VideogameVagabond.com

It’s quickly becoming clear that the Xbox 360 is becoming the new platform of choice for RPG fans, and Atlus’ Spectral Force 3 release is a clear case-in-point. As a Tactics-style RPG with a strong Japanese influence, Spectral Force 3 is exactly the kind of RPG that, in the previous generation of hardware, would have appeared on PlayStation 2 without a second’s hesitation; so its appearance on Xbox 360 with no announcements of a PS3 version could signify a lot about the direction of RPGs in this generation.

The game focuses on a band of military mercenaries under the leadership of grizzled veteran Judo; when he receives a mortal wound early on, he makes a split decision to pass leadership of his ragtag group of warriors on to the raw, mostly untested Begina, rather than a more veteran member of the cadre.

It’s a decision that seems destined for ridicule and to drive Begina to an addiction to weight loss pills, though eventually the rest of the group comes ‘round and decides to give him a chance.

As for the gameplay itself, it is standard Tactics-style RPG fare. This, of course, is a good thing if you consider games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Disgaea to be the pinnacle of an enjoyable gaming experience; many do. The game offers a solid mix of storytelling and action, loads of side-quests and a challenging battle system that keeps adding new elements to maintain freshness throughout the epic storyline.

The leveling up system is quick and easy, and allows you to make gains right in the middle of battle, as soon as you reach the necessary level of experience to advance. Each battle also rewards you with some pooled experience points you can distribute as you see fit, post-battle, and is useful for helping newly-acquired characters catch up to the rest of your party if they join up later in the game.

The backdrop is a European-like continent that is in a continual state of war as multiple sides fight for dominance; early on, you’ll receive most of your missions from one side only and the main missions will help turn the tide of battle to their side. However, as the story progresses, you’ll be able to change allegiances like any true mercenary.

The story itself is rather generic when it comes right down to it; the characters do not aspire to grow beyond genre expectations and the plot developments won’t surprise veterans of this genre much. Still, the dialog is witty at times and the core attractions, really, are the lovely complex battles.

Sure, the graphics are nothing revolutionary and could just as easily have been pulled off on last-gen hardware; but then Tactics-style RPGs have rarely been noticed for their cutting-edge graphics – game play is king.

Due to some great depth, smart map design and a wide variety of foes offering various challenges to success, Spectral Force 3 is a solid entry into the genre that won’t leave you bored after the first dozen or so battles. The only thing holding it back from true greatness is a more engaging and original storyline. Beyond that, the challenge level ramps up at a nice, accessible pace while still offering a chance to be outwitted every step of the way. Good show!

Playing Zoids Assault is like fooling around with a girl who needs to use a lot of acne scars cream; you may get somewhere, but you won’t feel good about doing it. What this Atlus-published turn-based strategy RPG with a military flavor wants more than anything is to be the next Front Mission (SquareEnix’s storied military strat-RPG). Instead, it plays more like a less action-oriented version of some Mobile Suit Gundam game, only worse.

Now, I usually enjoy a good, solid Tactics-style RPG as much as anyone you could name; but that’s not what Zoids Assault is. It’s more of a turn-based military strategy game with RPG aspirations that never really pan out. The graphics, while attempting to be next-gen, simply don’t impress, especially since the horrid game camera frequently places your point of view to one of the least-complementary angles possible for each action following a turn choice.

The battle system is complex and never sufficiently explained; the game simply tosses you into the middle of an extremely challenging battle against aggressive AI foes who will probably finish you off a couple times before you find your way around and take out the enemy. Of course, only dedicated fans will possess that much patience for a game that has no tutorial mode, poor documentation and an imposing learning curve.

I mean, really, who wants to invest three or four hours in your first two or three battles, only to win once and never really come away from the experience knowing much about why you lost. Making matters worse is that the game offers no way to revive fallen units once they’ve been dispatched by enemy forces, which even in the first battle are frequently more powerful than yours.

