User Reviews (1 - 11 of 27)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

A very fun game.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 20, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game was fun. If you like any of the other harry potter games youll like this one. It has fun puzzles.

Awesome!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: March 16, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is one of the best games I have ever played! It's easier and more fun than the first two games. The only complaint I have is when Lupin asks you to find the spell book on the first day of term. I am at a part that is virtually impossible to beat. When Harry goes into that room with all the cornish pixies, you have to run over to one target, cast spell at that, run over to another platform before time runs out, cast a spell at yet another target and run over to another platform, all in about 10 seconds. Other than that this game rules!
Note: Never ever ever get the computer version of this game! It freezes a lot, and it kills your computer!

Good graphics, excelent play!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 05, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This volume of Harry Potter's "saga" is very well close to the motion picture, and allows fans to follow stages similar to the book's ones. Hours of fun and entertainment for my 8 year old son!

Far Too Easy

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 09, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game was a lot of fun. All of the challenges were great, and so were the graphics. My only problem with this, is that it is far too easy. Although it is a great game, and fantastic in it's entirety, the average gamer would be able to beat it within 24 hours. A good gamer, 18. A great one, 10. The problem is it doesn't last long enough. The only good thing about it is that it doesn't last so long that you get immediately bored of it. Some minor parts aren't too easy to figure out, like how to defeat Hinkypunks the first time. But, you figure it out and finish the game. Easy as pie.

THE BEST GAME I EVER PLAYED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 8
Date: November 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is GREAT!!!!
I LOOOOOOOOOVVVVVEEEEEE How you can play as Harry Ron and Hermione. Yes there is a few hard parts My sister had to get me passed but I only needed her help with one part! Which it was the dementor. And I LOVE the part when I fly Buckbeak. I'm already through the whole game and it's great cause when your through the game when you play it's not just fun it's great. Cause all the doors are unlocked and no more things to defeat. And fly Buckbeak 24\7! I just have to figure out how to turn his color back to gray. But I do like him orange. I call him Hallofeathers. Get It? Anyway it's a GREAT game. Each of the three of Harry Ron and Hermione have their own magical things. Harry can Jump and climb ropes. Hermione can walk on frozen ice. And Ron can throw dungbombs and stick petles. Ron only has three spells. Harry has 4 and Hermione has 5. It even once in a while let's you be Harry's owl Hedwig.
GREAT GAME!!!
AND FUN!!!

Is it bad? Not really. Is it good? Not really.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 12
Date: October 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

As anyone reading this review is doubtless aware, this game is based on the third installment in the Harry Potter movie franchise, which is in turn based off the third book in the Harry Potter series. This one concerns the third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley as they attend class, learn new spells, fight various enemies, and - by the way - deal with the fact that the notorious wizard criminal, Sirius Black, has escaped from Azkaban prison with the intent to murder young Mr. Potter, and he is being pursued by Dementors, which are Ringwraith-like creatures that act as prison guards and they are intent on recapturing Sirius Black, and woe to anyone who gets in their way.

This is my second foray into the world of Harry Potter gaming. About a year ago I played Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, which was a great (though not perfect) game with a well-realized, immersive Hogwarts, lots of challenging combat, fun sidequests and mini-games, Quidditch matches, good-looking graphics, and engaging puzzles. I went in to Prisoner of Azkaban expecting more of the same. I was rudely shocked, to say the least.

But before I get into the negative, let's talk about the positive. In this game, you control Harry, Ron, and Hermione at various times, and each of the three has different strengths and abilities. Harry has access to the Marauder's Map, which allows you to see mini-maps or the levels, complete with secret passageways and locations of other characters and enemies. Harry is also able to jump gaps, climb ropes, and is generally the most acrobatic of the trio. Ron can find secret doors and items. Hermione can access tight spaces that the others can't. In addition, though this game offers many spells to be learned and used, most of them can only be used by one or another of the three characters (though the basic spells are common to all three). All of this does make for a more varied gameplay experience, and adds a certain amount of depth to the (still too easy) puzzle-solving. Another positive thing about the game is the Expecto Patronus spell, which allows Harry to conjure up a Patronus to use against the Dementors. This is very well done and is the most enjoyable thing in the game, although controlling the Patronus effectively will take some getting used to. But that's about it as far as positives go.

Combat in this game is much easier than before. Your Expelliarmus spell for defense will almost never be used. The basic approach to any enemy is just cast Filipendo at it over and over again until it goes down. This is complicated by the fact that your lock-on targeting system in clearly flawed in this game, as many times you will attempt to target an enemy and lock on to an inanimate object instead. A couple of the enemies are slightly more challenging, but for the post part it is just point and shoot. This even applies to the several times you will encounter Draco Malfoy in the game. Malfoy is no more difficult to defeat than any other enemy in the game. This doubtless makes the game easier for young players, but it was a disappointment for me.

The puzzles in the game are very easy for the most part. They are made even easier by the fact that the characters will continuously shout out things like "I wonder what that button does, maybe you should push it!" or "Hey Ron, why don't you cast Lumos Duo on that object over there?" or other such things. So if you should ever experience some momentary hesitation about what to do next, don't worry - the game will spill the beans quickly enough.

The most annoying thing about the game is the fact that, whichever of the three characters you are playing, the other two will constantly run along behind you shouting unhelpful and annoying remarks. For example, when you have completed all the tasks assigned to you for a level, but you need to explore the castle a bit, the characters will gripe about how tired they are and how they want to go to bed approximately every 5 seconds. Or if you should ever deviate from the shortest path through a level, they will start spouting off about how you're going the wrong way. This will drive you insane in a hurry. I can't believe EA thought this was a good idea. At the least you should have an option to turn the voices off.

