The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

So, the first episode of Wallace and Gromit’s Grand Adventures, Fright of the Bumblebees!, came out on my birthday! Of course, I preordered that sucker before then. Telltale has brought me absolutely nothing but quality entertainment, and even though I was less of a fan of this IP than I was of Sam and Max or Strong Bad, I was more than happy to give Telltale the benefit of the doubt and put down my money. The fact that they were putting a nice discount on top of it didn’t hurt either. It was kind of silly that they gave me extra, unneeded copies of games in the purchase though, but whatever. I understand why. They were wanting to hook Wallace and Gromit fans into their other games.

Now, all I’ve seen of Wallace and Gromit before this was Curse of the Wererabbit, and I only saw that because I heard that these games were coming out, so I wanted some context. I liked it! It was kind of punny and certainly entertaining, and I saw clearly how well it would work as an adventure game.

And guess what! It works well as an adventure game. There was one kind of weird, bullshit puzzle in the thing where I had no idea how I was supposed to think of that. But the solution still made sense in the world, so there was no real issue with it. I just grumbled a little and moved on.
The controls are different from previous Telltale games and are, honestly, not quite as nice on the PC. They’re obviously optimized to work with the 360 controller, because these games will be coming out there. You have to walk your character around with the keyboard but you still have to click on things with the mouse. It’s all kind of silly on the PC. I should just be able to point and click. But if that’s what I have to endure to get Telltale more exposure and more money? Eh, that’s fine. It wasn’t a huge deal.

From what I know, the game really feels like Wallace and Gromit as well. It’s a shame they had to get a sound-alike for Wallace, but at the same time, I couldn’t tell the difference until I was told. Then again, I’m not a hardcore fan, so take that as you will. The game totally looks the part, though. I’m not sure what kind of filters or whatever they put on this thing, but it’s clear that the Telltale Tool is extremely and wonderfully flexible. It really does look like clayma… plasticine figures for the most part.
One thing that I found a surprising problem was controlling Gromit. He can’t talk, of course, and most of his humor comes from his expressions, and that’s great. At the same time, not getting a verbal dismissal of something you tried to do and just getting him shaking his head is much less useful in figuring things out than having Wallace, or the main character in any adventure game, comment on it. It also loses a potential vector for humor. They attempted to fix this by having whatever other characters that are in the scene comment towards Gromit when they could, but he’s not always in the same area as another character. It’s just a small consequence, and they worked around it as best they could. It’s just interesting.

Anyway, I got two decently-sized play sessions out of the game. That’s about all I ask from these awesome little episodic deals. It certainly didn’t disappoint. Although the more I play these things, the more I can see the formula behind how Telltale builds a game. They make a game in three acts, sometimes for. There’s an introduction (optional) then a first act, then a second act where there are the same locations but different puzzles in them, and then a finale where you are stuck in a small location. This isn’t really a complaint, it’s just that after playing so much of their stuff, I can see the inner-workings a bit better.

But yeah. Wallace and Gromit’s Grand Adventures Episode 1? Good.