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The Spiderwick Chronicles is a game based on the movie of the same title. The story sees a family's battle to save the Spiderwick's field guide to faeries from the goblins who want the book for evil purposes. The Chronicles are also a series of children's books. After moving into a mansion in the Spiderwick Estate left to them by their great-aunt Lucinda, Mallory and twins Simon and Jared decide to do some exploring. Mallory discovers a dumbwaiter in the kitchen and Jared discovers a hidden study. In a chest he finds the Spiderwick's field guide and despite being warned not to read it he does. Shortly afterwards he begins to see sprites in the estate and the battle to protect the book from the goblins begins...... The game entails that you play as all three children through different quests plus a brownie called Thimbletack, who the children meet and aids them in their quest. Using a third person view you control either one of the children or Thimblestack depending on the quest that you are doing at the time. Each child has a different weapon to use, Jerad has both short range and long range, you pick up power ups and health by collecting the sprites with a net. Once caught the sprite must be recorded, using a paintbrush it is uncovered very much like those magic colouring books that children have where you use a paintbrush and water. After you have successfully captured and recorded the sprite then you get to use the sprite's power, be it health, dash, damage boosters, toadstool circles (goblins hate toadstools) or powers that will confuse the enemy. There is an impressive amount of these sprites, which immerse you into the fantasy world. The gameplay is simple, using the analogue sticks to control the character and the A button to use a weapon or net and with the long range weapons the left analogue stick to aim, with right bumper cycling through the different power ups you can pick up from sprites and Y to use the power up. The field guide, accessed by pressing start, holds any quests that are active and also a checklist of items you need to collect to complete side quests and your active missions to follow the story. At the end of each chapter you get to see real clips of the movie, something that adds a bit extra to usual games based on movies and is very well done. Through this you can see that the characters have been presented well and are very alike to the movie. The chapters are action packed, you will find yourself defeating hoards of goblins and other mystical creatures and there are many things to collect. Each goblin you defeat drops one, two or three goblin teeth, these are used to unlock new attacks and increase the power of the weapons. New weapons are unlocked too as you go through the game. The combat works well and you face large trolls as well as goblins. It's not all hitting them with a weapon either, a goblin may jump on your back, by using the left analogue stick you must wiggle it to throw him off. There is a certain amount of platform action too where you run and jump across obstacles to get to the place you need to go and the game isn't confined to just the mansion, the estate, forest, deep forest and quarry is all open to explore. There are also a few chase scenes. The game consists of a fair amount of puzzles, such as finding a fuse for a power box and gathering the right ingredients to make a weapon or solving a riddle to open a door. A lot of the items you will stumble across anyway as you go through the story, if the items aren't needed at the time you can remember where you saw them. There is the ability to free roam so that you can collect the items and sprites for the field book. The field book and story do a good job of dropping hints to forward the story, but you may find yourself lost in places. Multiplayer is not automatically unlocked, once unlocked it allows you to play with a friend to capture huge amounts of sprites or defeat hoards of goblins and trolls against a time limit or an amount goal. Graphically it is mainly great, but for a few flaws. The movie clips at the end of each chapter draw you in to the story and do look very good. The game is rather dark in places, but prompts you to adjust the brightness at the beginning. The soundtrack is brilliantly done and sounds like it is the actual movie soundtrack. It fits in very well with the atmosphere of the game. The Spiderwick Chronicles is a fun game that draws you in to its fantasy world. With a great many mythical creatures, even a griffin! It has a unique feel and a good variety of quests. Something that younger gamers would love. Graphics 7.0 Gameplay 7.0 Audio 8.5 Longevity 7.5 Overall 7.2