[Mini-Review] Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit
All of the charm, none of the longevity.
Published: October 21, 2005
The Good
Nick Park finally got himself a Big Screen gig for his adorable Wallace & Grommit characters in Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Fortunately for all involved, Frontier Developments has reprised their role in the development of their second W&G game. The combination, a big-screen plotline and a game that actually mirrors it rather handsomely with developers familiar with the formula, means the game itself turned out closer to the actual on-screen product than most licensed games.
It's also better as a whole than most licensed games, and while it never really manages to move too far beyond typical kiddie fare, it's certainly a solid platformer with some light puzzles for the man/dog crew of Anto Pesto Humane Pest Control Service. With a handful of clever inventions like the BunGun, the pair go about helping townsfolk and Hoovering up assorted cutesy animals.
It's pretty standard stuff with plenty of level pulling and crank turning, but there are some nice extra bits like allowing the pair to grow their own humongoid veggies in a greenhouse requiring lots of assorted items which you buy with coins found throughout the game, but by and large there's nothing going on here that's new or terribly original.
The visuals are on par with what you'd expect, falling somewhere between the claymation style of the series and something more cartoony. It's a solid look, though, and one complemented by the large town you can go bounding around in during the day/night cycles to fulfill requests from the townsfolk.
The Bad
That's part of the problem, really, for as solid as the platforming mechanics are, it's very, very basic stuff; perfect for the little ones, but not especially good for anyone else - no matter how big and freely explorable the town is. In this respect the game does what it sets out to do, but without some of the better jokes from the series as a whole, and with a lot of recycling of the same basic tasks, it's a mild distraction at best.
The Verdict
As our first mini-review, I'm happy to say this isn't a review of a stinker by any stretch. Curse of the Were-Rabbit is mildly entertaining, and offers enough variety to keep the little tyke with the two second attention span entertained for a few days, but beyond that, there's not much else the game offers. It's a bit too simplistic for older audiences, and a little too thin on original gameplay for anyone involved. Certainly not a bad licensed title by any means, but not superlative either.
Nick Park finally got himself a Big Screen gig for his adorable Wallace & Grommit characters in Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Fortunately for all involved, Frontier Developments has reprised their role in the development of their second W&G game. The combination, a big-screen plotline and a game that actually mirrors it rather handsomely with developers familiar with the formula, means the game itself turned out closer to the actual on-screen product than most licensed games.
It's also better as a whole than most licensed games, and while it never really manages to move too far beyond typical kiddie fare, it's certainly a solid platformer with some light puzzles for the man/dog crew of Anto Pesto Humane Pest Control Service. With a handful of clever inventions like the BunGun, the pair go about helping townsfolk and Hoovering up assorted cutesy animals.
It's pretty standard stuff with plenty of level pulling and crank turning, but there are some nice extra bits like allowing the pair to grow their own humongoid veggies in a greenhouse requiring lots of assorted items which you buy with coins found throughout the game, but by and large there's nothing going on here that's new or terribly original.
The visuals are on par with what you'd expect, falling somewhere between the claymation style of the series and something more cartoony. It's a solid look, though, and one complemented by the large town you can go bounding around in during the day/night cycles to fulfill requests from the townsfolk.
The Bad
That's part of the problem, really, for as solid as the platforming mechanics are, it's very, very basic stuff; perfect for the little ones, but not especially good for anyone else - no matter how big and freely explorable the town is. In this respect the game does what it sets out to do, but without some of the better jokes from the series as a whole, and with a lot of recycling of the same basic tasks, it's a mild distraction at best.
The Verdict
As our first mini-review, I'm happy to say this isn't a review of a stinker by any stretch. Curse of the Were-Rabbit is mildly entertaining, and offers enough variety to keep the little tyke with the two second attention span entertained for a few days, but beyond that, there's not much else the game offers. It's a bit too simplistic for older audiences, and a little too thin on original gameplay for anyone involved. Certainly not a bad licensed title by any means, but not superlative either.
