Genre : Adventure
Developer: Telltale Games
Players: 1
Retail Price: $9, or $35 as part of Wallace and Gromit’s Grand Adventures
Availability: PC
Well kids, we’ve reached it. The end of the Wallace and Gromit line. It’s doubtful that you’d consider picking up The Bogey Man unless you’ve played the other three installments — at least I wouldn’t suggest it — and so you should be familiar with the setting and dramatis personae by now. The final episode starts almost immediately after the end of Muzzled, dealing with the sticky situation Wallace has gotten himself into with Felicity Flitt.
Without giving anything away (though if you haven’t played the previous episodes yet, it’s really your own fault), Wallace finds himself a member of the Prickly Thicket golf club. I need to take a minute here to praise the series for its names: they had been doing a great job with Mr. Paneer (the Indian man who sells cheese? Get it?) and Duncan MacBiscuit (or is it McBiscuit?) and now Prickly Thicket, especially the way Constable Dibbins says it, well… this Anglophile is in heaven.
There was a nice touch in the dining room of the house: the winner of Telltale’s art contest was framed above the fireplace (at first I wondered why it looked so familiar). This was in addition to the usual number of things that make me smile: the Prickly Thicket headquarters has a tea time bell, a tee time bell and a tee hee time bell (the ringing of which summons a bad golf-themed joke). Then there are the distant relatives of Wallace and Gromit you find out about, the inventor Witlace and his dog Gimlit.
Unfortunately, The Bogey Man is not without its problems. I wonder if Telltale didn’t have too much on their plate, releasing Launch of the Screaming Narwhal in the same month, because there are a number of graphical and gameplay glitches and oddities. Collision detection disappearing golf clubs and odd camera angles were alongside small gameplay issues like Duncan telling you it’s not time to play golf while you’re playing golf and both signs leading from your house being subtitled ‘go to town’ (though the other did read ‘go to clubhouse’ on the sign). These were small things, to be sure: you can still play it perfectly well, but it’s lacking a lot of the polish I’ve seen in the Monkey Island games.
Don’t let that detract from your decision to buy the series, though: The Bogey Man still brings new situations to the table, even at the very end (though I will say that the repetitive screaming at the final puzzle made me want to punch something squishy and cute). When you think you’ve finished it another puzzle suddenly leaps out and off you go for at least another half hour. I don’t think they’ve done themselves any favors by releasing Tales of Monkey Island around the finale of Wallace and Gromit’s Grand Adventures, as the Monkey Island games seem so much more vibrant and exciting, but Wallace and Gromit still bring a lot to the table, and I’ll miss references to a cuppa in my games.
