Luna stood over the balcony as she raised the moon into the sky. She had already bid her sister goodnight as she now took control over the night sky. When the moon rose into its proper position, Luna looked down into the courtyard below; there was nopony in sight. She looked over at the balcony of her sister’s bedroom, just on time to see the light flicker out from behind the curtains. “Perfect.” She said quietly to herself, and she walked back into her bedroom, and closed the curtains behind her.
The candles all flickered on, with the help of her magic, until her room was fully lit. Her bedroom had dark blue drapes, matching her colour, her four-poster bed had royal blue colour curtains, as her bedspread was of a denim like colour and a light blue sofa sat in the middle of her room. Luna pushed her bed to one side, revealing a trapdoor underneath it. A blue aura surrounded the metal handle as Luna pulled the trapdoor open, and peered into it. She had to be very careful, because Celestia would never approve of her little hobby, and would probably banish her back to the moon if she was to find out what she was about to do. Luna didn’t care, but to be on the safe side, her horn glowed blue again, and bathed her entire room in the glow for a second, and then it stopped. “There, now I can’t be heard.” said Luna, giggling to herself as she leaned back down into the trapdoor and pulled out…
A camcorder and a stand. Luna set up the equipment a short distance away from her sofa, and when that was done, she walked over to the blue drape in front of her, and pulled it back revealing a blank wall. Luna smirked as she tapped a few of the bricks in a certain pattern and stood back. The bricks began to shudder and shake, until the last brick Luna touched sank away to reveal a small hole. Soon more bricks began pushing back and turning inwards, making the hole bigger, until a large archway was created. Satisfied, Luna walked in, and then came back out; dragging a large desktop, with a large television set on top and pushed it in front of the sofa. She adored this wonderful machine; she had discovered it when she had gone through the mirror that led to the universe populated by those ‘humans’ and had taken back home to Equestria as a souvenir. There were also several small devices on top, on the side and underneath the television, that Luna had heard to be called ‘consoles’ and they had come in many shapes and sizes; all the way from a simple large grey box, with the name ‘Nintendo Entertainment System’ written in red across the front, to one which was a sleek black beast with ‘PS3’ engraved on the top.
Luna moved around the desktop and went back through the archway. She emanated another blue aura from her horn and the secret room burst with light. Stacked across the high walls, carefully preserved and sorted into their proper categories, were her prized treasures. Games. Hundreds of them, all carefully placed in order of what console they were made for, and in alphabetical order.
As Luna walked down the aisle, looking around at her hard work of collecting these fascinating gems of another world, she found herself at a section labelled ‘PlayStation 1’. She flew across the higher shelves, until she came across the games that started with the letter ‘H’ and pulled out one of the games. Smiling, she headed for the section labelled ‘PlayStation 2’, and when going through the ‘H’ section there, she pulled out five other games. When she had taken out two other games from the ‘PlayStation 3’ section, she then flew down the corridor, heading back to her bedroom.
She lay out the eight games next to her on the sofa, and opened one of them. She levitated the shining disc over to the desktop as another grey console’s circular section popped open, and she placed the disc inside. Levitating the remote for the telly and the controller for the console towards her, Luna then switched the T.V. on to the right channel and then the game console whirred into life. “Now then, let’s get started.” Luna smirked as she looked over at the camcorder, which was now showing a red light, indicated that it was now filming…
“Greetings, subjects! Thy princess of the Night has decided to set herself a challenge tonight. Now I am not sure of how many of you are aware of the human fantasy series, ‘Harry Potter’, so let me fill you in. The ‘Harry Potter’ series chronicles the adventures of a young wizard boy, (the human equivalent of a colt), called… Harry Potter, as he attends the magical school of Hogwarts to learn the secrets of magic, while also fighting against the dark forces of the evil sorcerer Lord Voldemort, who plans to conquer the world. So it’s a very basic plot, and your princess is never one to call herself a fan, she has only seen the movies… and read all the books… and may or may not have used the mirror in the Crystal Empire to travel to the human dimension to go to the theme park at the attraction centre called ‘Universal Studios’… OK FINE, I BUCKING LOVE THE SERIES!!
Now with such a popular series, it also had its fair share of games, including the Lego series, ‘Quidditch World Cup’, based on the popular sport in the books and films, ‘The Book of Spells’ and the upcoming ‘Book of Potions’, but tonight, we shall be looking at the movie tie-in games for the Play Station consoles, starting with ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ for the Play Station 1.
Now the game was released in 2001, the same year as the movie of the same name, and it was published by Electronic Arts. We start the game up and… we get a story time. Ok, don’t have us actually start at the beginning of the story, just have Stephen Fry explain everything that has happened before we actually get to Hogwarts. Ok, that is a nitpick, I have heard that Stephen Fry is one of the greatest examples of the human species, and he was doing the audio books at the time, so it would make sense that he would do this.
So we finally get to play this game… and the graphics are not great. Remember, this was 2001, so the Play Station was on its’ last legs by this point, but you can clearly see how far we’ve come in terms of design. The facial expressions are quite poor as the character’s mouths are not synched up to what they’re saying and in some places, the backgrounds look like they’re just flat services. But let’s not dwell on this for too long, let’s see what the actual gameplay is like. The gameplay is set out as a third person shooter game with some platforming and puzzle elements in there as well, you can free roam Hogwarts Castle, at least you can with the doors that are not locked and there are plenty of collectibles, such as Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans and Famous Witches and Wizards Cards. The beans come in four different colours, providing where you are in the game, yellow in the main castle section, blue for the grounds, green for the dungeons and red for the Upper Castle. When you have enough for each colour, you will need to give these to Fred and George Weasley, who will then give you a password for a portrait where you will find a bonus item that can help you later. Chocolate frogs replenish your health, but getting a Wiggenweld potion will give you full health, and be prepared to make your own potion, because finding the bottle on its own is a rare thing.
So our first task of the game is to save your owl Hedwig from Draco Malfoy. Don’t remember that from the book. It’s here that we also learn our first spell; the Flipendo Knockback Jinx. How is it that a spell that was made purely for the game, suddenly becomes the most iconic spell in the entire franchise? Learning spells in this game is fairly simple, you have to follow the spark in the centre and you have to press the symbol button it reaches as it goes around the circle, and there are four spells you learn aside from Flipendo, and if you see something with a coloured sparkle over it, press the X button to perform that spell.
I wouldn’t say the game is entirely faithful to the movie and the book; it follows the basic plot of the story, it’s just the way of getting through it is different. I already said that the first task is never in the movie, but there are plenty of tasks like that as well, there’s one task where you need to get Fire Seeds for Hagrid, another where you need to get a Sloth Brain for Snape, going around the dungeons looking for curses you need to dispel before leaving, and the weirdest one is when Norbert the Dragon gets sick and you need to go Diagon Alley to get the ingredients to make Dragon Tonic for him. If you want a section that included Diagon Alley, then why didn’t we have it at the BEGINNING OF THE GAME LIKE IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE?! Also, isn’t anyone wondering where Harry is at this point, I mean he’s gone all the way from Scotland to London in the middle of term, wouldn’t they be a little suspicious if he’s not in the castle? And the moments that are from the movie and placed in rather odd moments, like after you’ve chased Malfoy on your broom to get an item, McGonagall just shows up out of nowhere and says, “Well done, you’re our new seeker, now get down to the pitch, the game starts in two minutes.”, and the battle with the troll in the girls’ bathroom, that’s now near the end of the game!
