Brutal Gamer

Wallace & Gromit Episode 4: The Bogey Man (Xbox 360) Review

By Leigh - November 12, 2009 - 23:38 UTC

Brutal Gamers review of Wallace and Gromit Episode 4: The Bogey Man

This review was written by Mark Brown.

So, back in Episode 3 (Muzzled), Wallace accidently proposed to Miss Flitt with the old bended-knee-and-lug-nut misunderstanding. Felicity asks Great Aunt Prudence for her blessing and, in typical adventure game illogicality; Prudence determines that Miss Flitt can’t get married if our favourite Northern inventor joins a golf club. Wrap your head around that one.

So it’s up to Gromit to get his master into Prickly Thicket country club, and for the newly anointed Wallace to find the deed for the club, play a few rounds of golf and save the town from getting bulldozed. The story (mostly) makes sense during the course of the adventure, promise.

This sets up the season finale of Wallace and Gromit’s Grand Adventures, a four stop series of episodic point and clicks in West Wallaby Street. The bumbling inventor and his dependable mutt solve puzzles, chat to locals and pick up every object they can fit in their pockets.

This time we’re introduced to the uninspiring character of Miss Flitt’s Great Aunt Prudence and the curious headquarters of Prickly Thicket’s country club. With no real golf course to speak of, West Wallaby Street town centre is transformed into an impromptu driving range.

As we’ve grown accustomed to, Telltale manages to deliver clever puzzles with just the right amount of subtle hints and nudges. This adventure delivers its puzzles in a more non-linear form than ever before though, which is a welcome change of pace. Large parts of the game can be tackled in any order which, while confusing Telltale’s hint system somewhat, does offer fewer chances to be completely stumped.

This change of pace is welcome in The Bogey Man, which weighs in as arguably the toughest and most baffling adventure of the lot. There’s a trial and error head scratcher when it comes to putting in the club house, a few of illogical puzzles during the 18 hole game and even a tricky moving puzzle, with residents of West Wallaby Street.

As we’ve mentioned before, the Xbox Live Arcade versions of these episodes are prone to technical hiccups, frame rate tremors and graphical pests. If you have access to the PC versions, maybe choose them over the XBLA edition.

Final Thoughts

When previous episodes have ended with classic Wallace and Gromit high jinks, including giant bees, scarpering villains and high speed pursuits, it’s a little disappointing for Grand Adventures’ season finale to be so tame.

This final episode exemplifies Grand Adventures at its best, with witty dialogue and cunning puzzles, but also at its worst, with claustrophobic scenes and reused locations. It’s been a fun series, but this ending is unfortunately more Noteworthy Occurrence than Grand Adventure.

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