It’s nice to see Xbox 360 getting some Atlus-love and building a respectable RPG library, but this sort of me-too-ware is a disappointment, rather than a must-have for any discerning RPG lover. It’s a bit too early in the new generation of hardware for garbageware to be tolerable, and unfortunately, that’s the category Zoids Assault falls into; if you can only choose one Atlus RPG on 360 this summer, skip this one and be sure to grab the impressive Spectral Force 3 instead.

When Madden NFL 09 is release this week, so will the new metallic blue Sony PSP Slim model. Anyone who missed out on the metallic red version released with God of War earlier this year needs to jump all over this Madden 09 special-edition PSP Slim.

Although I’m happy with my silver PSP, I can honestly say that if the metallic red or metallic blue models had been available at the time I bought mine, I would have jumped all over the red model, my wife would have jumped all over the blue model, and we would have simply swapped the free games that came with them. (My wife went with basic black when we upgraded her to a new PSP recently.)

Custom PSP colors are a lot of fun, and finally they’re seeing release outside of Japan; the stimulus to sales has to be worth it. It’s way more fun than buying a car cover.

How they managed it this close to release, I’ll never know, but EA Sports promises that although Brett Farve will be in green and gold on the cover, he’ll be a Jet in the game, which ships this week. In fact, in my neck of the woods, EA Sports is sponsoring an all-day Madden tournament leading up to a midnight release party for Madden 09 at the Mall of America.

Rather than worry about bathroom lighting and other household concerns, that used to be the kind of party I’d be all up for. Since getting married, however, I can now see it’s a little much just for a chance to buy a game that’ll be there later on, too.

Still, Madden is a great game again now that they wasted about four years getting the 360/PS3 versions up to speed with the previous-gen versions. Now that the features are equal, the game’s worth buying again, but you can bet EA Sports dragged its heels that long only because their exclusive license for NFL games gave them the leeway to do so.

Madden fever’s back, but I’m not afflicted with it. Thank John!

I’ve played demos of Total Extreme Wrestling long before I was asked to review this title, and I must say that with this latest version, the game has improved considerably. While there is still room for growth, with this version Total Extreme Wrestling 2008 officially becomes “playable” in my book.

What were the problems with previous versions? Well, for one thing, the series seemed dead-set on including a graphical wrestling match simulator that simply never worked very well at all. The graphics were barely up to eight-bit standards and the keyboard commands were simplistic, frustrating, and largely undocumented. Even walking down to the ring was a chore too ugly to contemplate, let alone do regularly. (Or am I thinking of Wrestling Spirit, Adam’s other wrestling title? I think both had that ugly match simulator at one point…)

Fortunately, the series has taken a turn in a markedly positive direction. TEW 2008 seems to have abandoned the graphical match simulator entirely (Yay!) and settled firmly into the PC text-based sports management sim category. And if anyone is thinking that such games went out of vogue with PC tape drives, think again. The interface for this game is quite good, and a marked improvement from previous outings; the level of art design is also a significant step forward.

For anyone who’s wondering what this type of game is and how it would compare to, say, Smackdown vs. Raw 2009, I would say this: think about that mode where you get to book Raw or Smackdown, making matches and filling out storylines and feuds… only imagine a version of that that actually works and is far, far deeper. Start going along those lines and you’ll have an idea of what kind of game TEW2008 is; and it does hold some addictive gameplay appeal for all the wannabe wrestling bookers out there.

Developer Adam Ryland, who has a clear love for pro wrestling (as well as mixed martial arts, but that’s another game…) has been perfecting his formula for several years now, and this time out, the result is a playable game, but not one without a rather steep learning curve.

One of the difficult aspects of TEW2008 is that there’s not an in-game, step-by-step tutorial as you’re getting started. The mysteries of the many and deep options within the game remain mysteries except by trial and error. Of course, there is some scant “getting started” information in a Word document, if you hit the right Help option; and it’s enough to get you through booking your first TV event.

