It may be preaching to choir, but it
needs to be said – video-game adaptations of films hardly ever succeed in
producing high-end quality. That’s right, for at least every 10 licensed video
games, only one in the pack may be deemed worthy of attention. So is The
Spiderwick Chronicles any different than the norm? Unfortunately for all
gamers, and not to forget fans of the series, it’s not.
Let’s get this out of the way
because it needs mentioning – I highly advise everyone looking to play the video
game to watch the film or at least read the book before buying the game because
it’ll make it that much easier to understand the storyline. Also, you’ll at
least know beforehand if you are even interested in playing out your favorite
scenes from the movie or book.
With that out of the way, let’s talk
about the storyline; it’s one that runs the usual course set by the fantasy
world forerunners such as Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia
with having a young hero out and about trying to find a way to stop an evil
presence (in The Spiderwick Chronicles is Mulgarath, an evil
shape-shifting ogre) from doing his wicked biding. If you have watched any of
the last fantasy-film entries, then you’ll know what to expect right from the
start in terms of storyline progression.
As for the game you’ll play as one
of three characters – Molly, Jared and Simon Grace – from the movie that’ll go
on their hunt through the main location of the film, Spiderwick Estate. To fill
everyone in on how the “fantasy world” is connected to the real one, Jared Grace
just so happens to stumble upon a secret room in the Spiderwick Estate and finds
the book “Arthur Spiderwick’s Guide to the Fantastical World Around You,”
a book written by their great uncle. This is when all the magical creatures
come out to play, many of which are out to take the book for their own.
For the gameplay, the genre of the game
is basically a hack-‘n-slash with a bit of item collecting. There are a few
objectives to help diversify the gameplay, such as catching faeries. This
portion of the game is reminiscent of Ape Escape in which players will
run around the game world with a special net and try and catch faeries that are
in the air or on the ground. The upside of catching faeries is the ability to
use their special abilities to your own advantage. With abilities such as
strength, health regeneration and much more, this makes the game a little more
interesting with picking and choosing which faeries you want to carry along for
your journey. Up to three faeries are allowed, so picking and choosing wisely
is a must.
Also, each of the characters is
equipped with a different weapon which can eventually become stronger through
attack combos as he or she kills more enemies. But, don’t look as this as your
chance to be Ryu Hayabusa from Ninja Gaiden; The Spiderwick Chronicles
is blatantly a button-smasher with no need of intelligence to defeat your
enemies.
The worst thing about The Spiderwick
Chronicles has to be the field guide from the game option menu. Having to open
that up every time to learn what you have to do next is very detrimental on
advancing through the game with haste as you end up reading through a lot of
boring text. Another problem is that the tasks are usually detailed very clear
or quite vague – sometimes you’ll never know what to do but randomly guess what
the next step at completing the quest is.
As for the graphics, they aren’t as
disappointing as the core gameplay. You’ll run into a few frame-rate problems,
but they don’t occur frequently enough to bother your run through of the game. In addition, to bring players up to speed on what is happening, are several
clips from the film that are spread throughout the game to make it a little more
interesting. Not the most enticing offer, but I am the sure young ones won’t
care too much about the graphics and what is presented before them.
|
Review Scoring Details for The Spiderwick Chronicles |
Gameplay: 5.0
Be prepared to fight off a lot of
generic goblins with all your might. It’ll only take about six or so hours to
speed through The Spiderwick Chronicles.
Graphics: 6.0
The graphics are nothing that’ll
rise to the heavens. They are what gamers should come to expect with licensed
video games: dull and hardly “next-gen” material.
Sound: 6.5
If you liked the soundtrack and
score of the movie, then you’ll feel at home with the video game.
Difficulty: Easy
It’s barely on the difficult side of
things; you’ll hit buttons repeatedly without having much consequence on
receiving damage in return.
Concept: 4.0
If it wasn’t for the license, this
game wouldn’t receive any attention from a publisher due to its mediocrity.
Overall: 5.5
The Spiderwick Chronicles won’t
appeal to anyone that is out of their teens – this is primarily aimed at the
younger crowd, the fans of the film, and devotees of the books. Look elsewhere
to spend your money if you aren’t a part of those three groups.
