Wallace & Gromit in Project Zoo

Go on….Ruffle Some FEATHERS!

EU release: 3rd October 2003
NA release: 16th October 2003
JP release: N/A
Developer: Frontier Developments
Publisher: BAM! Entertainment
NGC Magazine Score: 70%
Mods Used: None

The wonderful Aardman duo in a 3D platformer, which is a genre that makes sense for Wallace and Gromit. You play as Gromit with Wallace occasionally helping out by repairing machines and creating inventions. It starts out extremely well, starting with a CGI animation (which captures the style of the show quite well) where they visit their adopted polar bear, Archie, at the zoo, only to find out that it’s been taken over by the dastardly chicken/penguin, Feathers McGraw.

Once you get into gameplay, it’s really nice, too. Gromit moves quite well (albeit a little bit too slow) and even has a crutch high jump which you can also activate by doing a quick turn (the developers clearly played SM64). You collect nuts and bolts, golden tools and coins in a colourful jungle environment, save adorable baby elephants and get to see the lovely animation on Gromit, and plenty of dialogue from Wallace.

Gromit will also get an assortment of weapons such as a pistol, gatling gun, a rocket launcher. Not typical version, but food-based guns, such as the gatling gun that shoots porridge. These aren’t just used for attacking, but also for solving puzzles as they all activate different kinds of switches (or let you destroy padlocks with turnips).

But once you get past the first level, things drop off. I was expecting to do levels across different colourful biomes for different areas of the zoo, but instead you travel underground, to places like a mine, lava caves and a warehouse. The rest of the game is all rather bland, and the level design doesn’t make up for it. The coins feel like the main collectible and are rewards for completing tasks, but they just unlock clips from the shorts. The main thing you need to collect, golden tools, feel haphazardly placed, just hiding around corners or in the middle of platforms, so looking for any missed ones is a pain.

With such a good foundation, it’s a shame that the thing that Wallace & Gromit excels at – charm – is the big thing missing from most of the game, and it ends up being just an average platformer. I also felt like they could have done with making Wallace teleport. He needs to actually walk to every location you need him in, which can take ages. He can also get stuck on the scenery and softlock the game, which is annoying. It’s fine having him say “no” or needing to walk when there are actual obstacles you need to help him with, but speeding up the game could have helped.

Oh, and one amusing additional thing: when looking up stuff for the game, I kept accidentally putting in “Planet Zoo” instead of “Project Zoo”. The crazy thing? Both were developed by Frontier Developments.

Fine

It’s so pleasant to receive a game that you expect to have to give a good kicking only for it to turn out to be – in the words of the elastic-faced cheese muncher – rather ‘grand’.
Geraint Evans, NGC Magazine #87

Remake or remaster?

With a big of extra speed and fixing Wallace, this would be an enjoyable romp, although later levels need a bit more work.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to get Wallace & Gromit in Project Zoo.