Wallace & Gromit in Project Zoo
Encyclopedia
Wallace & Gromit in Project Zoo is a 2003 video game featuring Aardman Animations
' popular characters Wallace & Gromit. The game was developed by Frontier Developments
for the PC
, PS2
, Xbox
and GameCube
. The game also features the voice of Wallace, Peter Sallis
.
villain from The Wrong Trousers
, once more. Feathers has escaped from the penguin enclosure at West Wallaby Zoo, and taken over the entire zoo, kidnapping young animals and forcing their parents to work for him, helping him towards his ultimate goal - turning the zoo into a diamond
mine.
Wallace and Gromit, meanwhile, have adopted one of the zoo's baby polar bear
s, named Archie. As they go to visit the zoo to celebrate his birthday, they find the zoo closed. A quick spot of inventing back at the house, and they prepare to embark on their latest adventure. Hiding inside a giant wooden penguin, a parody of the famous Trojan horse
, they infiltrate the zoo, and set about rescuing the animals and undoing Feathers' work.
As Wallace and Gromit delve deeper into the zoo they discover ancient temple exhibits (complete with booby traps), drills, lava, loads of machinery, and even snow slides as they travel about the six levels; in each they must save three baby animals: elephants in the Jungle Exhibit, beavers in the mines, gorillas in the subterranean facility, pandas in the warehouse, polar bears in the Polar Exhibit, and zebras in the factories.
As Gromit, the player must use Wallace's bizarre inventions - including the Porridge Gun, Turnip Launcher, Springy Boots, Melt-o-matic and Techno Trousers - to battle Feathers McGraw's robotic minions and rescue the baby animals in typical platform game
style. The game was praised by reviewers for keeping "the flavour of the original claymation".
ranked the game with a 6.5, claiming that the story of the adventure was very interesting, but the developers could not find a way to get it into a platformer game, pointing out that the game's biggest fault is its platform jumping style. IGN
praised Project Zoo for the most part, but insisted that many levels and functions needed further polishing and testing. Generally, the game was described as a good one, though still missing vital elements for a platformer. Nevertheless, Project Zoo sold quite well, probably due to the large number of Wallace & Gromit fans, and the fact that it was the first major game based on the series.
Not as popular as the console versions, the PC port of the game was reported to have numerous glitches and bugs reducing the speed and quality of the graphics of Project Zoo, even making the game crash or rendering it unable to be launched by the user. Mainly due to this, the PC version of Project Zoo was abandoned by players as problematic, and as a result the number of copies sold for Windows
was very low.
Aardman Animations
Aardman Animations, Ltd., also known as Aardman Studios, or simply as Aardman, is a British animation studio based in Bristol, United Kingdom. The studio is known for films made using stop-motion clay animation techniques, particularly those featuring Plasticine characters Wallace and Gromit...
' popular characters Wallace & Gromit. The game was developed by Frontier Developments
Frontier Developments
Frontier Developments is a video game developer based in Cambridge, England. It is a private limited company and was incorporated in January 1994. The company is still headed by David Braben, in the position of Chairman....
for the PC
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, PS2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
, Xbox
Xbox
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...
and GameCube
Nintendo GameCube
The , officially abbreviated to NGC in Japan and GCN in other regions, is a sixth generation video game console released by Nintendo on September 15, 2001 in Japan, November 18, 2001 in North America, May 3, 2002 in Europe, and May 17, 2002 in Australia...
. The game also features the voice of Wallace, Peter Sallis
Peter Sallis
Peter Sallis, OBE is an English actor and entertainer, well-known for his work on British television. Although he was born and brought up in London, his two most notable roles require him to adopt the accents and mannerisms of a Northerner.Sallis is best known for his role as the main character...
.
Setting
The story sees the duo take on Feathers McGraw, the penguinPenguin
Penguins are a group of aquatic, flightless birds living almost exclusively in the southern hemisphere, especially in Antarctica. Highly adapted for life in the water, penguins have countershaded dark and white plumage, and their wings have become flippers...
villain from The Wrong Trousers
The Wrong Trousers
The Wrong Trousers is a 1993 animated film directed by Nick Park at Aardman Animations in Bristol, featuring his characters Wallace and Gromit...
, once more. Feathers has escaped from the penguin enclosure at West Wallaby Zoo, and taken over the entire zoo, kidnapping young animals and forcing their parents to work for him, helping him towards his ultimate goal - turning the zoo into a diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
mine.
Wallace and Gromit, meanwhile, have adopted one of the zoo's baby polar bear
Polar Bear
The polar bear is a bear native largely within the Arctic Circle encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the world's largest land carnivore and also the largest bear, together with the omnivorous Kodiak Bear, which is approximately the same size...
s, named Archie. As they go to visit the zoo to celebrate his birthday, they find the zoo closed. A quick spot of inventing back at the house, and they prepare to embark on their latest adventure. Hiding inside a giant wooden penguin, a parody of the famous Trojan horse
Trojan Horse
The Trojan Horse is a tale from the Trojan War about the stratagem that allowed the Greeks finally to enter the city of Troy and end the conflict. In the canonical version, after a fruitless 10-year siege, the Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse, and hid a select force of men inside...
, they infiltrate the zoo, and set about rescuing the animals and undoing Feathers' work.
As Wallace and Gromit delve deeper into the zoo they discover ancient temple exhibits (complete with booby traps), drills, lava, loads of machinery, and even snow slides as they travel about the six levels; in each they must save three baby animals: elephants in the Jungle Exhibit, beavers in the mines, gorillas in the subterranean facility, pandas in the warehouse, polar bears in the Polar Exhibit, and zebras in the factories.
As Gromit, the player must use Wallace's bizarre inventions - including the Porridge Gun, Turnip Launcher, Springy Boots, Melt-o-matic and Techno Trousers - to battle Feathers McGraw's robotic minions and rescue the baby animals in typical platform game
Platform game
A platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...
style. The game was praised by reviewers for keeping "the flavour of the original claymation".
Reception
Project Zoo received a favorable total score by critics. GamespotGameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
ranked the game with a 6.5, claiming that the story of the adventure was very interesting, but the developers could not find a way to get it into a platformer game, pointing out that the game's biggest fault is its platform jumping style. IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
praised Project Zoo for the most part, but insisted that many levels and functions needed further polishing and testing. Generally, the game was described as a good one, though still missing vital elements for a platformer. Nevertheless, Project Zoo sold quite well, probably due to the large number of Wallace & Gromit fans, and the fact that it was the first major game based on the series.
Not as popular as the console versions, the PC port of the game was reported to have numerous glitches and bugs reducing the speed and quality of the graphics of Project Zoo, even making the game crash or rendering it unable to be launched by the user. Mainly due to this, the PC version of Project Zoo was abandoned by players as problematic, and as a result the number of copies sold for Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
was very low.