Now, don’t think that this game is bad, because it really isn’t. The controls work well, especially when you’ve got the controller with the analog stick, and some areas are quite unnerving, like the Forbidden Corridor and the Forbidden Forest sections. The dungeons still make me feel uncomfortable, even to this day, and that was pretty much because of Peeves. When he first popped up in this game, I almost shut the system off, he was scarier than any creature I have ever seen, and considering how long I’ve been your princess, that’s saying a lot. The mini-games and Quidditch sections are fun to play, the Wizard Crackers one was my personal favourite and the ending section pays closer to the book than the movie both with its content and dialogue, which is a nice change, like how you use the flute to send Fluffy to sleep and the troll and potions parts that weren’t included in the movie. In fact the troll section is expanded here. Remember in the book how you just walk past it while it's unconscious? In this game, you need to charm objects out of it's way as it stumbles groggily down the corridor, and the sound of those stomping footprints behind you as you try and levitate these objects as quietly as you can, is still a creepy level.
So now we’ve reached the final boss, and it’s Professor Quirrell, and there are three sections on defeating him, first you need to cause these pillars to fall on him when he’s under them, than you need to be facing behind the Mirror of Erised and cast Flipendo at it until it fires this white magic at him, and then you need to press the Square button while he strangles you, and then press X to hurt him. Do this four times until he dies and then you pass out. Get another story book, explaining that you’ve won the house cup, the book closes and the game is over.
So that’s ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ for the PS1, and in your princess’s own personal opinion, I think it’s a really good start. It’s not really a classic, but for the most part, it’s still an enjoyable past time, if you can look past the graphics and the unusual placing of certain plot details. The story is still fun to go through, the collectables can prove to be challenging at points, but not really to the point where you want to throw the console out the window, it’s a matter of looking in the right places, and the spells are probably the simplest in any of the games. So if you haven’t played this yet, and you’re a ‘Harry Potter’ fan, then thy princess commands you to go and find it if you can, disappointment will not be given. Next time, we look at the next generation of consoles, with ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’ on the Play Station 2.
“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…
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.”
“So we’ve now reached our third game in the ‘Harry Potter’ license games, which is of course, ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’. Now I will say that it’s from here on that the series moves away from the child like atmosphere of the first two, and we get more towards a darker, serious tale, with a lot of genuinely terrifying moments. Now, the movie is, hoof on heart, my personal favourite in the series, it introduced one of my all-time favourite characters, Professor Lupin, the direction by Alfonso Cuaron, while quite a drastic change from Chris Columbus, is still really impressive, and it was the first time I literally felt scared while watching a movie. But we’re not here to talk about the movie, let’s take a look at the game based off of it.
I think you’ve got the idea of what I’m going to say, released in 2004, same year as movie, EA published it, let’s get going. First of all, let me just start off by saying, I love the music in this game. Jeremy Soule again composes it, and it’s easily the best sounding music for the games. The score used for the title screen is just beautiful.
I love that use of the choir, giving it real sense of eeriness and foreboding to this already gothic sounding piece. It’s so brilliant; that you would never had guessed it came from something like a ‘Harry Potter’ game.
The graphics in this game are just fantastic. The character designs look a lot closer to their real life counterparts and the voice acting is really well done and they do suit the characters. Hogwarts has a lot of new areas like the clock tower and the stone circle, that were in the movie, which makes it a lot bigger this time, especially with the grounds, which for me, is a bit too big. If you want to walk around the grounds, be my guest, but for me, I’ll stick with flying Buckbeak.
The controls in this game are again similar to the previous instalments, but there are some alterations. The big gimmick for this game is that you can not only play as Harry, but you can also switch between Ron and Hermione as well, using the circle button. So this really unfortunately means you only have two buttons for your spells. Swapping the characters is essential to pass this game, as each character has different abilities, like Harry is the only one who can jump over gaps, Ron can find secret passages, and Hermione can crawl under small gaps.
You this time can get 9 spells, but they are spread out amongst the main three. You all get Flipendo (yay!) and Expelliamus, but Harry is also able to use Carpe Retractum, which can pull certain objects towards you and the Patronus Charm, which shields off Dementors. Ron sadly, only gets one spell, which is Lumos Duo, and he uses that to light up crystal balls and to defeat these creatures called Hinkypunks; however he is able to use other items like Dungbombs and stink pellets. Hermione gets the most spells, which does make sense as she’s the smartest, and these include Glacius, which can freeze water and other forms of liquid, Reparo, which repairs broken objects, Draconifors, which turns statues into dragaons to burn down tapestries, and you can buy the Snufflifors spell from Fred and George’s shop, which can turn attacking books into mice.
Like with the second game, you have spell challenges in the classes, and thankfully they’re not as deadly as the last one and the bosses have certainly improved with creativity. Remember how I said in the last review that the bosses got a bit repetitive, what with using the same gargoyles and using Expelliamus, well here, we get bosses that are suited to the spell that has just been learnt! We get the Glacius spell, we fight a giant fire breathing oven, we learn Carpe Retractum, we fight a rotating knight by pulling his shields off of him, and then his head. Getting Expecto Patronum was easily the creepiest part, because you have to use Carpe Retractum to pull yourself onto these platforms to get to each corner of the room to push a slotted block into its place which will open each of the gateways that lead to the spellbook. But that’s not the worst of it. The worst part is that you are being followed by a Dementor which will attempt to suck you soul out if it gets too close. When I first played this game, I refused to go past this bit, or even play it; I would just do the Crape Retractum part and then finish, because I was just so terrified of that bloody Dementor! I can do it now easily, but I’m just thankful that Dementors really don’t exist in Equestria. Right?
You again have Famous Witches and Wizards Cards to collect, however for some, you have to do a challenge for Fred and George. After you have Ron purchase the Stink Pellets, they will ask you to throw them at these lantern holders and if you can hit five, they will give a rare card. Hit all twenty to get the full set. But you also have something else to collect, which are pages to the Folio Bruti, these will give you information on the different creatures you fight in the game, like Hinkypunks, Red Caps, and Ghouls and so on. The Doxies and Red Caps are the most annoying, because Doxies have a venomous bite, which will drain your health slowly, unless you happen to have an Antidote to Uncommon Poisons on you. And Red Caps are irritating, because they will gang up on you as an army and run at you to give you a good whack. After you get the Crape Retractum spell, they will also get shields which protect them from your spells, so you have to pull them off first, which is easier said than done.
You get to collect ingredients for Potions in this game, which may have been something they had brought over from the PC versions of the first two games. The ingredients aren’t difficult to find, but some just seem unnecessary, like the Graphorn Horn. You’d think that we would have to fight this strange creature and pull its horn off right? But no, Ron nicks it off Malfoy OFFSCREEN!! The potions themselves are semi-useful, like I said, you’re going to be drinking that Antidote to Uncommon Poisons a lot throughout this game, and I don’t think I ever used the Girding Potion once.
Also, in this game, you get to upgrade your spells for the first time to make them more powerful. This is part of another challenge set by Fred and George, where they send you around Hogwarts to look for nine statues, and every three you find, you’re allowed to read one of the chapters of ‘The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection’.