But as for strategy on how to play the game well and earn good results? Well, there’s not much to go on within the game. Part of the challenge is that, for legal reasons, TEW2008 can’t emulate any real wrestling organizations or personalities. Therefore, there is no WWE, no TNA, no New Japan in the game. There are organizations reminiscent of them, but that’s all.

The game, in fact, is set in a fictional world called the “Cornell-verse,” and so unless you’re a longtime fan of the series and know what the heck is going on, it’s easy to get lost. For example, I started a freestyle career as head booker for the game’s WWE-like organization, SWF. With a roster clocking in at around 52 wrestlers, including a few who are “in development,” though most are active, it’s hard to know who’s who and how to book them.

Were the game licensed and able to offer up real-world figures, it would be easier to follow. After all, if I’m in WWE booking Raw, it’s easy to know that Randy Orton vs. John Cena is a main event-caliber match, and one you might want to save for a PPV. However, in the SWF, despite some helpful tools like the “creative meeting” to rank who’s hot, who’s not, who’s a main eventer, etc., it’s just a mammoth task to familiarize yourself enough with the cast at your disposal in order to properly book a show.

For example, the current SWF champ with the game starts is Jack Bruce, who’s slightly like Jeff Hardy. He’s a main event face, so I quickly involved him in a “challenger steals championship belt” storyline against Remo – who turned out, upon further inspection, to be more like MVP than Batista. So even though he’s a main eventer, he wasn’t a top one and my first couple shows and first PPV did poorly.

All the booking elements you might be familiar with from Smackdown vs. Raw’s GM mode are present here, but much deeper. You are expected to have some main storylines running through your broadcast, but it’s never made clear how many storylines are ideal to manage at one time. I chose four, and it seemed perhaps a bit much as I had to fit in a lot of angle elements into my programming grid, and average only about four or five matches per 90-minute broadcast.

OK, maybe that’s WWE-standard. Trouble is, as I looked at other CPU-controlled feds who are out-performing me, they have more matches, fewer angles, and fewer overall segments and obtain better results. I programmed my first two shows like a current Raw broadcast, with interviews, video segments, skits and hype segments as well as matches. My average grade was a C+ and my PPV result was lower, which “hurt” the SWF’s overall popularity. I ran an average of 18 segments with about five matches per broadcast, mimicking the Raw formula to a T, and I get a lot of “Yuck!” as a response from the game.

So either I’m really needing to put in a lot more hours learning my roster – a considerable time commitment considering I’ve already spent over five hours reading bios and the like – or the game has some sort of winning formula that I just haven’t mastered yet. And again, it’s not like there’s a tutorial for this stuff.

Booking is the heart of this game, and it can be a real hoot; but knowing your roster is a real key, as if you don’t, you’ll get feedback like, “You used Randy Bumfhole too much in this broadcast.” OK, he’s the tag title holder along with his brother; I put him in a match at the PPV to place the straps on more popular wrestlers, and then made him the victim of a post-match beat-down by Vengeance to advance a storyline I have going with him. That’s too much? Ugh! How am I supposed to know this?

Now, on the upside, there is a whole mod support community over at publisher Grey Dog Software, who are hard at work on a “real world mod” that will replace this confusing, overpopulated fictional universe with recognizable wrestling feds and personalities, much like Wolverine Studios attracts for their college and pro basketball games. At this point, I’d have to say that a real-world mod would make TEW 2008 about 500-percent more accessible.

That being said, I do get the sense that TEW 2008 is like a huge, hibernating bear. There are a lot of powerful tools in here, and once you learn how to use them properly, you can obtain a game experience that roars. But there is still room for refinement.

For example, while it’s great that there are a ton of storylines available to choose from, what is really frustrating is searching through all of them to find one of the small handful of appropriate elements you need to advance a storyline. In my belt-stealing storyline, for example, the storyline outline told me my next segment had to be an “Escapes with Belt – So Close” element. I searched high and low and couldn’t find a Narrow Escape segment that specified “with a belt.” So I booked what I could find and my storyline didn’t advance. Ugh.

