User Reviews (11 - 21 of 44)

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This game is the best so far!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 12
Date: July 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Ive had this game for about 6 hours now and I am loving it. Ive seen some people whining about not being able to configure the controls. Its to help maintain some kind of uniformity from one platform to the next. Ive found the controls are very well placed and respond well even with a dual analog game pad. The graphics are very well done and it has very helpful directions that seem to pop up at just the right time. Also the proper spells and motions for them I thought were very well chosen. I would say to anyone its definitely worth spending your hard earned money on. I am sure there are some who will disagree with me, but you can't expect this game to be the next HALO. Fantastic game most will enjoy it!!!!!

DVD-ROM, NOT CD-ROM

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 13
Date: July 16, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Beware! This is a DVD-rom, NOT a CD-rom. YOUR COMPUTER MUST HAVE A DVD-ROM DRIVE TO PLAY THIS GAME. If your computer only has a cd-rom drive, you will be unable to install, let alone play, the game. I did not discover this until I tried to install it and the computer would not recognize that there was even a disc in the drive. I finally found out from EA's telephone support line (I couldn't find anything about this problem on their website) that it is unplayable on my computer.

Buyer Beware

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: August 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

EA has really done it this time. BEWARE!! If you have an Intel processor for graphics this game will not work. I have XP with the latest graphics updates, Xtreme graphics, and drivers and the system keeps shutting the game down as a threat to computer. I also have well above the specs necessary that are stated. System says a line in the program is creating the problem, EA says the program will only run with certain graphics programs. Bottom line read the small print and check your computer specs. The ad for the product does not tell you all, check EA to find out which graphic programs will run the game properly. Even a vista program with a intel graphics program will not work properly. I tried. Kids extremely disappointed. We have all the other games and had no problem,however with this one I guess you need to buy a certain kind of computer to play it.

excellent

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: July 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The graphics are great; you can go just about anywhere and get rewarded for it. Possibly the best thing for me is being able to use the Maurader's Map to plot where to go. By doing this, you get little feet on the ground that you follow. This way, you can play around and investigate different parts of Hogwarts & the grounds and the feet will still point you in the correct direction to where you originally wanted to go. GREAT improvement for those of us who are a bit forgetful. On the negative side, it seems like you have less control over objects that you move around with Wingardium Leviosa, but maybe I'm just a dork and don't have the "magic" touch.

Wonderful graphics and sound, ok adventure

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: September 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Spell casting: Aiming Harry's wand is simple in concept, but awkward. You basically have to face your target, which highlights the object, prior to casting a spell. This is tedious but ok for manipulating inanimate objects. The wand action is clumsy at best when duelling with more than one character, or when multiple characters are in the field of view. You have to learn and perform spells correctly; either by manipulation of the mouse or gamepad, or by key sequence on the keyboard. This is challenging yet more rewarding than the early Harry Potter games. It's gratifying when you can perform a "wingardium leviosa", "repairo" or "reducto" and things happen. It's equally ungratifying when you cast the wrong spell by mistake or by accident.

Environment: Cudos to EA for a wonderful job in recreating the characters, Hogwarts school, and the school grounds! After completing minor tasks the gamer is frequently rewarded with views of the beautiful Hogwarts building and grounds. The game is scored with music from the movie, which is very nice. With stereo speakers and a sub-woofer the effects sound great too. My cats were mesmerized by the realistic bird sounds in many outdoor scenes. The character's voices are the original actors. All in all this exceeded my expectations.

I've played 60+% of the game (by their calculations), and varied the graphic resolution and quality level along the way. This configurability is a nice feature. You can fine tune your experience based on what you find important. I maximize the visuals by selecting "quality" mode, such that the character's faces, the wall portraits and the visual textures all look great. I then adjust the resolution until performance is acceptable (i.e. not slugish). My 1.6 Ghz laptop with 1GB RAM handles 1024x768 (2nd highest game res) and "quality" visuals with only minor slugishness.

Action: This is NOT a First Person Shooter. The wand play is secondary to the tasks; seeking objects, passwords, information, etc. More mature than collecting Bertie Bott's Every Flavour beans like in the earlier games. Yet, this still seems like a game well suited for youth 8+, young teens and all young at heart.