The stealth sections are back, but this time they’re not as great as in the last one. Instead of prefects patrolling the corridors, you now have to navigate your way around stationary suits of armour with purple laser vision coming out of their helmets. Now many have complained that that was a mistake, however for this game it makes some sense. I mean, if you’ve got a mass murderer on the loose and he manages to get into the school, having laser knights seems like a better option for security rather than a student in my opinion. The prefects are still there, but they don’t take points off you if you’re caught this time. They just shake their… ‘fingers’, is that right?... at you, and put their hands on their hips. That was what the made the last game so intense, that you were afraid to lose something if you were caught, but in this game, there is no way to lose points, so you are guaranteed to always win the house cup. There is one stealth section that is well done, and that’s the troll stealth. This was something that was taken from the book; after Sirius Black gets into Gryffindor Tower and escapes again, they put up security trolls to guard the seventh floor, and here, you have to go through the seventh floor reading room, as Ron, and throw Dungbombs near the trolls and while they get distracted, you run for it, until you get to the next troll, but that’s really it, they don’t attack you if they see you, they just roar and beat their chests. Not going to catch Black that way boys.
Also the end, is a little disappointing. In the book and in the movie, Harry and Hermione travel back in time to save Buckbeak the Hippogriff and Sirius from the Dementors. Now anyone playing this game would think that you would have to avoid your past selves as you travel down to Hagrid’s to save Buckbeak from the execution, but they skip that whole thing and cut straight to when you need to conjure the Patronus at the Dementors in order to save Sirius. WHAT?! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING EA, NOT HAVING A LEVEL BASED AROUND THAT, YOU COULD HAVE HAD ANOTHER STEALTH SECTION, BUT NO, YOU HAD TO CONDENSE THE BLOODY STORY, I MEAN IF YOU COULD DO IT ON THE SODDING GAMEBOY, WHY NOT HERE ON THE CONSOLES?! ANSWER ME, DAMN YOU, ANSWER ME!!!
So with all the complaints I’ve made, you’ll probably think this game really isn't worth your time and that you should just stick to 'Chamber of Secrets'. However, it’s still a great game. Yes, it’s not as good as ‘Chamber of Secrets’ but that was a hard act to follow. While the stealth sections are toned down to the point where there isn’t much of a challenge, and yeah, the ending is a bit of a copout, but it’s still an enjoyable game nonetheless. The controls work well enough, you can fly Buckbeak across the grounds whenever you like, so you don’t have to walk everywhere. Music, graphics and voice work are an improvement, and the mini challenges can still be fun. So overall, this is still a game any ‘Harry Potter’ will enjoy. Not perfect, but far from terrible.
Well then, so far we’ve had three moderately good license games, despite the flaws that have been pointed out, but then again, no game is perfect. Will we get a game that will break this chain?”
“I don’t like this game. I really don’t like this game. In fact, I would go so far as to say I hate this game. I, really, bucking hate this game! No, that is not good enough to describe my distaste for this, I believe the humans use a similar sounding word for this situation, so here it is: this game is FUCKING AWFUL, AND IS AN ABSOLUTE DISGRACEFUL EXCUSE OF A ‘HARRY POTTER’ GAME, IT HAS EVER BEEN MY DISPLEASURE TO HAVE PLACED IN MY GAME CONSOLES!!
I apologise for my outburst, but you must understand why I feel this way. ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’, is easily my favourite book in the series. The story I feel, is a perfect ending to the children style of storytelling of the first three books, as it begins to move towards the darker tone of the later books, its themes of friendship and loyalty are extremely prominent in this one, as Miss Rowling is able to show this through both the dialogue and by the actions of Harry, Ron and Hermione, beloved characters that were introduced before begin to return form this book onwards as we prepare for the inevitable war between Lord Voldemort who has now returned to full power by the end of the story. The movie, however, is clearly a watered down version, and while I can still enjoy it, it’s still the weakest movie in the series for me, due to how much was cut from the book. There were actually plans to split this movie into two parts, but they decided to keep that idea for the last book, but let’s see how far the game falls even by the movie’s standards.
First of all, the biggest problem is that you are no longer allowed to free-roam. Gone are the Zelda like elements of finding collectables, and swapping between spells in an RPG style. Now, you are just plonked in one area and you just have to follow the path to the end. I can understand that they wanted to try something new, but why completely change the whole layout of the game? And get used to these levels because you will be coming back to these a lot.
The plot is really just the table scraps of the basic plot. Everything gets explained through still cutscenes, and by that, I mean that there is no movement what so ever. And, am I the only one thinks the looked a little blurred? Did somepony spill Vaseline into the computer while they were processing it?
Like the last game, you can play as either Harry, Ron and Hermione, but you can’t swap between them, but it doesn’t really make any difference, seeing as how they all function the same, and while they do look a more like the actors, the actors themselves don’t provide their voices. I think only Ralph Fiennes reprises his role of Voldemort for the game. Also the voice-acting is quite weak. Ron just fine, but Hermione sounds a bit too stuck up, and Wormtail in the cutscenes… I don’t think the person was even trying to imitate Timothy Spall. Also, this is the last game narrated by Stephen Fry. I guess he had managed to get out while he had the chance. And another problem I have with the voice acting in this game is one small thing; THEY WILL NOT SHUT UP!! Every other second, you’ll hear them moaning and whining in the background, which could give you a massive headache if you’re fighting. Honestly I will dare anypony out there to play this game, and not want to perform Crucio on these idiots every time a Dugbog bites them, at least then they’ll have something to complain about.
The spells are completely random to work. Triangle is a new spell called Accio, which pulls beans towards you, Square is for the charms you pick up, and X is for everything else! Seriously, if you rapidly hit the X button, you just come out with random jinxes, and there’s nothing you can do to choose which one you want to use. But I think you would want to know, because at the end of each level, you get charted up on how many times you use a spell, and it increases your status ring. Seriously, you have to reach the status of ‘Novice’ in this game. I have to earn the right to be considered inexperienced? What in the regions of Tartarus was I before that, the equivalent of somepony wiping their flank and blowing their nose with the same paper?! But do you want to know what the biggest insult is? YOU NO LONGER HAVE FLIPENDO! You take out what was the most iconic, most beloved spell in the games, and you just replace it with random jinxes that we don't even know the names of or what they do?! That's the equivalent of taking away my dear sister's love of cake, you will now need to be prepared to pay for your mistakes! Circle activates something called ‘Magicus Extremos’, (real creativity there EA) which I suppose gives you stronger spells, but there really is no difference, except the screen goes blurry again, and has a tinge of blue around the corners of your television.
I really hate the enemies in this game! You do get some creatures from the book, like the Blast-Ending Skrewts and Bubotubers, but the rest should be made extinct, the worst are Dugbogs, Erklings, and the Vampyr Mosps! Dugbogs, because they will pop out of ground and bite you, which causes the annoying whining from the characters, Erklings, because… that’s what they do, they irk you, by shooting darts and you, and the Vampyr Mosps… did they go out of their way to make the most annoying enemy in the game? When these things appear in the level, be prepared to do nothing else but try and kill these things, because as soon as you kill one, another one immediately takes its place and it just goes on and on! JUST DIE, SO I CAN MOVE ON WITH THIS!!
The AI in this is… wow. Your two friends are completely incompetent sometimes. Most of the time, they don’t do shit to help you! I mean, I’m trying to pull this bridge down, but as you can see, I cannot, I need all three to pull it. Okay, now Harry’s casting Carpe Retractum to help, took him long enough, just waiting for Hermione. Hermione, we could use your help. This bridge is not going anywhere. STOP LOOKING AT THE WALL YOU BITCH AND HELP!! Sweet Celestia, what is over there that’s taking so much of your damn attention? It’s pissing down with rain, I’ve got Erkilings shooting at me, I may just give up and leave you two up here and go and meet Fred and George in the Common Room, oh wait, I can’t do that either, because you’re the ONLY THREE CHARACTERS IN THIS GAME AND THERE’S NO OTHER LOCATIONS!!
