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Wednesday, December 03rd 2008
Harry Potter Store - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Includes Child Movie Ticket)
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List Price: $29.99
Our Price:
Your Save: $ 29.99 ( 100% )
Availability:
Manufacturer: Electronic Arts
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Video Game
Brand: Electronic Arts
EAN: 0014633167375
ESRB Age Rating: Everyone 10+
Feature: Immerse Yourself in Magic—Interact with magical objects, ghosts and portraits in every room, corridor and courtyard—all faithfully recreated from the movies.
Label: Electronic Arts
Manufacturer: Electronic Arts
Platform: Nintendo Wii
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Release Date: 2007-06-25
Studio: Electronic Arts
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Features
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Immerse Yourself in Magic—Interact with magical objects, ghosts and portraits in every room, corridor and courtyard—all faithfully recreated from the movies.
Perfect Your Wand Work—Cast spells to unleash powerful fifth-year magic.
Lead Dumbledore’s Army—Recruit fellow students and teach them Defence Against the Dark Arts.
Relive the Magic of the Movie—…from the Dementor attack in Little Whinging to the epic battles at the Ministry of Magic.
Unleash Advanced Magic—Play as Sirius and Dumbledore as they fight Lucius, Bellatrix and Voldemort in the Ministry of Magic.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Only one kid can play at a time
Comment: My boys LOVE this game. The wand action is a lot of fun for them, and the booklet is clear in the spell explanations.
My complaint - only ONE kid can play. It would be A LOT more fun if two or three kids could play Harry and his friends...just like the movie.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Glorious game, functionality needs tweaking
Comment: I absolutely loved this game, and most of the good stuff has already been said in these reviews. And incredible value for the money, with 40+ hours of game play and high replayability with all the quests and mini-games. Gorgeous, glorious, engaging, etc. etc.
So what's my gripe? It's mentioned in other reviews, and it's the Wii functionality. Spell-casting with the nunchuk and remote is imprecise and often frustrating. Targeting people and objects in any kind of timed activity drove me wild. The potions task for an OWL in Snape's dungeon classroom was made really annoying because I couldn't get Harry to change targets easily, and he would pick up the wrong potion. Also, the view is overhead and incredibly dark, so sometimes you can't even see Harry (or Snape, who you bump into) when trying to target from the head of the table.
Another frustrating task was the Herbology OWL with Prof Sprout, for the same reasons. Imprecise targeting meant plants were difficult to zone in on, especially those on the ends or in the very middle of a row. And Flitwick's OWL had the same problem.
Dueling with spells was also frustrating to target and control with any precision.
The odd thing is that you have clear B button selection of objects and targets most of the time, it's even taught to you that way in the beginning of the game. So to lose it when you need it most...well, I just know on other platforms this would be a non-issue.
But otherwise, it was incredible. And hopefully Wii will get better at porting or creating this type of functionality in the future.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Hogwarts Revealed!!
Comment: This game is hard for me to review because some elements I love and others I think are sloppy and things I'd rather avoid at all costs. Still, I can't stop playing this game and having fun and I think most any Harry Potter fan will too.
For the first time we can walk all around Hogwarts and explore it's every nook and cranny. That's a huge plus for me as walking around the castle and discovering new things and talking to students really makes the place come alive. I feel like I'm actually there. Thankfully, the castle is jam packed with secrets to uncover to encourage further wandering.
Waving the Wii Remote to perform spells is simple and something I think gamers of all ages can master rather quickly. For example to cast Reparo (to repair broken items) you simply wave your controller in a circular motion. The control scheme further draws gamers into the world and brings it to life. I even found myself saying the spells aloud as I cast them which was quite amusing. Wingardium Leviosa gave me the most headaches as it took time to maneuver items I had levitated.
My problems with the game are mainly mechanical. Ron and Hermonie follow you everywhere and constantly got in my way. To add insult to injury, they constantly remind you to head off to your next task in the story line but with the focus on exploring their constant reminders get very annoying in short order. The story scenes are ok, but they only make the sketchiest effort at representing the story. The game would have been much better without story at all. Also there are a few very difficult mini-games that you have to beat three times in order to get a 100% score in the game. I think mini games should be optional, not required.
