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// Chamber of Secrets 
// Story: Luna Reviews the 'Harry Potter' Video Game Series 
// by BronyDan 
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“Welcome back to your Princess’s little journey through the ‘Harry Potter’ gaming universe. Today we are looking into the second game for the next generation of consoles; ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’ for the PlayStation 2. Now, ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’ is often regarded, in terms of both book and movie, as one of, if not, the best in the franchise. It had a perfect blend of a child friendly adventure, being mixed with a much darker story than the first, which would appeal more to an older audience. So with that, let’s see how the game compares to these elements.

Now like the first game, this came out the same year as the movie in 2002, and was again published by EA. We start off the game, and already I am impressed, because we are actually starting at the Burrow, that’s the home of the Weasley family, and its here where we are also re-introduced to our favourite spell, Flipendo. Now this area acts as a tutorial, where we learn how to target spells, using the R1 button, how to duel… against a washing machine. Ok. And just for fun, getting to throw Gnomes around.

Now the controls for this game are slightly different from the first one, X is still the action button, but now you can use Square, Circle and Triangle for different spells. In the game you can a total of eight spells, well really seven, the Alohomora spell is optional to get, and you can access them by pressing the select button. The only spell I never change, is obviously Flipendo, it was on the Square button when I got the game, and it will always stay on the Square button. The camera is… not perfect. It’s hard to get it pointing in the right direction, and it can cause you to fall off ledges.

But now let’s take a look at the story. The story is again, based off of the book and movie, but a bit more loosely than the first one, especially in the trailer at the beginning, just watch:



Where in the book, movie or game do we have to walk across a collapsing bridge over a pit of lava?! There are some serious health and safety violations here, but it looks cool so it doesn’t matter. You’re again playing as Harry as you start your second year at Hogwarts School, where an ancient chamber has apparently been opened once again, so now you need to find the Chamber of Secrets and close it for good. Again, quite straightforward.

After the Burrow, we then arrive at Diagon Alley, (well, technically we arrive at Knockturn Alley first) where we get our second spell Lumos, which lights up dark areas, and I suppose now I should talk about the spells you get in this game, since I forgot to in the first one. The other spells include Diffindo, which is a severing charm, which cuts down tapestries, Expelliamus, is a shield spell that bounces your opponents spells back at them during a duel, Skurge gets rid of green goo, left by ghosts, Avifors was from the first game, and it functions in the same, turning statues into birds, and so was Incendio, which creates fire. Alohomora as I’ve mentioned is an optional spell that you can buy at Fred and George’s shop at Hogwarts, and is used to open certain crates for collectables. 

The collectables in this game are also a lot more varied. You’ve still got Chocolate Frogs to replenish health, but they now work in the same way as the Wiggenweld Potion from the first game, in that it restores you to full health, and now Cauldron Cakes replenish your health bit by bit. Beans are again used as currency, but they’re not a single colour for each section, so it’s not so compulsory to get them. You again collect Famous Witches and Wizards Cards, and there are a total of 101 in the game, but there is an actual purpose for them this time, because when you collect 10 cards, you get an extra bit added to your health bar, so you are able to get more health. You also get Stink Pellets and Non-explodable Luminous Balloons, which you can use for the stealth sections.

In fact let’s talk about those stealth sections for a moment. There will be parts of the game where you will need to go and do errands for Ron and Hermione during the night. And as we all know, walking around the school at night is not allowed, so you will need to sneak around prefects to get to where you need to go. Now I’ve never used any of the pellets or balloons for these sections, basically because I’m so terrified of being caught I forget I have them and just run, and it’s all down to the music. The music is composed by Jeremy Soule, and he even won an award for his music, so my dearest congratulations to Mr Soule for giving us one of the most tense soundtracks ever. This really does get your heart racing, because if you do get caught, they take you back to the beginning of the section, and you lose 5 House points, but luckily they only take off 20 for each night section.



You hear this music in seven areas where there are prefects, the Gryffindor Reading Room, Seventh Floor corridor, Library Reading Room, the Annexe, the Entrance Hall, the Grounds and the Slytherin dungeon. They’ll probably be about 3 or 4 prefects in each section, so be careful, because you could be halfway across the room when…



Shit!! RUN, RUN, RUN, RUN, RUN, RUN, RUN!!

The game also has spell challenges, for each of the new spells you learn in class. Remember that Health and Safety joke I mentioned earlier? Well I wasn’t joking. These challenges are ridiculous and deadly, especially in the Expelliamus challenge, where you have giant spiked balls, rotating quickly over a bottomless pit! Either Gilderoy Lockhart is a sadistic psychopath who enjoys torturing his students, or Harry just has nerves of steel. At the end of each challenge, you get the spell and have to have a duel with a gargoyle. To be fair, these get a bit repetitive, I mean for the Expelliamus one, I can understand, but why do we need to do it for every spell challenge? Couldn’t we get a boss that was suited for that spell?

The duelling in this game is fun, especially if you know how to cheat. The whole object is that you and your opponent, (usually Draco Malfoy and his cronies) have to bounce this ball of expelliamus to each other, like a magic tennis match, and if you or your opponent gets hit, you lose a point. Now here’s the fun way to do; what you want to do, if after you’ve hit the ball back at your opponent, quickly cast Diffindo on them, they can’t block that spell, and because they won’t have time to react, they will instantly get hit by the ball. Yes, I know it’s cheating a bit, but it’s all in good fun.

The bosses in this game are limited, in my opinion. Aside from the gargoyles in the spell challenges, there are only three main ones, and three mini ones. The mini ones come first, where you need to fight off some imps in Knockturn Alley, and then in the Forest Section before the Whomping Willow, and then you have to use the Lumos spell on a pack of Gytrashes. The Whomping Willow boss fight is fairly simple, you just have to hit the weak spot when it reveals itself. The next one is Aragog the spider in the Forbidden Forest, who is just irritating! You have to go through two parts to beat him; first you have to go through his lair and sever sections of his web to make him fall into a pit, which you would think would be enough, but no, you end up falling in there with him, and then you have to fight him one on one. Now the irritating thing is that he has no pattern to his attack! I swear I had spent about 15 minutes on this boss, because he just kept scuttling in a circle not showing his weak spot.

The final boss is of course when we enter the Chamber of Secrets, and we have to fight Slytherin’s monster, the Basilisk. Like in the book and movie, you have to use the Sword of Godric Gryffindor to defeat it, however instead of plunging it through the roof of its mouth, the sword acts as a laser beam, where you have to shoot at this diamond shape spot on the Basilisk’s neck while it’s coming out of these large pipes. Go and make your own ‘Super Mario’ joke, if you want to. Anyway do this four times to kill it, and you can then leave the Chamber.

But that’s not the end of the game. You still need to go to the House Cup Ceremony, and if you want to win, you have to do these side quests on your common room noticeboard, in order to get more points. But it’s not really necessary, you still get the same ending cutscene regardless if you or Slytherin win.

Well that was ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’ for the PlayStation 2, and is it as good as the movie and book? No, but better than the first game? Absolutely!! It does have some flaws, like the camera, the repetitive bosses and the loading screens, which took longer than my time on the moon, but it’s still an entertaining license game. A lot of heart went into making this game, so that you could capture that Harry Potter feeling, and I believe they got that right. The large amount of collectables are worthy enough for replay value, and it keeps you on guard in those stealth sections. So if you are a Harry Potter fan, and you haven’t got this game, then your princess commands you to go get it, NOW!! Well with that done, till we meet again for ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’ for the PlayStation 2.

Oh and by the way, if you’re bored, just keep hitting people with Flipendo, hours of entertainment.”