But the absolute worst thing about this game, is not the game setup or the mechanics, it’s not the voice acting and it’s not even the terrible AI. The worst part about this game is the constant back-tracking! Your main collectable in this game are Triwizard Shields, and finding all these is about as enjoyable, as say… being stuck on the moon for a thousand years! Levitating rocks into each other on the moon’s surface as more entertainment value, and trust your princess, she has done that! You are pretty much unable to continue with the game until you have gotten the correct number of shields, and that is made even more irritating with the fact that you also have mini shields as well, and collecting ten of those will give you an actual shield. You have to constantly go back to each location, search every nook and cranny just to make sure you haven’t missed anything, and after about twenty minutes of this, you tend to get bored.
Okay, so I’ve gotten enough shields to do the second task, I’ve gone through that, I’ve just gotten to the end in a reasonable time, got one shield and… what? WHAT?! I CAN’T CONTINUE TO THE THIRD TASK UNTIL I’VE COLLECT 11 MORE SHIELDS?! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT I WENT THROUGH JUST TO GET ENOUGH FOR THE LAST LEVEL, YOU SELFISH, GREEDY, RUTHLESS, NO GOOD GRAPHICAL SHIT STAIN OF A GAME?!
You know what? Fuck it. I am refusing to go any further. This is a first for me, I have never refused to try and complete a game before, but this… this has pushed me too far. I mean it’s not like we don’t know what’s going to happen, we do the maze, fight Voldemort, win and that’s it. What more do I need to say? The game is awful! What made EA think that this was the way for the ‘Harry Potter’ to go? The original games were fine the way they were, the free roaming, the finding collectables for help and fun were absolutely perfect for this type of series, not a single, straight to the end, level, with a few enemies to fight in between. Well it would seem that EA would learn from their mistake, because the next game doesn’t follow this setup, but let’s see if it’s any better for it?"
“So, after the… catastrophic failure that was ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’, EA would have to work extra hard to make people buy the next game. So with the release of the fifth movie in 2007, came the game as well, ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.’
Now the movie was… Okay. I would not go far as to say it’s bad, but it’s not exactly great. Like the last movie, there were some important stuff that was left out that was pretty essential to the overall story of the entire franchise, but you could still follow the story fairly well, it had some decent action, the fight scene at the end between Dumbledore and Voldemort alone was spectacular, and props to Imelda Staunton for bringing the perfect amount of bitch that made us all hate Umbridge in the book. There I go again, raving about the movies, when we have a game to look at, but first, a little bit of history on it.
Like I said, ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ while getting good reviews from critics, got seriously panned by the fans, so EA needed to fix this. Before the game went into production, EA actually went out, even getting an appreciation society involved at one point, and asked the fans what it was that they wanted in ‘Order of the Phoenix’, and the answers were pretty obvious. They wanted to go back to the exploration of Hogwarts like in the first three games, with fun little collectibles again, and some even requested that they wanted the game to be closer to the movie than the other instalments had been. It's a similar situation EA were once in with the 'Ultima' series, when 'Ultima VIII: Pagan' failed, so let’s see if they fulfilled everyponies wishes, or if 'Order of the Phoenix' will be the Harry Potter equivalent of 'Ultima IX: Ascension'.
So we start off, and wow they really tried to get as close to the movie. Harry looks exactly like Daniel Radcliffe, however Dudley’s face doesn’t have much detail to it. Now I don’t mind the fact that they were finally using the actors, I just wish the faces weren’t so static. Honestly, the characters’ faces so absolutely no emotion what so ever, and yeah, I know that their faces were stationary in the earlier games, but least you get a blink or the occasional eye brow gesture out of them. Plus, some of the faces looked quite… terrible, like Filch for instance. I don’t know what happened, but I think his design in the ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ PS1 game has a closer resemblance to David Bradley than this does. And aside from getting the actors appearances, they actually managed to get a few to voice them as well, like Rupert Grint, Tom Felton, the Phelps twins, Bonnie Wright, Matthew Lewis and Evanna Lynch
So we pretty much start at Grimmauld Place where we learn the spells that will help in the exploration parts of the game, like Reparo, Accio, Depulso and Wingardium Leviosa. All spells are cast by moving the right analog stick in certain ways as we, really just tidy up Sirius’ house. As you progress through the game, you will also learn spells that can be performed during duelling, again using the analog stick. Some of the spells can sometimes be tricky to perform like Levicorpus and… wait, time out! Okay, I apologise for letting out my inner Potter Fanatic here, but I need to address this. Why is Levicorpus in a standard spellbook for practical usage of charms? Nobody should know about this spell’s existence, or at least Harry shouldn’t know about it at this point, because he doesn’t learn about Levicorpus until the next book, in which we discover that it was a spell purely invented by the Half-Blood Prince, that he had written down in his old Potions book. Plus, how is everyone able to get themselves the right way up again after you’ve cast it, do they also know Liberacorpus, the counter curse? Okay, rant over let’s continue.
So we start off properly in Hogwarts and… Starswirl’s beard, this looks incredible! The Grand Staircase looks exactly like it does in the movie, it’s massive, the painstaking details of the paintings on the wall, some of them even move as well! This is all because during development, they actually looked at the blueprints, and original artwork by J.K. Rowling in order to try and recreate the Hogwarts castle in every way, and it’s amazing! Can you free-roam? You bet your gems and bits you can! You can walk anywhere around Hogwarts, you can go through secret passageways guarded by portraits to get to different areas quicker, but only if you of course, have the password. The passageway to get to the Dungeons is the worst one, because it literally took me till the end of the game to figure out what I needed to do. Basically, she’ll refuse you access because you’re not Slytherin, and jokingly says go and talk to some Slytherin students, but all they do is insult you, so I try beating them in a duel, still nothing. So finally I found what you need to do, but only by accident; you have to get the Invisibility Cloak, go down to the corridor where the portrait is, and eavesdrop on some Slytherin students giving the password. The relief I got after getting that, you would not belief.
Throughout the game, you can earn Discovery Points, by interacting with various items around the school, like mopping the floors, lighting candles, and repairing broken items. So you’re essentially doing Filch’s job. You can also gain points by finding Hogwarts plaques and Chess pieces, and if you collect enough, you will automatically by upgraded to improve your spells, and it can also unlock bonus items, like screenshots from the movie, and behind-the-scene footage into the making of the game. All of these can be found in the Room of Rewards, where you can also keep track of the other things you need to find in the game.
Now in terms of the story, there are only two main goals of this game; finding the members of Dumbledore’s Army and creating havoc around Hogwarts after Umbridge becomes Headmistress. And this is what is probably the game’s biggest problem, it’s really repetitive! As much as I love walking around Hogwarts, you really won’t be doing anything else but this, and when you do find members, you will have to do a mini-quest for them before they will come to the Room of Requirement, and that’s really what takes up the majority of this game, just doing mini quests for different people, so if that’s what you like then this game is for you. And do you know how many members of Dumbledore’s Army you need to find? 18, out of 28! And some of their tasks are just really annoying, like doing Zacharias Smith’s homework for him, while he just stands around with his smug and obnoxious attitude and bossing you around. As you could probably guess, I hate this character.