The mini-games in this game are dull to say the least. As I said before, there is no Quidditch, in fact you don't touch a broomstick in the game. Yes, you do get to fly Buckbeak aimlessly around the castle grounds if you desire, but this is a very poor substitute. The other mini-games are pointless and boring, and one of them, Owl Racing, was apparently deisgned as torture for your fingers, since you have to tap a button over and over again in a precise rhythm for several minutes in order to make your owl flap her wings and fly. I did it one time and never again, since I don't particularly enjoy finger cramping.

Graphically and sound-wise the game is also below par. Most of the characters look and sound nothing like their movie counterparts. The worst is Professor Snape. I don't know who did his voice acting, but they could have gotten the guy who does Spongebob Squarepants and it would have sounded better. Of course, you don't hear much of his voice anyway, since every time you encounter him outside of Potions class in the game, he will look at you and immediately go into a fit of coughing and hacking - bascially Snape has a year-long bout of emphysema in this game. What is up with that?

You spend far too much time in this game staring at loading screens. Every time you open a door, even to enter the tiniest room - loading screens. Running from outside the front door of Hogwarts to Gryffindor tower takes about 2 minutes of play time and about 90 seconds of staring at a loading screen. This is far too much, and EA really needs to fix this recurring problem in their Potter games. Other simiar games don't have this problem, why should this one? It certainly isn't the great graphics.

Outdoors is another disappointment. Yes, you can fly Buckbeak over a complete version of Hogwarts, but, except for the relocated front door, it is the exact same building and grounds layout as in the last game. In addition, in the last game, the grounds were inhabited by lots of students running around the castle, which did a lot for the immersion factor of the game. Here, there is no one outside at all. It's almost enough to make you feel lonely, running over the huge grounds all alone. Also, in previous games, exploring the grounds and castle had a purpose - there were secret items all over the place waiting to be found. Here, there is nothing beyond one or two chests with Wizard cards. Outdoor exploration was one of the best things about Chamber of Secrets, but in this game it is yet another disappointment.

Overall, this game let me down severely. It's like EA decided that, since the Harry Potter games were intended for younger players and Chamber of Secrets might have been too difficult for them, they decided to make Prisoner of Azkaban much easier and get rid of all the fun and challenge and, in the process, most of the "Hogwarts" atmosphere. (Although, young kids will probably have a lot of trouble with the Patronus spell). Unless you just have to play every game with the Potter name on it, avoid this one. Play Chamber of Secrets instead. Let's hope that Goblet of Fire is better.

Brought me back to playing PS2

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: September 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I haven't played a videogame since SuperNintendo came out (I am that old!) but Harry Potter and POA got me right back into it. I love this game. My husband bought it for me for our vacation (he loves PS2 and wanted something we could share) and it's great. The logical puzzles are wonderful (and not as easy as you'd think!) and getting to be all three characters is great. You don't just blast your way through this game- you need to figure out which person to be, and what spells to use, sometimes even the different order of which spells with which person is a factor, and though baddies are relativly easy to kill once you figure out how, it's very enjoyable.
It's got good graphics, follows the plot of the movie/book,(you even get to fly Buckbeak!), the only downside is that you get a "loading...." screen inbetween scenes, which sorta gets tiresome, but I find it easy to overlook. Unlike other reviews of this game, I have not been able to finish it yet (some real die-hard gamers I've been told can finish it in a day. More power to ya!) and it's still fun.

Great esp. with eye toy

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: August 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is great!!! My children have played the game and enjoy it but it also has after school games on the disc that can be used with the eye toy. You get to smack trolls, splat the chocolate frogs, catch the golden snitch, play exploding snap and a few others. The eye toy gets them off the couch because you actually have to jump around and use your hands to play the games. It's lots of fun and great excersize. I would recommend it to anyone who likes for their kids to get some exersize while doing something they think is fun.

Love to hate this game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: August 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Sadly this game is not as good as the 2nd one < Chamber of secrets>

There is as equal good parts as negative parts in this game. For one I liked that we finally get a chance to play with 3 different characters < Hermione, Ron or Harry>. As great as this was I disliked the fact that the characters did not all have the same spells. It does get annoying having to switch between the characters but once you know how to switch its easy.

Some of the challenges I found to be too easy;however killing the dementors at the end of the game was almost to hard. It got to the point of frustration when I would have loved to kick the playstation even throwing the entire thing out the window.

There is a whole lot of mini games in this 3rd game which are fun. I also enjoyed flying Buckbeak < the backround music is beautiful when you fly him> but the challenges with Buckbeak were almost to easy.

Once again the spells have gained in strength which I liked. There is also alot of different spells than in the last game making it fun to obtain those. And once again you can collect wizard cards which is fun in any of those games.

A BIG BONUS POINT is for the eye toy mini games. My kids love this, since they are to little to play the actual game they still get a little fun out of this.

Sadly I only gave this game an overall of 3 points because its just to short. It took me about 5 hours to play to the point where you have to defeat the dementors saving Sirius Black at the same time. To beat the dementors took me another 3 hours < HAHAHAHA I admit that this was tough> but that was it.

It took me almost 4 days beating the 2nd game playing at the same pace I played this game. So before you go out and buy this game ask someone to rent it or so and make up your own mind if its worth your money!!!

greg potter

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: August 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

My nephew loves this game. He cant wait to get to the next level. Wish there were spots for two people w/o having to use the mat.

Review Page: 1 2 3 Next 

Actions