One way to improve TEW 2008, and hopefully it can be handled in an update rather than having to wait for TEW 2009, would be to have storyline steps dynamically linked so that if you click on “5. Escapes with Belt,” a short list of acceptable options would appear, rather than having to search a massive list, even if you narrow it down by broad categories like “Confrontation.” Linking storyline steps to acceptable segments to fulfill those steps would be a huge help, especially to newcomers.

It would also be nice to receive booking tips within the game that give you the option to click a couple buttons and have some necessary elements auto-filled. For example, let’s say you’ve booked your main event, a couple title defenses, and some angle segments that satisfy the three or four storylines you’re currently running, but you have 40 minutes remaining to book and about a dozen key stars who deserve some kind of appearance on the broadcast. In that event, it’d be nice to be able to click some key stars, maybe one or two other elements, and then hit an “auto-book” button that would fill out the rest of the schedule.

Or, if you’re putting together a storyline, it’d be nice to have a storyline-checker to remind you of key considerations. For example, I did a “three challengers” storyline for my Shooting Star title, and got that storyline started on my Tuesday broadcast. Next day, my email told me one of my wrestlers had been caught by drug-testing doing ‘roids and I felt he deserved a one-month suspension.

Turns out, he was involved in the “three challengers” storyline and I had to kill the entire storyline. It would have been nice to have a warning pop up saying, “Wrestler X is involved in Storyline 4,” and then be offered the chance to replace him in that storyline with another wrestler, or to choose a lighter punishment so as not to kill the storyline.

It may sound like inattentiveness on my part, but remember, my roster is 52-wrestlers strong, and I added five key free agents recently to bring that count to 57. It’s hard to keep 52 fictional wrestlers straight in your head, so some idiot-proof warnings and tools would be a huge help.

In the end, Total Extreme Wrestling 2008 is a powerful, deep and addictive title that finally brings this storied franchise to a level I consider playable; there are still key elements that could help make the game more newbie-friendly and lessen the steep learning curve involved, however, and until more of those are addressed, the game simply cannot be considered top-notch.

That said, it’s come a long way since the last couple versions, and the improvements do make the game quite appealing. With the support of a mod-community – a modern-day essential for games of this type – a real-world mod pack might make the game a bit easier to navigate, though improvements to the storyline-database interface and some idiot-proof options would also help.

The core product is quite good; Total Extreme Wrestling 2008 is quite playable, even if it is still unrefined. The point here is that the potential long present in this series is finally rising to the top and soon – perhaps through some game updates, or maybe by TEW 2009 – the current algebraic complexity and steep learning curve will be addressed so that TEW can become everything it should be. Until then, the game is still very good, but falls just short of world-class status.

Text-based sports management sims have come into their own heyday recently, and one of the franchises that’s been around since before they became cool again is the Out of the Park Baseball series by Out of the Park Developments and published by PISD Software. The latest iteration, OOTP 9, is a game that had a generously-sized development team for a game of this type – seven people.

That team includes two lead developers, three team members who did extra coding, an art designer and a product manager. Considering most games in this genre are a one- or two-developer labor of love, that’s a huge staff. Of course, modern PS3/360 platform sports videogames like Madden NFL 09 or MLB 2K9 probably have PR departments, motion-capture staffs and memberships in the wine of the month clubs that are considerably larger than that – but that’s not the sort of game this is.

As a PC-centric text-based sports management sim, the emphasis of Out of the Park Baseball 9 is not on bleeding-edge 256-bit HD graphics, but on statistically-solid, realistic gameplay. If that’s your kind of thing – and L-RD knows, baseball stats fans like their games realistic – then OOTP 9 might be the baseball sim for you.

It’s been more than one iteration since the last time I checked out OOTP, and one of the first things that jumped out at me is the interface improvements since the last time I played a demo of the game, back around OOTP Baseball 6.

The menu is large, clear and self-explanatory, and includes friendly options for those who are upgrading from previous versions of the franchise, so that they can at least try to continue their dynasties in the new version. As I didn’t have any old save files from a previous version, I wasn’t able to test this feature, but word on the chat boards seems to indicate that it’s been a relatively smooth transition, though not without some rare and minor issues.