Now despite listening to what fans wanted, there were some things EA didn’t put in the game. For example, you can’t take your O.W.Ls, although they make up for it a little bit, by having you do homework, and get your grades from those. You weren’t allowed to swap between characters whenever you wanted, but you do play as Fred Weasley, Sirius Black and Dumbledore near the end. They also didn’t include Snape’s worst memory, which I feel was a huge mistake, because if you went into this game, without knowing anything about the book or film, then the moment where Snape throws Harry out of his office after one of your Occlumency lessons won’t make any sense, it makes it seem like he’s pissed off at Harry for doing a good job.
The Battle at the Ministry, like the end of the 'Prisoner of Azkaban' game, feels rushed to me. You don’t even get a chance to walk around anywhere, the game pretty much takes over for a few minutes as it plonks you straight in the Department of Mysteries and then it heads straight to Room of Prophecies, where we get another cutscene hearing the prophecy, and then… oh shit, Death Eaters! Have we got to fight them like we did in the movie, because that was a great scene and… no, the game takes over again as we arrive in the room with the archway, get another cutscene, and then we finally get a chance to play again! Like I said, here you play as Sirius as you fight Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix. There isn’t really much of a strategy, just keep firing spells at them until one of you is defeated, you still get the same cutscene of Sirius dying anyway. Then after that, we eventually get to the showdown between Dumbledore and Voldemort! It’s okay. It starts out like every fight, but in the second round, Voldemort changes his tactic and while he tries using your spells against you, he’ll try and throw the furniture at you, but that’s really it. You get one more Occlumency segment, and that’s really the end of the game, if you don’t include the cutscene.
And that’s really it. So was this game the big return that EA had promised us? Well… Not quite. Ok, the game does have some good moments in it, like I said, the graphics are really well done, the design of Hogwarts is incredibly accurate to the movies, and it does feel like it has returned to the style of the first three games, however there really wasn’t enough here to make me forgive them for ‘Goblet of Fire’, even with the help of the fans. The repetitive nature of going back and forth around Hogwarts gets a little old, the mini quests take up the majority of the game instead of the actual story, and there really is no way to lose in this one; if you’re in a fight with the Slytherins and even if they beat you, the game will still continue on and not give you a chance to try again. But it can be entertaining if you’re in the right mood, and there are a lot of mini-games like Exploding Snap, Gobstones and Wizard Chess that may keep you coming back. So overall, it’s like the movie, it’s okay, but it’s certainly not as great as one would expect it to be.
Well, five down, three more to go. Next time, we look at the last Harry Potter game released for the PS2, ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”
“We are nearly there my fellow subjects. Just three more games to go, before we have completed our look into the ‘Harry Potter’ game series. Let us not waste anymore time, and jump straight into the sixth game, ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’.
I am playing this one for the PlayStation 2, however I feel I would have been better off waiting until I had gotten a PlayStation 3, because the graphics in this game are terrible! It is completely obvious that this was made purely for the PS3, but somepony felt that they could also sell it for the PS2, which was a really stupid move. The faces in this game have really gone downhill since ‘Order of the Phoenix’, there is no texture to them, no details whatsoever, and the mouths tend to just move up and down, like the characters have been replaced by humanoid goldfish. And the voice acting for the most part is really bad, Hermione sounds, again, too stuck up for Emma Watson, and Bellatrix… oh dear. Ok, I know Bellatrix is supposed to be completely insane, but why give her that high pitched mad scientist like voice? Helena Bonham-Carter would be feeling ashamed if she saw how her character was being represented in the games. Wow, I’ve barely started and already I’ve had my first rant.
So, aside from the graphical standpoint, what else is there to this game? Well, for one thing, they’ve brought back flying and Quidditch in this game! It works in the same way as it had done in the first two games, you just fly though stars, until you get the Golden Snitch. However, I do have a problem, and if I’m not the only pony to experience this let me know, and that is the controls are quite stiff. In the other games, when you flew, it was quite steady and it flowed naturally as you turned around corners, but in this game, the character just tilts slightly to one side and the broom just glides to either side of the screen. And when you do have to go around corners, be prepared to hit a wall as you turn in.
You only get three spells this time, Reparo, Incendio and Wingardium Leviosa. Lumos is also brought back, but you can’t activate it, the game automatically casts it whenever it gets dark. You do keep the same spells for duelling as you did in ‘Order of the Phoenix’, and I suppose now it’s time to talk about the duelling. In this game, Dumbledore re-instates the Duelling Club from the second movie, each house has their own club, and you will have to become a member of every one (yes, that includes Slytherin) where you will have to fight four duelists. It’s from doing these that you also learn the other spells for when you need to fight Death Eaters later on. However, the problem with the duelling, and this is the same problem I had with ‘Order of the Phoenix’, is that it gets really repetitive and very boring as the game progresses, because it’s really easy, due to the fact that your opponents rarely dodge your spells. Take for example, the boss battles at the end; you know how in the movie we were completely robbed of our chance to see the Battle of the Tower, and instead we got Bellatrix kicking the crockery in the Great Hall? Well here though, we just get four duels with a different Death Eater one after another and that’s really it, and of course it is really repetitive.
In fact, the whole thing is repetitive as most of your time is either taken up by Quidditch, Duelling or brewing potions. Yeah, potions becomes a big thing in this game. You have to become a member of the Potions Club where you will need to, you guessed it, brew potions. First time, it’s really fun, but when you need to constantly go back from Potions class or to Potions Club, you start to get bored of it. And there is the game’s biggest problem: it gets really boring, because you are not doing anything else in the game aside from the three tasks that I’ve just mentioned.
Well, now we move on to the games faults. First of all, the missions are really minimal. What made ‘Order of the Phoenix’ stand out, was that you could choose what mission you could do, and it would still help in progressing the story. Here though, you only have one mission at a time. This isn’t a huge problem, but after playing ‘Order of the Phoenix’, it makes it feel like we have gone backwards a little.
Another problem is the exploration, in that you aren’t allowed to, or at least not straight away. For some reason, the Aurors have locked up different areas of Hogwarts, which when you think about, doesn’t work for the school in general. I mean, the Astronomy Tower is the last place that gets unlocked in the game, and that happens after Christmas, (the human version of Hearths Warming Eve), so where did they have to have the Astronomy lessons if they couldn’t get up to the tower? So, this results in you pretty much going back and forth to the same places over and over again. The portraits are also not as fun as in ‘Order in the Phoenix’. Remember in the last game, when you would have to do tasks for the portraits in order to get the passwords, and when you finally got them, you get the sense that you had truly earned it? Here though, they just give it to you and not in a ‘you ask them and they give it to you’ way, no, you just have to walk past them and they say, ‘oh I’ve got a shortcut, just say this and I’ll open’. Was it too much effort to give us something else to do in this game? And there aren’t even that many portraits here, so it seems pointless to even have them here in the first place.
And that’s really it for this game. You walk somewhere, talk to someone, have a duel, brew a potion, play Quidditch, and that’s it. And all this comes down to the game’s biggest problem; it’s the shortest game so far! I am not kidding when I say that I beat this game in under 4 hours. That is unacceptable! Yes, I know that there are crests that you can collect for multiplayer purposes, and there are larger varieties for the three main tasks, but they are not enough, for me at least, to warrant replay value. They could have extended the game more, by having the small tasks for the portraits in this, at least that would want to make me explore and get a sense of achievement by the end of it like with the other games, but here I just felt really empty by the end of it, like I hadn’t accomplished anything in the long run, and for a game like the ‘Harry Potter’ series, that is the biggest crime you could commit.
