The bees are gone and the weather has cleared. Telltale Games brings us the third installment in the Wallace and Gromit series with “Muzzled“. When a charity fair turns into a profit fair it’s up to Gromit to expose the operation and up to Wallace to help him out of the predicament he finds himself in and save the day. To me this was the best in the series and if you read a little further I’ll tell you why.
The storyline of this game was what put it up to the top of the series for me. To be completely fair, it could not have done it without the previous two episodes. It also wouldn’t have held this position if I hadn’t played the first two. I said in the last review that it didn’t matter which order you played them in. While the games still stand well enough on their own, I think the full experience will come from playing them in order or at least by playing Episode Two before Three.
In this episode, Wallace has a new invention for making ice cream by analyzing and item and reproducing the flavor. The neighborhood dogs show up and dismantle the contraption and it’s up to Gromit to learn the personalities of each dog and get the parts back. Once that’s done you meet Monty Muzzle, the Fair operator who has a plan to help Wallace market his Ice Cream machine. With the towns investment in the fair, Monty says he’ll raise the money and donate to the town to rebuild the dog shelter. He then offers to “rescue” the three dogs who have taken over Wallace’s house and heads off to start the fair. Gromit realizes the fair isn’t quite the legitimate endeavor it’s made out to be. He must convince the town and expose the truth.
The gameplay follows closely to the other two. I think in this one, however, Wallace takes on a more active role in pulling through and saving the day. The puzzles in this game require you to adapt the knowledge of a previous puzzle to solve some of the later ones. I think this could play out two ways, you could either become stuck in the game or you could catch on and buzz through it a little quicker than the previous two games. I do chalk some of that up to the fact that I’ve played all three games relatively close together so I’m in the Wallace and Gromit mindset right now. I’d say depending on your experience with the series you could finish this in as little as 3 hours but probably more towards the 5 to 6 hour mark. The gameplay isn’t exactly the same for each episode but it follows a similar enough pattern that can’t really be explained but once you get the feel for it I think it helps with your problem solving. So again don’t be discouraged if you’re having trouble.
The game world as it is takes place mostly in the Fairgrounds and a little in Wallaces house. You won’t really be roaming around the little town much in this one. The character movement is smooth and I had no noticeable issues with anything. While the game area isn’t all that big, it’s filled with detail. It’s neat to see the remnants of previous games sprinkled throughout the game and to see the changes made throughout each game. The attention to detail really shows. On the character models you can see fingerprints from the molded clay. Much of what we spoke about in the previous podcast plays through in this game as well as the second episode.
If you haven’t checked out this series yet, I’d say do it. I enjoyed the first episode for what it was. The second made me appreciate the first more and reeled me into the story. Now I feel like I know the characters and the substance of the games is more relevant to me know. I’ll have no problem playing through them again when they release on Xbox Live Arcade and I can’t wait for the fourth and final epidsode which is due out this month.
