After a rough storm destroys the local stray dog shelter, town newcomer Monty Muzzle sets up a fundraiser fair and offers to raise enough money to build another kennel. But things aren’t as they seem and Monty Muzzle is up to no good. It’s up to Wallace and Gromit to stop Monty and rescue Gromit’s canine friends!

Academy Award-winning clay animated duo, Wallace and Gromit, are starring in a series of episodic point and click adventures from TellTale Games, makers of the Sam & Max and Strong Bad titles. The third of four 3-6 hour long episodes, Muzzled!, can be downloaded on your PC (visit TellTale’s Web site), and it’ll also be available on Xbox Live later on.

For those not in the know, Wallace is an inventor of crazy Rube Goldberg machines that don’t always work the way he intended, and Gromit is his silent but devoted dog, who is the more intelligent of the two. In the third episode, you mostly control Gromit as he snoops around the fair finding clues to reveal Monty’s con artist plans and also saving his pup pals.

In the game you control both Wallace and Gromit separately in typical point and click adventure fashion. Use the mouse to point on objects and use items in your inventory to solve puzzles. The animation and ‘feel’ of the game is top notch. If this weren’t a video game, it would probably be up for an Academy Award for best animated short film.

There are really only two nitpicky problems that I can pinpoint with this game. First of all, TellTale didn’t get the original voice actor (Peter Sallis) for Wallace in this adventure. But the new voice actor did a pretty bang-up job imitating Peter Sallis’ tone, though it especially seems more obvious in the third episode that it’s not Wallace’s original voice. It’s only a shame since the other Wallace and Gromit video games in the past were able to get Peter Sallis.

Another problem is that in most point and click adventures, you use the mouse to move and click on objects. But in Wallace and Gromit, you walk around with the WASD or arrow keys. You still view and pick up objects with the mouse, though. It would’ve been nice if you could have controlled the whole game with the mouse, but they had to do it this way since the game will also be on the Xbox 360 console and played with a controller. Really, moving around with the arrow keys didn’t bother me at all, personally, but it might bug others.

But again, these problems are fairly minor. Wallace and Gromit’s Grand Adventures is looking to be another great point and click adventure from TellTale, with fun yet not too frustrating puzzles that’ll make you feel like part of the story. If you’ve got a PC or an Xbox 360, you’ll definitely want to download these games, especially if you’re a fan of point and click adventures and/or Wallace and Gromit

Kid Factor:
Muzzled! is rated E for Everyone. Monty Muzzle does say ‘hell’ once, so I guess that counts for Mild Language. Even though Muzzled! does have a more sinister villain, he’s still not scary enough to frighten young children. It’s definitely the most family friendly game series TellTale has made to date. The puzzles are pretty intuitive, so even young players should be able to make it through the game with little help. But this is one game that’s great to play WITH your kids and family, as an extra set of eyes to help spot items and clues is always helpful for these kinds of games. Highly recommended.

And Twitch the dog is a great new character!

Tags: Game Reviews