Once you actually get started selecting your team and such, OOTP’s “manager home page” system is laid out in three-columns and is organized and self-explanatory enough to be both appealing and not a huge hurdle to accessibility. You’ll always know where your team stands, thanks to this handy layout, and while you are offered a “play today” option for games where the game can unfold pitch-by-pitch, there are also four auto-sim options that will soon become the way most folks will eventually navigate their way through a season.

The menus are all clearly defined and easy to understand, the sim-screen adds a fun visual 2D element, and if you play through a single game pitch-by-pitch, the 2D display is serviceably but never forgets that it’s a 2D, text-based, sports management sim. (That’s intended as a compliment.)

Full of stats galore, powerful player search tools, and plenty of ways to use the game as a basis for a multiplayer league, OOTP 9 is a solid entry in the series and sets a standard others in the genre will have to meet or exceed to be considered “in the game.” OOTP 9 is already a step ahead of Baseball Mogul in that it features a more flexible financial model that scales to the era appropriately; and it’s interface is superior to PureSim Baseball 2007, though Shaun Sullivan is now hard at work relaunching his franchise for Wolverine Studios under the Draft Day Sports: Baseball moniker.

But until that competitor emerges for comparison, it can be clearly stated that Out of the Park Baseball 9 is the clear standard-setting this summer when it comes to PC-based baseball management sims. With a great feature set, a superior interface and top-notch organization and design, as well as realistic results, it would be hard to name a currently-available competitor that is even … in the ballpark.

Rachet and Clank has been a popular franchise throughout the life of the PlayStation 2, and even now extending into the PlayStation 3 era; but Secret Agent Clank is a solo outing on Sony’s handheld platform for the platform hero, and it’s an entertaining, if mildly predictable outing.

In the game, Clank’s pal Rachet has been framed for a crime he didn’t commit, and the driving force of the plot is for Clank to overcome the enemies and obstacles in the way of clearing his friend’s good name and overcoming the enemy who did it all.

From action to stealth to puzzle-solving, Secret Agent Clank offers a variety of levels and gameplay styles for folks to enjoy as the action plays out. It’s an enticing recipe. Unfortunately, the game is held back by shoddy design.

In what way? Well, my wife, who poured in more time than I did, found the auto-save scheme to be very frustrating; the game operates on a series of checkpoints as you play through, and although there is a pause-menu option that allows you to play anywhere, even if you save between checkpoints, the save will only put you back to the last checkpoint you passed.

Then why even have a “save anywhere” option, if it’s not going to work that way? Stupid.

Also, the graphics were pretty much boilerplate stuff with an uninspired color scheme that stays the same a bit too much and tends to blend together, making the levels seem too much the same and lacking in any real variety.

In the end, Secret Agent Clank has some enjoyable gameplay variety, but its overall appeal is held back by its flaws. Only play this one if you’re a Rachet and Clank fanatic.

The TNT drama Witchblade, based on the Top Cow comic book written and drawn by Marc Silvestri, never really lived up to its full potential. The biggest mistake was one of the first, when Yancy Butler was cast to portray police detective Sara Pezzini, the title character of the show.

The problem is that Butler simply didn’t look the part; other than having the right colored hair, her build, personality and “cuteness” were just way off-target. Another mistake was the Witchblade armor; in the comic book, it’s usually scant and enhances the character’s visual appeal; on the show, it was a full suit of medieval armor that completely hid Butler from view and had as much visual appeal as a bunch of kitchen faucets.

That said, the show had a lot going for it; produced in 2001-2002, the show ran for two seasons and a total of 23 episodes, nearly all of them written or at least plotted by Witchblade creator Marc Silvestri, with help from J.D. Zeick. This means that, story-wise, any changes from the comic book were made by the guy who knew the character best – Silvestri.

