#frontier developments

I recently watched Aardman's new feature film, Vengeance Most Fowl, which is a follow-up to the plot of 1993's The Wrong Trousers, the second Wallace and Gromit short. But did you know that there was already a sequel in 2003, in the form of a video game by British studio Frontier Developments (mostly known for their theme park simulation games)? It's true! Anyway, I played it.

The plot is slight but makes for a decent W&G premise. The duo are visiting the zoo for the birthday of Archie the infant polar bear, who they have a connection to through the zoo's sponsorship program. But oh no! Feathers McGraw, the penguin criminal mastermind incarcerated at this selfsame zoo, has taken over and has enslaved the animals, including Archie, to further his schemes. As you make your way through the increasingly industrialised zoo enclosures (and secret underground mines), you must free the animals and ultimately foil Feathers.

The game world has a nice cartoonish vibe that fits the tone of the claymation shorts, including the dark and shadowy parts. The characters and animation don't look particularly clay-like but they're on-model; the staff evidently invested a lot of polygon budget in making the major players nice and rounded, and the other animals are delightfully Aardman-esque. Along the way Wallace has plenty of amusing blather, voiced as always [until he retired] by Peter Sallis. Feathers has some fun mechs and machines that fill in as boss encounters, while basic enemy types are an assortment of animalistic robots, animal collaborators, and the occasional zookeeper (which are also revealed to be robots). What happened to the actual zookeepers is not explored.

The game plays out as a puzzle/exploration 3D platformer, with the player taking control of Gromit (ie. the competent one). Wallace follows along almost like Yorda in Ico; you can call him, and occasionally have to guard or guide him out of peril. He's needed to fix various contraptions to enable progress, although it's mostly just repairing panels to open doors. He does come up with weapons for Gromit at key points, silly G-rated things like a turnip launcher and porridge gatling. You also find a torch, fire extinguisher, etc. although oddly two slots on the weapon wheel are never filled and remain blank at the end of the game.

Apart from the weapons, Gromit has a surprising number of moves. A crouch jump, Mario 64-style side flip, a wall rebound thing that I never found a use for, as well as basic combat moves including a breakdancing spin kick. He can cling onto ledges which I always love to see. There's also a roll that gives you a bit more horizontal speed and chain into a long jump, but it's tricky to use effectively. There's not a huge call for this expansive moveset within the level design, though.

The levels vary in structure, which is interesting. The first world in the elephants' jungle enclosure is a set of three mini-hub style stages, like compact Banjo-Kazooie worlds with a lot of verticality. The mine, lava, and factory stages that follow are a bit more linear, although there is still plenty of branching and overlapping. The polar bears' icy zone was my favourite, an open and expansive playground. The game then ends with a very on-rails obstacle course, with lots of "save Archie from the timed hazards" going on. Between levels are boss fights and vehicle sections, some of which play out as rail shooters or an Asteroids-style fight against a submarine.

It's all impressively solid considering this is Frontier's first game of this type. And maybe I'm just projecting because they're British, but I got some Rare vibes from this game at times. From the BK-lite structure and Gromit's coin-nabbing celebration animations to a slightly Star Fox Adventures soundtrack, to minor things like the health bar mimicking Conker's Bad Fur Day's chocolate squares but with crackers, the DK64-style giant keyboard activity, and the boat-mounted turnip cannon having googly eyes for no reason. There's even a Donkey Kong homage with a barrel-throwing gorilla!