Seriously EA, you started out great with the series, but now they’re just becoming gimmicky and boring now. It is not difficult to make a good ‘Harry Potter’ game, but you have got two more chances to redeem yourself, just two! So come back when we look at ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1’ for the next generation consoles.”
“Two more my little ponies. Just two more to go. The Harry Potter saga comes close to the end now with the seventh and last book, ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’. Now, everypony knows how this book was so big, and so epic that it was mentally impossible to put everything into one movie, so they made the right decision to split it into two, and they naturally did the same thing with the games, but let’s see if that was necessary as well. Let’s move into the next generation of consoles with ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1’ for the PlayStation 3.
Now my first experience for this game was when I had travelled to the human world to purchase the game, I stumbled upon a review of the game on a website called ‘IGN’. I looked at it and… I was shocked. The game only got 2 out of 10? That can’t be right. I mean, you all know of my hatred for ‘Goblet of Fire’, you saw me rip into that well, but I would have given that a 3, or a 2.5 at least if I was being generous, so the thought of a ‘Harry Potter’ game worse than that was just ludicrous. So I decided to play the game for myself, clearly this needs a royal approval; I mean it really can’t be that bad, right?
Well… yes. Yes it is. This game is an absolute atrocity. It feels like it’s a combination of everything that I felt was wrong with the last three games. Just to list it off: repetitive, minimal storytelling, no exploration, stuck in only one area, bad graphics. Put those things together and you’ve got a game that will certainly piss you off!
First of all, they’ve done the same thing as they did with ‘Goblet of Fire’ and changed the whole layout of the game. That’s a good sign. In this game, it’s a third person cover shooter; I mean everything’s a third person cover shooter these days. Now that is not the problem, I mean this book has more action in it than the previous instalments, the problem is, is that it is probably one of the worst third person shooters I have ever played! The first problem is the controls. The controls feel so stiff when it comes to turning to face your opponents and casting your spells, that even on the highest sensitivity setting, it won’t make much of a difference. The cover in this third person cover shooter, I’ll be surprised if you can actually cover behind these things, because for most of the time, Harry will not duck for cover, and when you’re under heavy fire from enemies, that really is something you may need to do in this type of game! And when you do finally duck for cover, you will become extremely frustrated when you have difficulty targeting, due to poor camera control. Also to the fact there in the majority of the levels, you will rarely find any cover at all, so you’re stuck out in the open while you’re rummaging through your spells to get the appropriate one. I’ll talk about the selecting spells in a minute.
The graphics have again gone downhill. It’s like the designers know the games are shit so they don’t try to put any effort into them anymore. The faces, for the most part have no features to them, and again, it’s like they’ve been replaced by goldfish! And the presentation of this game is just shoddy. Take for example, London; there is a shop here called… ‘The Shop’. Oh, and a club called… ‘The Club’. The colour in this game is just depressing to look at, everything looks like it’s been washed out so you’re left with a lot of greys.
The stealth sections are back in this one, and it really doesn’t work. You get to use your Invisibility Cloak for these, finally, where was that cloak when I needed to get past the prefects in ‘Chamber of Secrets? The problem is that when under the cloak, you enter a first person view and you cannot touch anyone as you move along otherwise you get caught. Not that doesn’t sound too bad, except for the fact that YOU’RE IN FIRST PERSON!! Your vision is limited to what’s around you, and you can’t see anything behind you, which is what will cause you to get caught the majority of the time!
Selecting spells is just awkward in this game. To get to the right spell, you have to press and hold down the R1 button, and cycle through the wheel of spells Harry has, and when you select the spell you want, you release R1. This really slows down the gameplay as you are constantly having to do this all the bloody time! And casting as well, is a mess, to aim properly, you have to move the left analog stick in your opponent’s direction, while you are still moving, hold down L2 to aim and hold down the R2 button to charge your spell, and then release it to cast, but because you are in such a hurry to get past the level, you’re not going to be doing any of that, you’ll just end up smashing the R2 button repeatedly and hoping your spells hit something that looks like a threat. And when you’re in a position where you have to deal with both Death Eaters and Dementors, you're going to be fucked. I would not bother and just stick with using Stupefy, that’s the best option.
There’s an extra spell called the Four-Point spell, and like everything else in this game, it’s rubbish. The spell is supposed to help Harry find the correct direction in order to go in the current objective, but the spell rarely works when you need it to, so you are going to end up running around in circles for most of the time. There are even potions in this game to collect as well, now what would you expect to do with a potion? Do you drink it? Of course not, what a stupid suggestion. No, you throw at your enemies as they explode LIKE FUCKING GRENADES!!
But in the end, there is no point for any of these things in the game when you think about. In the Ministry of Magic level, Hermione cries out something like how we can’t beat them, I took that to heart and just ran through the whole level without firing any spells… and it worked. I lost a bit of health, but that doesn’t matter, because the bloody thing replenishes itself! It’s like the game is saying ‘We know you won’t die in this game, so we’re not going to give you the chance to die’. But I may need to replenish my health when I am in a situation, where I’m SURROUNDED BY FUCKING ENEMIES AND IT DOESN’T GIVE ME THE FUCKING CHANCE TO GET THE FUCKING HEALTH BACK UP AGAIN IN ORDER TO FIGHT!!”
AAAGGHHHHH!! This game is giving me a headache, my horn’s starting to ache constantly using my magic to hit the fucking buttons… bet you didn’t know our horns could do that, did you. So in conclusion, is this game worse than ‘Goblet of Fire’? Do I need to explain myself anymore, OF COURSE IT IS!! There was absolutely no effort put into this, just to try and compete with other shooter games. The gameplay is just repetitive, boring and really short; I swear, I completed this game in a lesser time than what I had in ‘Half-Blood Prince’. The graphics are laughably bad, the stealth sections are annoying. It’s just a terrible game altogether I wouldn’t even be sure to recommend it to the most die-hard ‘Potter’ fan, but I have bought it, and I’ve now suffered for my actions.
Alright, one more, just one more game! And since it is based on the same engine as this one, I have a serious doubt the ‘Harry Potter’ game series will end glouriously.
My word, has this been a challenge! It’s been draining having to play these games consecutively for you, and watching these games rise and fall as the years have passed between them. But, here we are with the last one, and like I said, I won’t be reviewing ‘Quidditch World Cup’ or the Lego series, because they aren’t really an integral part of the story… well, okay the Lego ones technically are as they do follow the movies, but I like to think of them existing in their own universe, so this will be the final chapter of the ‘Harry Potter’ game saga. Let’s pop it in and see if they can end on a high note.
First of all, the game has the same engine setup as Part 1, so it’s again, a third person cover shooter. Wonderful. The cutscenes used to move the story forward again looked awkward like they did in the last game, the graphics and character designs are again shit, and the voice acting for the most part, is bad. Now some do work, like Neville, Seamus and Professor McGonagall, in fact I am sure they’ve had the same woman voicing McGonagall throughout all the games, but some like Voldemort and Snape are… well they weren’t even trying. So again, it’s everything like the last game was, and if you saw my last review, that’s not a good thing to say.
Now there are some places where EA have done some improvements for this cover shooter, like for one, THERE IS ACTUALLY COVER!! I’m really surprised they picked up on that, otherwise we would be in the same problem as last time. The spells that you forgot you had in the last game are actually of use this time around, and it is easier to use them, as they are equipped to each button, like it was in the original games. So, this game is already better than Part 1 in terms of its gameplay design and its spells engine… but that really isn’t saying much, the game is still, in my opinion, one of the worst ‘Harry Potter’ games out there, and here is why!
