Wallace and Gromit head to E3 as Telltale celebrates its fifth birthday

As E3 approaches it’s nice to know a home-grown institution (albeit developed by an American company) will be representing British eccentricity and humour as the new Wallace and Gromit series of adventures is set to be unveiled. The current series of Wallace and Gromit’s Grand Adventures are being released monthly for the PC and will be coming soon to Xbox LIVE Arcade. The episodic format of the series has proved successful and has become Telltale’s trademark.

Every month Telltale releases a new game episode, a move which is unique to Telltale and one which Co-founder Kevin Bruner says “fosters creativity”. While the point-and-click genre often gets overlooked (maybe because it’s called point-and-click, not the best name) with the high quality of these games, and the fact that new material is being constantly released, it may help a genre which has always borne as much of a resemblance to the narrative style of television and books as it has to computer games.

In Wallace and Gromit’s second episode, The Last Resort, the rain is foiling their holiday plans so they bring the beach to their basement. They open it to the public and the game becomes a whodunnit as one of them is clonked on the head by an unknown assailant. The next episode Muzzled sees Wallace and Gromit attempting to foil con man Monty Muzzle’s latest scheme. They see through his plot for a grand fundraiser to rebuild the local dog shelter and have to stop him, saving the town’s dog population and their money. Muzzled is due to be released in June, The Last Resort is available now.

If cheese and crackers doesn’t appeal to your gaming palette then the latest episodes of Sam & Max is available or the surreally comic adventures of wrestling masked email answerer Strong Bad. Episodic games when done this well are the perfect mixture of what makes television and games great, although I can’t imagine it working so well or being released so frequently in any other genre, I mean as much as I love the Half Life series, I could hardly call its ‘episodes’ episodic (though they’re always worth the wait). To celebrate their fifth anniversary Telltale are giving away store credits for spreading the word when you register for their newsletter on the official website