Hangin’ With the Frat Pack

Every now and then a truly inane game appears that, like a very bad B movie, redefines terms like puerile, sophomoric or adolescent. It carves out for itself a whole new ring in the (pun intended) PC Purgatorio of nerdy young men’s erotic fantasies that too often substitute for plots in mass entertainment.

This year’s loser has got to be Legend Entertainment’s “Spellcasting 301: Spring Break,” the third installment in the disastrously unfunny, preposterously unsexy “Spellcasting” series.

Yet again we find ourselves playing the part of Ernie Eaglebeak (you get the picture) as he tries to master the curriculum and the voluptuous females of Sorcerer University. This time the guys at the frat house are off for spring holidays at the famed babe-a-rama of Fort Naughtytail (you get the picture). Ernie’s goal . . . well, you get the picture.

The cavorting about with the beach bimbos is a thin veneer of plot imposed on a series of minipuzzles and arcade-style games that provide the main challenge to this mess. There are little tricks you learn or spells that you pick up to help you through the various challenges such as the sandcastle-building contest, the belly-flop competition and, of course, the wet T-shirt contest.

Beyond the story, the most bothersome element of “301” is the rather quaint verbal interface. There are very few games around any more that rely on verbal commands as much as this one. On the other hand, the game does feature a nice on-screen map of the Fort Naughtytail area that helps keep you up with where you’ve been and where you might want to go.

That’s not enough, though, to salvage this otherwise very poor use of a home computer. About the best thing to be said for “301” is thank goodness Ernie’s now a junior. We’ll probably see a something like “Spellcasting 401: Graduation Day” in the future, but it’s easy to see Eaglebeak’s not graduate school material.

Spring Break

Rating: ** IBM and compatibles; 640K RAM, VGA; hard disk required; sound recommended. List: $59.95.

Computer games are rated on a five-star system, from one star for poor to five for excellent.