Konami to publish Wallace & Gromit

Konami today announced that it will be publishing the game based on Dreamworks' upcoming stop-motion animated movie Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. The film features the titular man-and-dog claymation duo, which appeared in a series of popular shorts in the late 1990s. The short's Oscar-winning creator, Aardman Animation, also created the 2000 film Chicken Run.

Developed by UK-based Frontier Developments (RollerCoaster Tycoon 3), Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit will follow the events of the movie, in which the scatterbrained tinkerer Wallace and his loyal dog, Gromit, are called on to protect a giant vegetable contest from a beastly terror. Players must use cooperative gameplay as Wallace, Gromit, and their rabbit friend Hutch negotiate four free-roaming play areas that span the titular duo's hometown of West Wallaby.

Three-time Oscar-winning Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park even lent a hand to the game's development. "The game has given us the opportunity to create a more adventurous environment for the characters," Park said. "Deeper storylines, that couldn't be accommodated in the film, have been developed and are there ready to be explored. The were-creatures, for example, was a theme we would have loved to have included in the film. I'm delighted to say that they are here in the game."

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit will be released for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in October and will mark the pair's second appearance on consoles. Wallace & Gromit in Project Zoo was released in 2003 on the Xbox, PS2, and GameCube.