HP fans will be let down by this boring and repetitive game.
Order of the Phoenix has brought back the free roam elements that were missing from Goblet of Fire and now lets you roam around Hogwarts, which is fully re-created to include every room and corridor that you have seen in the film. That's all very well, but when the gameplay is mind-numbingly boring and repetitive, it makes you wonder why they bothered.
You control all of the game as Harry (excluding the few minutes you play as Fred and George, Sirius and Dumbledore) and Ron and Hermione are just your sidekicks which follow you around and get in your way. As you go around Hogwarts you will encounter more students going about their daily routine (mainly giving Harry a bad reputation), which adds to the more people who can get in your way and sometimes seem to do it on purpose.
The controls are configurable, but using the mouse to casts spells feels the most satisfying. To cast a spell you hold down the left button and move it either up, down, left to right and so on. You do the same thing in when in combat, except you hold down the right mouse button. However, controlling Harry is a real pain as he walks really slowly, causing you to hold down shift the whole time to make him run, which makes you wonder why shift wasn't just used for walking. If the camera has a sudden change of position, the key you were holding to move Harry in a certain direction suddenly makes Harry move in another direction, which is frustrating. There are also times where Harry has to slide along ledges, in which he moves extremely slowly on.
So, let's go fight people, cast loads of exciting spells in exciting places and have really great fun! Or not. You press TAB to bring up the Marauder’s Map where you have to select someone to find and then do a task for them. This is mainly used for finding members for the DA, which takes up a big chunk of the game. What do you do when you find these people? Do tasks for them. They will have you swamping out courtyards, tipping potions into speakers (six times!), retrieving their cameras, finding Gargoyles or anything else like that. It may sound fun written down, but when you are playing it you will soon grow tired of the lack of excitement and how repetitive the game is coming. The only time you engage in combat (it's rare), it is boring and makes you want it to be over quickly.
As you are now able to free roam around Hogwarts, it is superb at first to be in the places you saw in the films or imagined in the books, however you will soon have visited those places countless times and you will be wishing you didn't have to do all this running about. You can also unlock classrooms by doing tasks for the teachers, which although mentally rewarding, offers nothing new to the gameplay.
You can earn points throughout the game by repairing statues, discovering trophies, putting paintings back on the wall and such. At a certain amount of points you will unlock rewards which can be found in a special room. The rewards are actually really good and a highlight - they are interviews with the makers of the game and the cast of Harry Potter, presented in a nice Daily Prophet (newspaper) style.
There are cutscenes during the game which hold potential, but are put together really poorly. The voices don't match the movements of the mouth and some people in the cutscenes will just be standing there and not doing anything at all. There are also cutscenes for parts of the game you may have been looking forward to playing (flying to the Ministry of Magic, for instance). It's a shame really, because if some more time, effort and thought had been put into them they would have been a nice touch.
The sound for this game is one of the good things. The original soundtrack has been used, and it makes you feel at Hogwarts when you hear other students talking or owls hooting in the distance. Quite a few of the original cast from the films have been used, and it's just a shame they couldn't use all of them.
Graphically the game is strange. In some places you will be amazed by the detail that has gone into it, but you will mostly be put out by the poorly detailed characters and their clunky movements. It seems the developers got bored halfway through and decided to quickly make some textures and animations to get the job done quickly, especially when characters start vanishing for no apparent reason.
To sum up, this game feels as if you are just doing chores for the students and not immersing in any magic or action at all. As I'm a big Harry Potter fan, this game is a real disappointment for anyone of any age. We can only hope that the Half Blood Prince game will turn out better.
You control all of the game as Harry (excluding the few minutes you play as Fred and George, Sirius and Dumbledore) and Ron and Hermione are just your sidekicks which follow you around and get in your way. As you go around Hogwarts you will encounter more students going about their daily routine (mainly giving Harry a bad reputation), which adds to the more people who can get in your way and sometimes seem to do it on purpose.
The controls are configurable, but using the mouse to casts spells feels the most satisfying. To cast a spell you hold down the left button and move it either up, down, left to right and so on. You do the same thing in when in combat, except you hold down the right mouse button. However, controlling Harry is a real pain as he walks really slowly, causing you to hold down shift the whole time to make him run, which makes you wonder why shift wasn't just used for walking. If the camera has a sudden change of position, the key you were holding to move Harry in a certain direction suddenly makes Harry move in another direction, which is frustrating. There are also times where Harry has to slide along ledges, in which he moves extremely slowly on.
So, let's go fight people, cast loads of exciting spells in exciting places and have really great fun! Or not. You press TAB to bring up the Marauder’s Map where you have to select someone to find and then do a task for them. This is mainly used for finding members for the DA, which takes up a big chunk of the game. What do you do when you find these people? Do tasks for them. They will have you swamping out courtyards, tipping potions into speakers (six times!), retrieving their cameras, finding Gargoyles or anything else like that. It may sound fun written down, but when you are playing it you will soon grow tired of the lack of excitement and how repetitive the game is coming. The only time you engage in combat (it's rare), it is boring and makes you want it to be over quickly.
As you are now able to free roam around Hogwarts, it is superb at first to be in the places you saw in the films or imagined in the books, however you will soon have visited those places countless times and you will be wishing you didn't have to do all this running about. You can also unlock classrooms by doing tasks for the teachers, which although mentally rewarding, offers nothing new to the gameplay.
You can earn points throughout the game by repairing statues, discovering trophies, putting paintings back on the wall and such. At a certain amount of points you will unlock rewards which can be found in a special room. The rewards are actually really good and a highlight - they are interviews with the makers of the game and the cast of Harry Potter, presented in a nice Daily Prophet (newspaper) style.
There are cutscenes during the game which hold potential, but are put together really poorly. The voices don't match the movements of the mouth and some people in the cutscenes will just be standing there and not doing anything at all. There are also cutscenes for parts of the game you may have been looking forward to playing (flying to the Ministry of Magic, for instance). It's a shame really, because if some more time, effort and thought had been put into them they would have been a nice touch.
The sound for this game is one of the good things. The original soundtrack has been used, and it makes you feel at Hogwarts when you hear other students talking or owls hooting in the distance. Quite a few of the original cast from the films have been used, and it's just a shame they couldn't use all of them.
Graphically the game is strange. In some places you will be amazed by the detail that has gone into it, but you will mostly be put out by the poorly detailed characters and their clunky movements. It seems the developers got bored halfway through and decided to quickly make some textures and animations to get the job done quickly, especially when characters start vanishing for no apparent reason.
To sum up, this game feels as if you are just doing chores for the students and not immersing in any magic or action at all. As I'm a big Harry Potter fan, this game is a real disappointment for anyone of any age. We can only hope that the Half Blood Prince game will turn out better.