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A chance to go to Hogwarts!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: July 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game is so much fun on the Wii. Other consoles require weird key combinations to cast spells, but with the Wii Remote and Nunchuck, you actually feel like you're holding a wand, casting spells as you complete the adventure at Hogwarts! The only drawback is the fact that all the deuling scenes are fairly pre-programmed (it's not really possible to lose...they sort of play out and then they're over). But the complete freedom to explore and the amazing graphics more than make up for it.

Fun...Yet Tiresome.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: February 17, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Pros: This is a great game it's fun and the makers of the game even added parts into the game that was in the book but not in the movie. The graphics are unbeleavable and the spellcasting is awesome.
Cons: Sometimes with the Wii remote as a wand can be frustrating. When your casting accio and depulso it is usually messed up. The dule between Voldemort and Dumbledore is lame. The Dumbledore is extremly boring to play as and Voldemort keeps repeating his lines over and over again.

That may seem like a lot of cons but overall it is an entertaining game for those who love the books and movies.

Not what I expected, but still fun!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 05, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I'm a huge Harry Potter fan so I thought the this game would be fun! When I had finally finished the instructions, which were long and detailed, I thought I'd be prepared for playing the game. I was very confused at times by which tasks to do first, and how to remember all the spell motions. It's more complicated than fun, sorry to say.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for Wii

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 18, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game is fun and challenging. I am not a big gamer in fact the Wii is the first game system I have ever bought, because it is more interactive. I love the way it plays over other systems. Harry Potter is a fun game to play and I have gotten stuck and had to ask someone how to get out of it, but that makes it more fun because it is not too easy like some of the other games I have played on it.

The best HP game so far.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 31, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The whole hogwarts campus is open, no waiting for an area to load. The music and castle are beautiful. The tasks can be a little tedious, but you get through them. The only negative about it is that it's somewhat boring defeating voldemort (sp?) overall wonderful, easy-to-follow game!

Glorious game, functionality needs tweaking

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 20, 2007
Author: Amazon User

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.

Great potential, poor execution

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 02, 2007
Author: Amazon User

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

Harry Potter 5 video game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 15, 2007
Author: Amazon User

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.

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