I've always really enjoyed the Harry Potter universe. It just really speaks to my whimsical nature. I can honestly say that I have from time to time wished that I was a student at Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Too bad I can't say that this game fulfilled that dream. Don't get me wrong, there is a decent game here, unfortunately it is bogged down by sub par programming and unintuitive controls to be truly great.
Let's start at what I consider to be first and foremost the most important part of any game, the story. You would think this would have no problems here, I mean JK Rowling pretty much sealed that deal right? (PS, I was one of those people who loved Order of the Phoenix, one of my favorite of the series) Wrong, here's where things take a bad turn. The game is based on the movie, which is based on the book. So the means there are a bunch of things cut out from the move from the book to film, but for some ridiculous reason they also cut out things from the movie. For example, and I'm not warning for spoilers, if you haven't read the book or watched the movie too fucking bad, they've been out for years. Shit I just warned about spoilers by warning I wasn't warning about spoilers, cursed again! Anyway, Snape is teaching Harry Occulomancy, Harry get's good enough that he accidentally reads Snape's memory of Harry's father picking on him. This happens in the game but you don't see the memory, all you get is Snape telling you all of a sudden to get out, and Harry feeling sorry. WTF?? I know what was supposed to be there, hell everyone knows what was supposed to be there, so I guess the developers decided, "Eh, everyone knows what's supposed to be there, so why bother animating it". Fuck you, you lazy ass story tellers. Nothing pisses me off more than lazy story telling, especially when the STORY IS ALREADY LAID OUT FOR YOU!!! FOLLOW THE MAP YOU LAZY BASTARDS!!!
As far as presentation, it's terrific. Hogwarts is truly brought to life here, you will get lost at first if you are not using the map system. Everything twists and turns, with secret passages everywhere. They also got a good chunk of the film cast to return for the game and do their voices as well as get face scans to recreate their characters int he game. Why was all this detail spent on this and then skimp on the story? No idea, but I can't fault the presentation one bit. It feels like Hogwarts. The end. One little problem though. I know Hogwarts is full of secrets and whatnot, but I'm pretty sure students are not supposed to be falling though the floor. There are a few graphical glitches, but this is an EA production after all. No surprises there.
The controls are pretty good. You control your spells with different getures from the Wiimote and that all works fairly well...... out of combat. When you are in combat however, it goes to shit. You need to move to dodge incoming spells, but have to stop to cast, plus it's fairly frantic so you really need to keep your wits to pull off the right spell. All in all the controls are decent, but need more refinement.
On last gripe I have are the "Boss Battles". In all the end duels, during witch you control Sirius Black and Dumbledore, you have to lose the battle to continue the story, and you can't win no matter how hard you try. What the hell is the point in me getting all the way to the end to lose the damn game to win? What a load of crap.
In the end, if you are a Potter fan, at least rent the game, it's a decent companion piece to the movie. I just really hope the EA gets the next effort right or they lose the liscense not unlike they just lost the Lord of the Rings one. Here's hoping.
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