Inaction: The game space (Hogwarts) is big, and fairly complicated. Because seeking things is at the core of the game, navigating and re-navigating the disances can be tedious. Fortunately there are shortcuts, which are helpful once you've uncovered the passwords to access them. The Marauder's Map provides task management and auto-navigation. It's clever and speeds up game play.

Install: No problems.

Bugs: No crashes, no hangs. I'm a software engineer and enjoy poking around for problems. Nothing major to report so far.

Failure again

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 12
Date: July 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Once again EA creates a visually beautiful game that is unplayable. You spend most of your time running around trying to make the characters use spells with controls that are horrible. The first three games didn't have great graphics but did have ease of control and movement and were fun to play. Since then, with the release of Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix,the games are very pretty but the ease of control and movement are terrible and the game play is frustrating. EA reached it's highest point in HP series of games with Prisoner of Azkaban, its all been downhill from there. Don't by this game it completely sucks.

SUPERB

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 16
Date: July 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

NOW THIS IS MORE LIKE THE HARRY POTTER GAMES OF OLD. THE GOBLET OF FIRE WAS SUCH A LET DOWN BUT NOW WARNER BROTHERS HAVE OUT DONE THEMSELVES WITH THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX. JUST WISH THEY COULD GO BACK AND REDO THE GOBLET OF FIRE WITH THE SAME FORMAT.
THIS NEW ORDER OF THE PHOENIX IS THE BEST EVER. THERE ARE MORE HOURS OF FUN HER THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE. ONCE YOU GO THROUGH THE WHOLE GAME ONE TIME YOU ARE READY TO START A NEW GAME ALL OVER.

SUBERB, EXCELLENT ON ALL COUNTS.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix PC Game

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: July 22, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I couldn't wait until the game finally came out, but I am very disappointed. First, I had trouble installing the game. I went online and did everything that they told me to do, and I still could not install the game. Then I called EA, and their customer service leaves something to be desired. In desperation, I called one of my friends who is a video game geek. He walked me through changing the registry of my computer, and then it installed.

This game is not for small children, because it is very difficult to move Harry around. The camera in the game seems to always be in the wrong position. Getting 100% Discovery points in all the locations without some hints off of EA's website is almost impossible. The last couple of Harry Potter PC games were much more exciting than this one!

Very bad character movement

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: August 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have played every Harry Potter game that has come out. This is by far the worst. The characters are very hard to control. Sometimes when you want Harry to walk one way, you may have to press different directions to get him to go that way. In addition, it is very hard to point him in the right direction to do any spells. I gave up about 20 minutes in to the game. The cut scenes are also way too long and way too frequent. I'm not sure who tests these games but I can't imagine anyone being really comfortable with the controls.

Most Magical Harry Potter game yet!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: August 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is an excellent game. The graphics are stunning, gameplay is fun, and having some of the actors from the movie voice the characters is so cool. The game has three levels of difficulty, which the previous games didn't have, a new way to cast spells, using the keyboard instead of the mouse, which i find much easier and more realistic, and many more locations. Figuring out how to move around is a little tricky at first, but you get used to it. The new camera angles, although not always on Harry's back, allow you to see more of the scenery around you. There is much more to explore in this game, and the more you discover, the more you get rewarded. It follows the storyline of the film, so the new stuff, like the D.A., the battle at the Ministry, and Grimmauld Place are all there. There are also side quests, like getting portrait passwords, playing Wizard Chess, Gobstones, and Exploding Snap, or getting books from the library to finish an essay for a teacher. You're not forced to do classes either, which makes the game much easier to play than the first three. Although you can't play as Ron or Hermione, during the battle, you play as Dumbledore and Sirius Black. You can also use the Invisibility Cloak, which is perfect for sneaking around, and the new Marauder's Map feature is really handy if you get lost, or can't find a certain character. There are loads of new spells, and the frequent battles between the Slytherins keep up the action. This game is much less Video-Gamey then the others and more like actually being at Hogwarts. Overall this is a great game, and certainly the best of all the Harry Potter games. It ended up being much more than I expected.

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