Of course, the whole series went in the tank in the middle of the second season when star Yancy Butler was ordered into rehab for a bout of alcoholism and TNT decided to cancel the show rather than wait it out for Butler’s return or attempt to re-cast the role.

For what they are worth, all 23 episodes are in this collection; they are largely hit or miss, and the show is at its worst when that lunky metal suit is on-screen. Yet any fan of the comic book will be pleased to note that all the relationships are maintained from comic to the small screen, a rare thing when comics are translated into filmed entertainment.

The DVD collection includes a competent set of special features, although what’s really lacking is the real “behind the scenes” stuff; a documentary on Butler’s bout with alcoholism and fight back to sobriety might have made things interesting, but instead it’s mostly a collection of fanboy mini-documentaries about how the armor was utilized in the show. Yawn.

In the end, you either liked the show or you didn’t. If you did, this collection is solid enough, if several years late in appearing.

Tony Shaloub has been portraying obsessive-compulsive detective Adrian Monk for over six seasons now, as his seventh season just recently debuted on USA Network. This collection of the complete sixth season is a grand example of why his show has been so well-received for so long.

With a just-right mix of comedy and crime drama, Monk has always been Shaloub’s antidote to the several seasons he spent on NBC’s Wings, performing formulaic, cliché-ridden comedy. Just as that show was not reflective of what Shaloub considered funny, Monk embodies everything he thinks comedy ought to be; understated, realistic, a bit angst-ridden, but charming and goofball and quirky, without abandoning believability.

Sure, there are some episodes where Monk becomes a bit cartoonish, but by and large the show has grounded characters with grounded concerns. And it’s a show that’s a magnet for solid Hollywood talent to do guest cameos on; season six most notably featured Sarah Silverman and Snoop Dogg.

Some top guests over the years have included Willie Nelson as himself, Jason Alexander, Nestor Carbonell, Danny Bonaduce, Emma Caufield, Tim Curry, Tim Daly, Rachel Dratch, Larry Miller, Malcolm McDowell, Chi McBride, Howie Mandell, Alfred Molina, Kevin Nealon, Judge Reinhold, Andy Richter, Nicole Sullivan, Stanley Tucci, Steven Weber, and Rainn Wilson, just to name a few.

I’ll always prefer Sharona as Mr. Monk’s assistant, since Bitty Schram was there first; but Traylor Howard’s Natalie Teeger has grown on me over the years and it’s not the point of disappointment it once was. It should also be noted that Season Six is the final season in which the late Stanley Kamel appears as Adrian Monk’s therapist; he’ll be missed greatly by Monk devotees.

The sixth season collection has some fine episodes, and potentially one of the best Christmas episodes of Monk in the entire run of the series, but no luxury watches. The collection includes both video and audio commentaries on the episodes, and although there could have been a few more special features, the end result is still a package worth owning.

The comedy of Robert Smigel is often hit-or-miss, but always offensive. He is Conan O’Brien’s head writer, the creator, puppeteer and voice of Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, and he is the guy who does all those animated shorts on Saturday Night Live over the past decade or so, also called TV Funhouse.

Smigel’s comedy is edgy and often appalling. He’s not made for prime time, and he’s not part of the Bill Cosby, polite comedy crowd. Now, that either makes him appeal to you, or it doesn’t, and your response to that will largely determine whether you find this DVD collection, Comedy Central’s TV Funhouse, to be an entertaining romp, or an offensive pile of garbage.

The important thing to realize is that TV Funhouse is a satire of children’s television programming, but one that is definitely not in any way intended for kids; it’s intended for adults in their 40s and older who remember the Howdy Doody Show or Captain Kangaroo or Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, and can appreciate the source material Smigel’s making fun of.

The collection includes skits like Wonderman, a near-perfect replica of the old Fleischer Superman cartoons of the 1950s or so, except that Wonderman only performs his heroic deeds to get his civilian alter-ego in bed with a woman.