Like in Part 1, you are going to be smashing hard on that R1 button a lot throughout this game, that after ten minutes of playing, you may not be able to feel your fingers, if you have them. I’m using my magic, and that still can go stiff. Remember, I’m the Princess of the Night, so any dirty thoughts you had about that last comment, get them out of your head before tonight! Now this does become less painful slightly when you get the Expulso spell, because that spell is the equivalent… of a machine gun. In fact none of the spells in this game work the same way as they do in the books and the movies; Expelliamus was used to disarm your opponents, here, it’s to break shields. Impedimenta was supposed to slow down your opponents, while here it’s a homing missile, and Petrificus Totalus is a body-lock charm, as we will remember from that iconic scene from ‘Philosopher’s Stone’, but it’s now been changed, to be a fucking sniper rifle!
Also, the game does stop you from just running through the levels without doing any fighting, by having blockades in your way so you will need to defend Ron or Hermione from your enemies, as they try to open the pathways… AND IT TAKES FUCKING FOREVER!! You have to do this everywhere, Hogsmeade, the Chamber of Secrets and even Gringotts, which is fucking hilarious seeing as you have to fight off the security guards, and the one question that you ask yourself throughout this whole level, is why the fuck do the Goblins need security guards, and HUMAN SECURITY GUARDS AT THAT?! Didn’t we establish in the first book that it’s not needed, seeing as if you tried to open a lock and you weren’t a goblin, you’d be sucked into the vault? And even if you did manage to get something, you’d never be able to get back out again due to how far underground the vaults are. This is not just me scraping for things to gripe about, this is basic knowledge! Not to mention that by this point, Goblins are completely distrusting of wizards, so why are they hiring them to guard some of the most protected artefacts in the Wizarding World? And again, why does it need to take so long to open the doors? I do not recall Alohomora taking so long to be cast, and it is just to try and pad out this game, but even there it fails, because I am not joking, I completed this game in under 3 HOURS!! How is it that ‘Deathly Hallows-Part 1’ a game where very little actually happens in it, is longer than the game that is supposed to have the most action in it?! I even went back and played ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ a while ago, and do you know how long that game took to complete? 6 to 7 hours! Need I say more?
You do get to play as other characters in this game, like McGonagall, Seamus, Ginny, Ron and Hermione. I thought that this could be really good, but then I realised that they all function the same! There is no variation to them, no one is more powerful than the other, in fact McGonagall is the slowest moving character in this game as she just shuffles around the place, the worst example of this is when you’re fighting the giant on the bridge, she moves so slowly, it’s really difficult not to get hit by the giant’s club! The only interesting character to play as is Seamus, as you need to set explosives under the bridge and detonate it in order to stop the Snatchers from getting into Hogwarts, but that’s all there is.
The side-missions that were in the last part have been dropped, and really, that was the wrong thing to do. Yes, I hated those side missions, but that was because they were just unnecessary, but they could have worked here. We could have had a chance to play as other minor characters, like having Lupin or Tonks go around the school helping to raise the defences of the castle, or playing as Fred fighting up to the point where he gets killed, that would have been something to improve on from the movie, as that moment was just completely brushed over in the film and it had been one of the most heart-breaking and tear-jerking moments that I have ever read in a book, you could have done justice to that and give one of the most beloved characters in the franchise some closure, I don’t even think it was mentioned at all in the game! You could have used those side-missions and the ideas that I have mentioned to better the game.
The game also falls into the same problem as the last few games, in that you get bored of its constant repetitiveness. You fight the same villains, over and over again, use the same tactics over and over again, and keep hitting that R1 button over and over again! And the final boss is just awful; Voldemort was easier to beat than Bellatrix! You pretty much fight him multiple times as you travel through the castle, until you get to final showdown in the courtyard. You know how in the movie when Harry and Voldemort are in that Priori Incantatem moment, which really shouldn’t work as neither of their wands share the same core anymore? Well you have to steer the anlog stick so that the beam is level off the ground. It’s really just a game of skipping. The final fight with the great and powerful Dark Lord is settled with a magical skipping rope.
What a massive disappointment! All the problems that I had with the first ‘Deathly Hallows’ game are present here, with new ones added. Repetitive gameplay, poor handling of the story, terrible graphics short amount of time to complete the whole thing, all around to create a horrible game! Why did they have to split the games into two? I can understand for the movie, but it really is not needed here, they should have just waited until both movies had been released and then release the game. It would still be shit, but it would mean that we would have had to deal with one less shitty game. The game is at least playable, more so than the last one, but it is such a crying shame to see a franchise like this start with such great movie licence games, to be reduced to this third rate shooting knock off.
And there we have it mares and gentlecolts. We have gone through all the ‘Harry Potter’ licence movie games, we have seen these games improve over time, while also decreasing in quality, but we are not done yet; return for next time where I shall be ranking these last eight games from worst to best."
“I know that many of you may think that this seems rather pointless, seeing as how you can all probably guess what game will be where, and that I’ve gone over all that I needed to say in the reviews of each game. But I still wanted to voice my opinion on this, so here is my ‘Worst to Best Harry Potter Games’ list:
8: ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows-Part 1’. This game was doomed to fail. As we all know, ‘Deathly Hallows-Part 1’, while being a rather decent movie, nothing really happens in it, it was just a build up for ‘Part 2’. So how do you make a game based on nothing? You can’t! The game was just repetitive, bland and overall, boring! The idea to make this a shooting game should have had some potential, but it falls flat on its flank in its execution. You were just better off running through the whole game and not shoot at anything, and it would not affect you in the slightest. Little to no cover was given to you to hide from enemies, the graphics were horrendously bad, the controls were terrible, and the only thing this game made me feel like doing was just wishing the Unforgiveable Curses existed, so I could cast Imperius at it and tell it to go fuck itself! I know that this sort of language is inappropriate for a princess, but for something like this, it feels necessary. I’d give it a 1.5 out of 10
7: ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’. IT’S FUCKING TERRIBLE!! I won’t go into so much detail as to why I hate this game, just see my own review for that, but to put it simply; bad gameplay, repetitive, selfish in its collectables, annoying AI, and a poor representation of my favourite book. The reason why I don’t consider this the worst, is because it had a good strong story to work with, but they just missed the mark with it completely, and as much as I hate to admit it, but it did at least make you want to try and get all those shields just to finish it, even if it did drive me crazy to try and fail, which was something ‘Deathly Hallows-Part 1’ didn’t have. I’d give this one a 2 out of 10
6: ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows-Part 2’. Here is a game where there was potential, but it was wasted. This is where the shooting aspect made sense, but like the first part, it just got boring really quickly with its constant repetitive nature. The short amount of time it takes to finish the game is just insulting, and its way of telling the story through all of this is poor to say the least. As I said in the review, they should have just waited until both ‘Deathly Hallows’ movies were released, and then release it as one whole game. But, I will say this that the game is at least playable and easier to understand, but that is really the only compliment I can give it. This game also gets a 2 out of 10.
