The Collection Chamber: WALLACE & GROMIT IN PROJECT ZOO

Go one - ruffle dome feathers!

This time Feathers means business. He's taken over the Zoo, enslaved the inhabitants and imprisoned their babies! It's time for Wallace and Gromit to put a stop to that villainous penguin once and for all. Get ready for the escapade of a life time and join our heroes in this hilarious action adventure. This is one penguin that really takes the biscuit!

BONUS!!

Unlock scenes from Aardman's award-winning film 'The Wrong Trousers' as well as 'The Snoozzatron', Wallace & Gromit's latest short film from the Cracking Contraption series.
Bound through 23 hilarious and exciting missions in 7 huge levels.
Teach this old dog a few new tricks such as back flips, somersaults, karate-style moves and even break-dancing!
Collect contraption parts to build Wallace's fabulous inventions including the Banana Gun, Porridge Flinger and more!
Fight your way through a host of mechanical toy-bot enemies.

~ from the back of the box

I know the gadget-filled shenanigans of Wallace & Gromit are well regarded throughout the world, but in the UK, they are a national treasure. To coincide with a series of very short animations (10 episodes of about 1-2 minutes each called Cracking Contraptions) airing on the BBC in 2002, British-born developers Frontier (or Planet Coaster and Planet Zoo fame) was commissioned to create a multi-format 3D platformer. And, despite some average reviews at the time, I think they had a rather good crack at it.

Wallace & Gromit did one of those adopt-an-animal fundraiser things, and has become rather friendly with their polar bear named Archie. It's his birthday, so the duo head off to West Wallaby Zoo to pay him a visit. Alas, the zoo is under "new mangament" (sic) - none other than that evil criminal penguin Feathers McGraw - and he's enslaved the animals to work in his underground diamond mine. It's up to Wallace & Gromit - mainly Gromit - to save the day.

Collect coins to unlock video sequences from the main menu (left).
Access these vending machines to replenish your ammo (right).

What follows is a fairly traditional 3D platformer, with some neat gimmicks thrown in. And by gimmicks, I mean the gadgety kind. As Gromit, the main item to collect is nuts and bolts. Gather enough and Wallace can build clever gadgets to help on your adventure. From the off, you will gain access to a banana gun that shoots the yellow fruit out of the remains of a coin-operated view finder. Later on you will gain access to a porridge gun and a turnip launcher. While you'll mostly use them to shoot at targets to solve puzzles or at McGraw's robotic henchmen which are your main enemies, you might also uncover the odd Easter egg too. Aim a banana at a monkey, and the pesky chimp will temporarily stop hurling coconuts at you while he has a munch. There are a lot of these little details throughout the game which give it a whole heap of personality.

There are 6 stages, each consisting of a series on inter-linked levels, and there are a number of other collectables to find. The most important are baby animals locked in cages. Finding them will directly open the next area so it's impossible to progress without them. Each stage has a different animal, beginning with elephants in the opening jungle area, to beavers in the underground mines and zebras in the end stage. They're not hard to find, but many require some puzzling about to get them back to their parents. Beyond the animals, there are also tools which give off a handy hum if you're near. Nuts and bolts may be necessary to create contraptions, but sometimes Wallace really needs a chainsaw or a monkey wrench.

Give a little whistle to call Wallace over to you (left).
He will then use up nuts and bolts to fix broken machinery scattered throughout each stage (right).

The last major collectable are the coins. There are thirty scattered around each stage and when found, Gromit will dance a little jig. You might be forgiven in thinking these are the game's version of Star Sprites or Jiggies, but in actuality they are completely superfluous. For every 10 you collect, a new video clip will be unlocked in the Extras section of the main menu and include behind-the-scenes footage at Aardman animations or clips from the short that features Feather McGraw; The Wrong Trousers. It would seem they're for completionists only, but I found some of the most entertaining challenges reward you with these. The open-world stages hide gauntlet-like bonus areas, neat little puzzles or tricky platforming asides that flesh out an otherwise short and linear game.

You do all of this solely as Gromit. Not once do you control the buck-toothed tinkerer throughout the entire runtime, but he is ever present. Tapping the action button will make Gromit whistle to his owner who will lumberingly run to your side. He will then automatically perform actions the are next to you, such as fixing a switch or control panel, creating a new gadget or assist in solving a puzzle. He can sometimes get stuck if he's on the other side of the map, and it's not possible for him to scale heights or swim so you will have to open up a clear path should you need him, but this mechanic makes for some nice puzzles. It's not nearly utilised enough, and there are ways they could've taken the mechanic further, but I generally like how it's implemented.

If you're stuck with what to do, the Hints screen will give you an idea (left).

Hold the Inventory button to select a different gadget (right).

While you can see everything there is to see in matter of hours - around six if you're a platforming guru - what you do see is well designed both in terms of gameplay and visuals. Our main duo look just like their plasticine counterparts and are animated as if they were stop-motion. The environments are detailed, expansive and a joy to explore even it there's no way it could ever resemble a real zoo. This one seems to have been built on top of not just a diamond mine, but an active volcano. And that's not mentioning McGraw's secret underground evil lair. Before playing, I thought the stages within a zoo would be the right kind of creative restriction to unearth imaginative level design, but in the end you are just left with the same old tropes; a jungle level, a fire level, an ice level...

If there was one major flaw it's in the camera. In cramped environments, it doesn't know where to place itself choosing to float high above you without much thought in where you want to look at, and it will often snap to a different angle at a critical moment sabotaging that precise jump you were in the middle of. It's not unusual to attack an enemy off-screen in the hopes that they just so happen to be in your line of fire, but at least the auto-aim is competently implemented. You can control the camera with the rigt thumb stick, but without the option to invert the directions I never once gelled with it. The platforming is also a little hard to judge at times. I found Gromit wouldn't jump to where you might expect, often from the top of a ladder, and I would end up missing the ledge completely. It's not a gamebreaker, but the fiddly controls needed a touch more polish to truly rival the greats.

It's saying a lot that it nearly does this, though. The game is filled with character and whimsy with some neat little tricks here and there. Only the camera a and occasionally iffy controls hold it back. Nevertheless, Wallace & Gromit in Project Zoo is a cracking good time.

To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber runs natively on Windows. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.

File Size: 513 Mb. Install Size: 632 Mb. Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

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