So we all know that Wallace and Gromit have had lots of stop motion clay adventures on the small and big screen. But did you know they’ve had quite a lot of video games, too? They’re both old and recent and cover a wide variety of genres, too! So to end Wallace and Gromit Week, I thought we’d go over all their video games here. And if there were/are any mobile games or browser games starring them, I won’t be going over those. Either I missed out on them or don’t feel like going THAT deep.
Wallace & Gromit in Project Zoo
So the first Wallace and Gromit game was actually during the PS2 era. I had it on the PS2 anyway. It’s a 3D platformer where you play as Gromit and Wallace follows behind and sometimes gives you an invention to help you progress, like jump boots or a propeller to help you glide down from a jump. The story is that the pair are off to visit the zoo to see the baby polar bear they adopted. I THINK it’s the same kid polar bear from the Creature Comforts short, so that’s cool. But when they get there, they get a distress note from the polar bears! Turns out the evil penguin from The Wrong Trousers (who was prisoned in the zoo) has kidnapped all the baby animals and is forcing their parents to work for him to get more diamonds. So Wallace and Gromit must stop him! See, everyone says that the new movie Vengeance Most Fowl is when Feathers McGraw the penguin made his first attempt at revenge! But it was actually way before that in this game! Anyway it’s a typical PS2 era platformer. I got almost all the way to the end but a shooting gallery section that was super hard stumped me. I hate those spikes in difficulty that games back then sometimes had!
Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Remember when nearly every movie had a game to go with it? They don’t really do that much anymore, do they? This was also a 3D game and was during the PS2 era. But it was a bit more open world-like and had you use vacuums like Luigi’s Mansion to suck up rabbits. For some reason I just couldn’t get into this one. It just didn’t gel with me. I remember it being a bit meandering and having no direction either.
Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures
TellTale Games used to be so awesome. Before they made all those Walking Dead games (I call them Follow Your Nose Adventures), they made a lot of REAL good point and click adventures. They were at their best around this time, making games like this, Tales of Monkey Island, and Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse (which is almost poetic in play). Just like most of their other games, these were split into episodes, which each one having a self contained adventure, but they do reference earlier adventures in later ones. Each episode felt like you were playing a new Wallace and Gromit short film. Sure they didn’t look quite as good, but they were just as charming. I’ll go over each one a bit here:
Fright of the Bumblebees
Their latest venture is a honey delivery service. They get the honey straight from the source, and then send it through pipes so people can just turn on a faucet and have it ready for their tea and crumpets (this is the UK after all). As someone who works in the plumbing department of a major hardware store, this seems like a plumbing nightmare to me. But when a big order comes in, Wallace is worried he won’t have enough food for the bees. So he gathers ingredients for a muscle growth formula to use on his flowers. But the doped up pollen causes the bees to grow, too! So now Wallace and Gromit must figure out how to stop the giant bees from rampaging the town!
The Last Resort
Wallace and Gromit are looking forward to going to the beach on holiday. Maybe they can go to Blackpool and ride the Wallace and Gromit Thrill-O-Matic ride (yes that actually exists there). But unfortunately, a bad storm has ruined their plans and flooded their basement. So they decide to turn their basement into a beach and invite the neighbors over for a staycation at their mock resort hotel! But it turns into a mock “murder mystery” instead as they try to solve the case of who bonked one of their neighbors on the head…and why?
Muzzled!
I think this one is my favorite. The storm from the last episode has destroyed a local animal shelter. Monty Muzzle has come to town to help raise money for the animal shelter with a carnival. Unfortunately, Monty is a con-artist who uses his three trained whippets to rob the townsfolk during the fair. So it’s up to Wallace and Gromit to find a way to stop him. In the end, Monty gets his comeuppance and the three whippets find new loving homes with the folks in town. Very nice.
The Bogey Man
This one is my least favorite because it’s just kind of weird. Wallace is trying to get into a exclusive golf country club, but it turns out that the town they live in was built over the golf course. And the golf course is actually an underground death trap built by what looks like Wallace and Gromit’s evil ancestors. So they go off to save all their neighbors. Yeah it’s just bizarre.
Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Getaway
There was a long stretch between Wallace and Gromit games, but this one came out around a little over a year ago. And it’s a VR game, too! Since I’ve been blind in my left eye since birth and can’t do VR very well, I thought I’d never get to play this one. But last year for Christmas, my brother Jeff got one of those Meta VR things and it came with the Wallace and Gromit game! So I went over to his house recently and played it! In the game, Wallace and Gromit are on holiday again and are about to go to a country club golf course. OK this is the second game where Wallace plays golf, so is it canon that he’s a golfer now? Anyway, so Wallace mistakenly thinks their reservation isn’t until tomorrow, but it’s actually today! So he decides he’ll take the rocket he built in A Grand Day Out to get there faster. Wallace also invented a robotic caddy for this trip, so in some areas you’ll play as either the caddy, Gromit, or even Wallace. I find it interesting that they based this game on A Grand Day Out considering that their later adventures were much more exciting. Anyway, the rocket malfunctions and they end up going to Mars! Wallace is blissfully unaware of this, so he thinks they’re still on their golf holiday when they get there. So once on Mars, you must help Wallace get through the golf course while gathering the rocket parts to get home. The game is a mix of job simulator type stuff, such as helping Gromit pack by picking up the right items and putting them in the suitcase, and carnival style mini-games. I had a bit of trouble with the shooting gallery game and the whack a mole game, so that’s when I stopped playing. But I got about two thirds of the way through it and only played for about an hour and a half, so it’s pretty short. I don’t know if it was my vision or the game just being hard, but I do wish they could’ve made the games easier, especially since kids would probably gravitate towards this game. And once you get to Mars, the game has a different style that makes it feel like another game. And the animations are pretty choppy. So yeah, I’ve played better VR games before.
PowerWash Simulator: Wallace & Gromit Special Pack
This is the newest of the Wallace and Gromit games, and I just reviewed so please go read that review. But in short, it’s DLC for PowerWash Simulator that lets you power wash the insides and outside of Wallace and Gromit’s house, as well as their vehicles and inventions, even their rocket!
Shaun the Sheep
So Wallace and Gromit’s spinoff, Shaun the Sheep, has had its own successes with two movies and a long running TV show that’s still going today. They’ve had a few games as well, including a couple of DS games and mobile titles I missed out on. I did review one game on the Switch. There’s a place called GameBox that’s like an interactive game room where you can play a game called Shaun the Sheep: Championsheeps. There’s one near me, so I’d like to go sometime, but it also sounds expensive!
Anyway so that’s all the Wallace and Gromit video games! Have you played any of them? Let me know in the comments! Later! –Cary