That’s only scratching the surface; in this complete series collection, you’ll see sights like masturbating chickens, animals snorting “Christmas cheer” in cocaine-style fashion for weight loss, and the host getting “drunk and laid” with Robert Goulet in Atlantic City. Robert Goulet? See what I mean about this being for the 40 and older crowd yet? No one in the “12 and under” crowd would even know who that is. Most 20-somethings wouldn’t.

What it all boils down to is this: the show lasted a mere eight episodes on Comedy Central before being canned, largely because the controversy it generated never translated into ratings. And that’s what Smigel is like; you’ll either think he’s a genius or a parolee of some state’s Sex Offender program, and you’ll either laugh or you’ll think it’s trash. Sometimes, you may even experience both reactions.

But for those who appreciate Smigel, especially when he’s on-target, this collection is a must-have. Those easily offended shouldn’t even bother.

With all the success enjoyed by the Harry Potter film franchise, as well as Lord of the Rings and the first Chronicles of Narnia movie, it seems like a lot more fantasy movies are getting made of late; it’s a hot genre right now, and so does a movie like The SpiderWick Chronicles get made.

Made by Nickelodeon Movies and distributed by Paramount Pictures, The SpiderWick Chronicles is aimed squarely at the younger crowd, though sadly not in as intelligent ways as the Harry Potter films are made.

The plot revolves around the four children of a recently divorced woman who move to the country following the dissolution of their mother’s marriage. Not caring for the house or the country initially, they explore and eventually discover a mysterious field guide that helps them see a world they never knew existed with the naked eye; a world full of brownies and faeries, where magic is real and flash memory is a spell, not a silicon chip.

The plot is obvious an appeal to the Harry Potter crowd, like so many others, yet this film lacks that franchise’s intelligence and solid commercial appeal. Rife with genre clichés, the plot is uninteresting and strangely keeps the kids tied to the house, rather than exploring a giant alternate world in a grand adventure.

This insular tone makes the movie feel a bit claustrophobic and sends a mixed message to younger viewers; namely, when the world gets big and scary… hide away in your house and don’t leave, because the world out there really is as scary and dangerous as it seems… and even more so than you realize!

For this reason, The SpiderWick Chronicles is hard to recommend. Despite some pleasant casting, including Martin Short and Nick Nolte in unrecognizable roles, the story quite simply lacks … magic.

This Dennis Quaid-Matthew Fox thriller focuses on a hypothetical presidential assassination on foreign soil and tells its tale from several different perspectives, giving away new information each time the same events are replayed with a new focal character. The movie is fast-paced, sharp and full of surprises throughout, despite the repetition, and yet … something’s missing.

Perhaps it’s the Class B casting, which aside from LOST’s Matthew Fox, mainly features stars who were at their prime twenty years ago, but are long past it these days. That includes Quaid, as well as co-stars Sigourney Weaver and William Hurt (all in need of some diet pills, perhaps), as well as – arguably – Forest Whitaker.

The casting puts the movie at a dramatically noticeable disadvantage, but that’s not the only one weighing it down. The additional baggage is that Vantage Point came out around the same time as several other “Hollywood wish-fulfillment” movies focusing on presidential assassination plots, including such purely political drivel as “Death of A President,” perhaps the worst of the bunch, which used digital manipulation techniques to fake the assassination of a real, sitting president of the United States – in this case, George W. Bush.

Another such film in the genre, which seems fueled by Hollywood’s Bush-hatred syndrome, is “Death of a High School President.” None of these other movies have any particular charm or interest to them.

Vantage Point, however, is at least a respectful step or two away from the extreme marked by “Death of a President.” William Hurt played the president in Vantage Point and is nothing like W, placing the film’s plot more safely in the fictional thriller category; still, the negative associations to “Death of a President” probably shortened this film’s run at the box office, though the casting of Fox helped it debut at the top of the box office in its first week of release.

Had “Vantage Point” been released in a world that had never seen “Death of a President,” it could have been enjoyed as the fictional thriller it was intended as. Of course, the film could have been helped considerably by smarter casting, as Fox is the only current and appealing star in the film.