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Wallace and Gromit Game Preview
MBCook writes "Gamers.com has a preview of the game based on the upcoming movie (due in 2005). The preview includes 10 screenshots and some descriptions of game play. The game is expected to be released by the end of the year for the PS2 and the X-Box. The player controls Gromit in an attempt to stop Feathers McGraw from using the inhabitants of the local zoo in his jewel smuggling operations. With levels, like in Sly Cooper, that are designed to be more than a 2D platformer on rails, this looks like a game to look forward to." I've got patent pending on that!
The penguin [Feathers McGraw] is EVIL! Is this mere coincidence, or Microsoft propaganda, given that the game will be available on the X-Box? In fact, I'm sure that Aardman Animation is really an off-shoot of MS, attempting to derive some sort of profit on the X-Box while at the same time sending subliminal messages to gamers across the world, convincing them that Penguins, Linux and OperSource is bad. Also, is it just coincidence the Gromit looks kinda like that dog that was one of the ill-fated MS Office Assistants from wayback? Smells kinda fishy to me...
(Disclaimer: I'm heavily drunk and about to go to bed. It makes sense to me NOW, but so do a lot of other things which I won't mention...
BTW, I hope it is Aardman Animation that I'm thinking of, or I'll get modded down for being factually incorrect... woah! Almost had myself fooled there!)
This sig intentionally left bla... dammit!
Who's got the whiteout?
In a word, yes. Actually doing the stop animation is time-consuming enough, but the amount of time required to make all the models is tremendous. Think whole years of work for a couple of good stop-animation models. So if this movie takes alot of time to make, do not be surprised.
Wow, they are low on polys. The terrain
looks like a square-edge fest!
At long last, a game with realistically rendered Wensleydale!
At long last, a game guaranteed to feature realistically rendered cheese! Let the French rejoice!
I was shocked and disappointed to hear that the Wallace and Gromit cartoons will be hitting both the silver screen and the console in the next few years. That the cartoons seemed to have fallen out of favor was some consolation for their initial popularity.
The Wallace and Gromit shorts promote a world-view centered around materialism and hedonism. The characters are motivated by idle pleasure and selfishness, and the absurdity and pessimism of their "adventures" encourage existential angst in young, impressionable minds.
That there has been no public outcry against these cartoons, and rather they seem to be enjoying a resurgance in popularity, speaks to the moral bankruptcy of contemporary Western society.
Boromir, son of Faramir, King of Gondor and Minas Tirith
Wallace and Grommit offical site
better looking than the developers site which truly looks like the car mechanic's car
The first wallace and grommit was "a grand day out" about an adventure they went on to get more cheese. Where is the biggest supply of cheese? Hence all the cheese jokes, dear moderators. This came out in 1991, so it is more likely that Microsoft stole the dog image from aardman than vice versa.
My favourite penguin has always been Opus. And did not the original evil pengiun from Batman, predate Linux? Linux was also created in 1991 another coincidence?
Like all things, some penguins are good and some are not.
I notice that in the screen shots of, (for example), the tractor, the wheels are not round but rather a 13-sided semi-circle shaped object.
Is it still too computationally expensive to draw a proper 3D circle in a game like this using todays hardware?
I realise a "true" circle is probably impossible/impractical, but even a 50-sided circle would probably be enough to fool the eye. Or would this have such a negative effective on FPS that it wouldn't be worth it?
Consider a live movie: you get the actors in place for a shot, and then they do it while the camera rolls.
Now stop motion: You get the "actors" in place for the shot, then you take a frame or three, then move them a little, then another couple frames, then move them a little. And consider that each frame--even if it gets used--is a small fraction of a second. If you want to do it well, it takes time.
"Is the GameCube really that abysmal that it can't handle a platform game?"
Probably more like "Does the XBox not have anything to compete with our new platformer?"
The GameCube has Sunshine, and Wario (plus rumours of Mario 128) on its way. The PS2 has Jak 'n' Daxter (considered by some to be better than Sunshine, even). The XBox has Blinx. I know where I'd release my platform title...
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Just me, or does the seventh screenshot look like a sonic game with the collected nuts being dropped like sonic's coins?
Suprised that they're also publishing screenshots that have obvious glitches in em' too.
Download MAME, then download the Metal Slug series (1,2,X and 3) for good platformers. There are loads of shoot-em-ups too from a couple of years back. Big downloads though - Metal Slug 3 is around 78MB. I love the 2D platform games as someone else mentioned, you can get plenty for mobile phones now (a friend of mine recently finished the old platformer Manic Miner for phones - it uses the graphics from the GBA version) ...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
While you're waiting for it to go back up, check out Wallace & Gromit's Crackling Contraptions, especially if you've never seen any of the duo's shorts before. (Beware, AtomFilms only use the Windows Media Player format now.)
Wallace and Gromit also have an official site, available from the Aardman Animation site. -Mr. Fusion
Cracking toast, Grommit!
well, I was going to mod you down, but there isn't a "-1, incomprehensible" mod
I mean, "Wallace and Gromit... have to free 24 levels worth of imprisoned baby animals..." and yet no GameCube version?
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
The game, which is based on the movie, is coming out the end of 2003, but the movie isn't being released until 2005? Does it really take that long to do those stop animation films?
Abolutely! In one of the interviews on the Chicken Run DVD (also by Nick Park / Aardman) it took over 18 months to film the sequence that took place inside the chiken pie making machine, and that segment was only a few minutes long.
Typically, the amount of footage an animator can generate in a day is measured in seconds...
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
Cracking post, Gromit.
(IE? It's the wrong browser, Gromit! And it's gone wrong!)
I don't know why the gamers.com site seems to miss this point, but according to the BAM website for the game it is also being published for the GameCube.
It's also listed on Nintendo's master game list under "W".
There are even more platformers on the Gamecube than that. The Sonic games have been/are ported. The Harry Potter game is loads of fun. Luigi's Mansion was a Launch title. A Kirby game is on the way. A Pitfall game is in the works.
I'm willing to bet that it has more platformers than even the PS2.
The game, which is based on the movie, is coming out the end of 2003, but the movie isn't being released until 2005? Does it really take that long to do those stop animation films?
As the others have pointed out, this is entirely believable. What really gives me pause to think is that Hollywood was actually interested in such a long-term project! Does anyone know how long it takes to make a traditional animated film? A computer-animated film? How about a live action film? I would guess that in these cases it would take less time. So I'm surprised that Hollywood was willing to look at something that takes multiple years to create. The only thing I can think of is that maybe this stop-motion claymation actually costs less money to make because of the low level of technology. I don't know.
Maybe I'm completely out of touch with how Hollywood does business but I'm surprised that they were willing to invest in a film that wouldn't see the light of day until 2005.
GMD
watch this
Think of Feathers McGraw, the penguin, in the animated short -- he had no facial expression at all, but they made him sinister just by letting the camera linger an extra split second on that blank face, you know? How do you catch that feeling in a game? Cut scenes before you go to the standard-platform-jumper play? What-ever.
Kind of sad. They'd make a better game by having Wallace build his whacked-out inventions to overcome various obstacles, wouldn't they?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I guess there's a few reasons why Hollywood would want to do this a Wallace and Gromit film:
I was worried about Chicken Run, as I thought the combination of Mel Gibson and Disney was going to overwhelm the charm and subtlety (and, let's face it, Englishness) of Aardvark's films. As it turned out, Gibson seemed to understand and was completely cool with the Aardvark style; Disney knew when to butt out. Brownie points all round.
Please remain calm, there is no reason to pani... wait, where are you all going?