5: ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’. It’s quite a surprise that the least popular book and fans’ least popular movie didn’t have the least popular game. However, it does fall under the same problem as the last games; the graphics are not as good as what they could have been, your main focus of the game is just consisting of potions, duelling and Quidditch so there isn’t a variety of missions you can perform, and it is again, short. I like how they had brought Quidditch back into the games, but due to stiff controls, it isn’t as fun as it was before. Overall, it is a lacklustre game, nothing really special to say about it. I’d give this a 4 out of 10
4: ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’. This game was an attempt to try and bring the games, back to what they had used to be, exploration, learning spells and interacting with characters, and for the most part, it works. The graphics they used to design Hogwarts was, and still is, incredible to look at and to explore, and there are lots of replay value for all the mini-games that are scattered around the school. While the story isn’t as engaging as it was in the book, and the ending is really rushed, it’s an okay game if you are in the right mood for it. I’d say this is worth 5 out of 10.
3: ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’. This game had tried to do what ‘Chamber of Secrets’ had done before it, and while it didn’t do everything right, like toning down on the stealth sections, and rushing the ending, I still consider this an enjoyable game nonetheless. The new variation of flying is a nice edition, by being able to fly Buckbeak around the grounds, the ability to play as all three of the main characters any time you wanted to helped in puzzle solving areas, the character designs are still really good, even better than the later games in some areas, the music was the best Jeremy Soule and composed, and it was quite chilling and scary to play sometimes. This game is deserving of a 6.5 out of 10.
2: ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’. It does make sense for the game that started the whole thing should be one of the best. While the graphics are not so good today what with the characters having no proper mouth movements at all, I think it’s fine by PlayStation 1 standards. Hogwarts seems to resemble more to what it looked like in the books, collecting the Bertie Botts Beans in different areas to achieve new abilities was a lot of fun, as well as searching for the Famous Witches and Wizards Cards. Spells are at their simplest in this one, but that isn’t really a problem for it, and it keeps you playing longer than the new games, by over half the time, so this is definitely a must for Potter fans. I would give this game a 7 out of 10.
1: ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’. Don’t pretend you didn’t see this coming, every fan knows that this is the best ‘Harry Potter’ game, ever! This took everything that had made ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ work and improved on it. I just loved how this game opened up Hogwarts to you and the world you’re in, it felt like you were playing ‘Grand Theft Potter’, you could fly anywhere on your broomstick, there were a lot of collectibles to find and it had a lot of Zelda like elements to it for unlocking spells to go to different areas and simple RPG elements as well. This truly was a Harry Potter game done right, and for that, I think it deserves an 8.5 out of 10.
Well, there you have it my little ponies, all eight ‘Harry Potter’ games done and reviewed. I hope you have enjoyed it, just as much as I have enjoyed replaying them… well not all of them, and reliving one of the biggest and most popular franchises of all time. Thank you all for watching and I do hope to see you return someday."
“Well, it has been a while my subjects. Now I know I said I would not review this game, but due to so many requests and ponies insisting on what I think of this game, I have decided to give in, and review it. So by popular demand, let’s review ‘Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup’ for the PlayStation 2.”
“Now, as a ‘Harry Potter’ fan, I love Quidditch! I know all the rules off by heart, I have read all the tactics and manoeuvres, and I have always dreamed of being able to play this sport, but I guess this will have to do. Now you did get to play Quidditch in the previous games, like ‘Philosopher’s Stone’, ‘Chamber of Secrets’ and ‘Half-Blood Prince’, but that was only as Harry, you never got the chance to play as a Chaser, Beater or Keeper, well this game finally gives you the ability to do that. This was released in 2003, in between ‘Chamber of Secrets’ and Prisoner of Azkaban’, and it does show. It uses the same body builds and textures from ‘Chamber of Secrets’ and yet, Harry’s voice is slightly deeper, like it was in ‘Prisoner of Azkaban’. You start out at Hogwarts, where you have to choose what house you want to play as, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin. Each house has a representative, Harry is obviously for Gryffindor, Malfoy is Slytherin, and what’s quite interesting is who represents Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw; Cedric Diggory and Cho Chang. That’s a nice touch from the books. Everypony’s first decision is to obviously go for Gryffindor, although I will say that Ravenclaw do have the best Special Move, but you know what, I’m going with Hufflepuff, they always got the short end of the stick in the games, so they deserve some fame.”
“Once you’ve chosen your house, you have to go through a series of House Challenges, such as Passing, Tackle and Shoot, Seeker, Beaters and Bludgers, Special Moves and Combos. These are all things you need to learn if you’re to win the Quidditch Cup, but only the first three are available when you start, you unlock Beaters and Bludgers and Special Moves after the first match, and then finally, Combos after the second one. In each challenge, you have the chance to win a Quidditch Card for beating the Team, House and School Records, and these are used to unlock special moves that can be used in a match. And apparently, the pitch has its own ghost. You have to tackle a ghost called Edgar Cloggs during the Tackle and Special Moves challenges, how does that work? Surely the Quaffle would just fall out of his grip.”
“I suppose now I better talk about the matches themselves. The first one is dead easy, mainly because you’ve just learnt the basics. It’s really split up into two sections, first you play as the Chasers as you have to score with the Quaffle through the hoops, and each one gets you ten points. Each pass raises your bar at the top of the screen, and when the two halves of the Snitch come together, you then become the Seeker as you follow the gold slipstream of the Snitch, and catching it guarantees your team getting 150 points. I don’t know why I need to explain this, every fan knows these rules, but I would have liked if they followed all the rules, like look here for example:”
“I’ve got two players in the scoring range, why aren’t I getting a penalty? I’m clearly Stooging!”
“Anyway, if your selected team wins the Quidditch Cup, you are then able to unlock the World Cup, and go on to play internationally. You can choose up to nine teams, such as England, USA, Japan and so on. You can even get Bulgaria and that does mean you get Viktor Krum, but you need 65 cards in order to get him. I always choose Japan every time I play this, but today, I think I’ll go with… France. All female team by the looks of it. Like at Hogwarts, you have to play the whole league as your team in order to win, and because there are 18 matches, you will have to face each team twice, once on your own pitch, and again on theirs. The difficulty level is determined on what model broomstick you choose, like a Comet 260 is the easiest, while the Firebolt is the most difficult. Who would choose a Comet 260 for the World Cup? You’d be outstripped easily, and if you can’t get the Firbolt, you choose the Nimbus range. For me, it has to be the Nimbus 2000 over the Nimbus 2001, because as Harry once said, ‘I’m not buying anything Malfoy thinks is good’.”
“The commentaries are probably the best part of the match, because you get to learn all the names of the players, and their special moves. At Hogwarts, you of course, have Lee Jordan, it’s not Quidditch without him, but during the World Cup, you have Ludo Bagman. Yes, you heard me; Ludo Bagman, making his first appearance outside of the books. Honestly, I can never understand why they felt the need to not include him in the movie? He was a vitally important character!”
“Well, that’s really all that needs to be said about this game, it’s just your basic sports game, but it’s still fun. There is also a bonus you can unlock after you’ve won the World Cup, which is Queerditch. It’s not the gay version of Quidditch, you just play a game at Queerditch Marsh, where the game originated! And so finally, we have played ‘Quidditch World Cup’. I have debated for ages whether to review this, because it doesn’t have a plot as such, so there isn’t a lot to talk about, but still, it’s a good time waster. I wouldn’t recommend playing the whole thing in one sitting, as it is rather repetitive, and you could get more fun out of Multiplayer, but as an add-on to the ‘Harry Potter’ game series, it’s a welcome addition. Not the best, but far from the being the worst.”
“This game does make you wish that Quidditch was real, and that you could actually go and play a proper match, with real Bludgers and Snitches, scoring with a real Quaffle on a proper pitch, with hundreds of ponies watching and cheering you on as you near… victory. Excuse me, I do believe an idea is coming to me.”
