Price: £39.99 Players: 1-2 (plus co-op) Widescreen: Yes 60Hz: Yes (only) Dolby Digital 5.1 sound: Yes Xbox Live-enabled: No The Spiderwick Chronicles is a children's fantasy feature film being released in the UK in late March, just in time for the Easter holidays, and centres around a magical wood full of bizarre creatures in the bottom of a back garden, documented by Arthur Spiderwick who lives there (well, he owns the house - he doesn't camp out). Anyhoo, he gets bumped off by what he finds and 80 years later his niece moves in with her three children, daughter Mallory and twin sons Jared and Simon.

If you like running around and messing about with brief, mediocre 'missions', and are not yet a teenager then you'll have a blast with this. Unfortunately, for someone over 20 years older, like me, who'd never even heard of the title until the game dropped on his doormat, it just looks like so many other games based on films - all of which seem to base themselves on a Tomb Raider-style format with a game engine that was first used several years ago, so although the movement is fluid and if the premise grabs you then you'll look forward to what's inside, for anyone who has been around the gaming block a time or two, it's very lacking. There's also too many items around the house and elsewhere that are just marked 'look at this', and you have to complete a number of other very standard small tasks before you can move on and interact properly with these things.

Beyond that, there are some additional features to the game which are as follows: Film trailer: It's very The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and The Golden Compass, so that's the kind of audience they're aiming at. Simon and Schuster Video: This is a dialogue-free advert for the Spiderwick books and although you see the people behind the book - Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, there's no interview with them which is what I was expecting. Game Cinematics: Unlockable clips from playing through the single player game. Multiplayer: It's only a 2-player co-op, not on Xbox Live, but you can't even play this until you've completed the single player game! That's not very sporting for a computer game. More info on the film can be found at The Internet Movie Database. Note that I wasn't able to add any game footage to this review because it can only be played in 60Hz mode.

GRAPHICS SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC PLAYABILITY ENJOYMENT ENJOYMENT (for children)
OVERALL OVERALL (for children)

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2008.