Potter and his friends take up their wands for the beginning of the end. Given the monotony, we wish the end would come sooner, already
Format: PS3, Xbox 360 (version played), Wii, PC, DS Dev: EA Bright Light Pub: EA
Out: 19/11/10 Players: 1
Hogwarts has been infested with Death Eaters and Voldermort (that’s right, I named him) is stronger than ever and is intent on taking Harry’s life. With no Dumbledore, it’s just Harry and company to find the Horcruxes if they want any hope of defeating You Know Who.
Straight away I noticed you are less confined to the walls of Hogwarts as compared to the previous games, and offered the freedom of the outside world where cover-based battles form the focal point. There is however less emphasis on exploration, as the story takes a more direct and linear approach than before to cover all the main twists and turns.
You are sometimes offered a number of routes to take where you will be faced with different situations, but this seems rather pointless as you have to complete all the routes anyway to piece the story together. If you’ve seen the film, you’ll know there’s a lot of content which has forced the game pace to be quick. This has led to some cutscenes being quite to the point where they could offer so much more depth and direction to the story.
As you’d expect, as you level up your current spells become stronger and you unlock new spells, but the limited hot keys make it frustrating and annoying to change between them in battle. So you will find yourself becoming reliant on two main spells to get the job done.
With Dumbledore out of the way and the Order of the Phoenix set to crumble you’d expect your good mates Ron and Hermione to fight beside and help you in your quest. Think again, the AI of both seems lazy. They don’t offer much help and occasionally stand in the way as you’re about to cast a Stupify spell. However, Ron does add some humour with his one-liners. For example, when I was under the invisibility cloak he says to Hermione: “these jeans are a bit tight.”
On the whole, the graphics are respectable, but for me the storyline put the game’s presentation in a shadow. I didn’t notice it at first but some of the characters’ voices are not authentic, which I suppose takes away a little realism, but the voice actors aren’t that bad – Hermione still sounds like a wining dog if that counts for anything.
EA have worked their magic in trying to cram as much content as they can into this game but it seems they’ve conjured a half-hearted product. Given there is a final film and game to come, EA has one last chance to get everything right and leave us Muggles with a lasting impression from the Harry Potter series.
Aaron Stevens
Tags: action, ea, fantasy, harry potter, kinect, warner bros
