When a game's released based on a recent movie, the majority of the time it's a terrible conversion. Recent titles such as Shrek the Third and The Golden Compass failed to impress, but Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was a title which boosted faith in the licensed movie-to-game genre. In the latest attempt at trying to have a successful film-to-game conversion we have The Spiderwick Chronicles, originally based on the five books written by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black.
The start of The Spiderwick Chronicles sees the Grace family (made up of the mother, daughter Mallory and twins Jared and Simon) move into their new home and Jared discovers a dumbwaiter system behind a wall in the house, which leads to the secret study of Arthur Spiderwick. In the study Jared discovers a book - The Spiderwick Chronicles - written by Arthur and containing information on the surrounding magical creatures and enchantments. Thimbletack, a brownie, warns Jared not to take the book outside of the magical protective Circle of Toadstools around the house as a shape-shifting ogre, Mulgarath, is after it. Thimbletack also gives Jared a seeing stone which allows him to see the magical creatures that aren't visible to the naked eye. Now having the book, Jared's brother Simon is kidnapped by Mulgarath's goblins having mistaken Simon for Jared and it's up to the three children to work together in order to defeat Mulgarath and prevent him from stealing The Spiderwick Chronicles...