The tasks you are given to perform are mostly collecting items but they remain mostly satisfying. I would have liked to see more varied tasks. Some interesting puzzles would have been great. All considered though, this Harry Potter game is the best of the bunch. It could have been much better with just a bit more thought and effort but there's no doubt it will bring many hours of enjoyment to Harry Potter fans.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Harry Potter 5 video game
Comment: this game is awesome for my child and at sometimes the game wouldn't respond to the remote but then it would. i say get it if your a fan. and the free movie ticket is awesome too. my daughter saw the movie on her birthday with the ticket so get it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great potential, poor execution
Comment: Last weekend, I went and saw the recently released fifth Harry Potter film. Even though I would categorize myself as a casual fan, I am getting more interested with the release of the final book in the series and will probably try to read them all when I have time. That said, I enjoyed the film so much I decided to go out and rent the Wii game, which I had heard was decent. After beating the main story of the game, here are my impressions:
Story and Presentation
While I feel that the movie was adapted fairly well, the story in the game is a joke. Cut scenes are triggered by completing objectives, but they are very fragmented and do not produce a coherent storyline. Those who have seen the films or read the books will understand what is happening, but those who haven't may be lost. While I can understand the difficulty in adapting very long books to this format, especially the Potter series with its books that get progressively longer, it is unacceptable to me to have a game with an incomprehensible plot line in this day and time.
In my opinion, it is never a good idea to rehash the story from the film for the game. There are many examples of this in licensed games, and Harry Potter for Wii is a perfect archetype for the cut and pasted plot lines that are the norm in games based on movies.
The voice acting, orchestral music, sound effects, environments, and character mapping are all excellent quality will instantly draw players into the game. From the opening cinematic, this game's presentation oozes quality.
My only question is, why did EA choose to use character models for the cut scenes instead of just getting permission to use footage from the film? They already had permission to use film footage in unlockables, as well as access to all the actors and source materials. This may have provided a more dramatic and impressive element to the game and saved some modeling time.
Gameplay
The gameplay in Harry Potter is a mixed bag at best. The game fits most snugly in the adventure category, but unfortunately there are no Myst style brain buster puzzles to complete. Instead, players are treated to a 10-15 hour romp of fetch quests. Don't get me wrong, a fetch quest is alright every now and then, but this whole game is comprised of finding characters in the school and then fetching something for them, or completing a very easy puzzle using magic so that they might join "Dumbledore's Army" with you. Additionally, there are many areas in the castle that have broken statues and other items that much be repaired, or otherwise altered for experience points which level up your magic and unlock bonus footage, trophies, etc. in the "Room of Rewards". Also, there are mini-games such as chess and marbles scattered throughout the castle. Finally, there are several duels in the game, but ultimately they are ruined by the controls.
The gameplay is helped a bit by the accurate depiction of of Hogwarts which is very fun to explore, but once you have seen it all, the gameplay is tedious.
Controls
Using the Wii remote as a wand to control spells sounds like an excellent idea, but the execution in this game ruins the experience. The non-combat spells are better than the combat spells but the auto targeting feature in the game is awful. When you have your wand out, whatever your cursor is closest to automatically is targeted and glows faintly. It works but it is easy to accidentally point at another item that is close to your intended target and have to recast spells repeatedly to achieve your desired result. As mentioned earlier, this feature especially ruins duels because they get frantic, and it is very easy to get off target. Why in the world the developers didn't just copy Nintendo's Z-targeting, like every other game out there, is beyond me.
The motion controls take a lot of getting used to, and while it is great to float items around a room using Wingardium Leviosa, the spells themselves are sometimes hard to activate. Finally, Harry himself handles clunkyly and I did get him stuck and had to reset the game once in a staircase.
Graphics and Sound
The graphics and sound of this game are truly the highlight. As mentioned earlier, the game is expertly voice acted in Dolby Pro-Logic, has a great orchestral soundtrack straight from the movie, and Hogwarts is rendered in excruciating detail. This game truly is a good looking Wii game. Games later this year like Metroid and Mario Galaxy may look better but Harry Potter for the Wii looks pretty good to these eyes.
The only thing bad I can say is that the sound coming from the Wii remote in this game is ridiculous. If they wanted to use the Wii Remotes speaker to help immerse the player in the game, then they might have at least made the sounds coming from it something intelligible rather than the hissing and popping that it uses now.
Conclusions and Score
Harry Potter for Wii is a fairly fun rental, but I wouldn't recommend buying it unless you are a die hard Potter fan. The game is short, has a choppy hard to follow plot line (unless you are already familiar with the source material), repetitive boring gameplay, and controls that are ruined by the awful auto-targeting and difficult to execute imprecise spell motions.
Even will all of these faults, the time spent rendering the great artwork and graphics in the game make it still fun to play and explore Hogwarts. Hopefully for next year's Harry Potter game, EA reuses the beautiful environments and music they have created and improve the game by having a coherent immersive plotline (even if they have to use two DVDs to tell it and footage from the movie), varied gameplay with more Myst like adventure game puzzles, more precise spell motion controls, and Z-Targeting. This game has a ton of potential but is spoiled by poor execution.
Story and Presentation - 5.5
Gameplay - 6.0
Controls - 7.0
Graphics and Sound - 8.5
Overall - 6.75/10
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