners mess. This is very much in line with the distinctive style of the previous episodes of the series and is a great way to start of the episodic series. That said, the rest of the series will most likely have a different main quest but there is sure to be some sort of overarcing storyline of some sort.

The Final Word
Wallace & Gromit Grand Adventures: Fright of the Bumblebees is a great game in its own right and it is also a good way to begin an episodic series. The game is packed with all the charm and originality of the original Aardman classics, which will no doubt please fans of Wallace & Gromit. The only problem with this is that people who are not overly familiar with the series will probably not enjoy the game as much without that prior knowledge of the series. That being said, the game presents the player with a decent amount of content. The game is a great way to start the series and the future looks promising for the upcoming series.

– MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good

By Andy Jackson