The mythical world of Harry Potter and his time at Hogwarts has been around for a good number of years now. While the wizard seems to be reaching out to a number of entertainment platforms (books and movies), it isn’t surprising that this was further extended to incorporate the video game market. Although a handful of games manage to wade past the usual run-of-the-mill movie-to-game tie-ins, this particular kind of instalment is very rarely expected to be a decent game. So, of course the main thing playing on my mind when I think of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is: Does it stand out on its own?
The telling of the plot is pretty essential in Harry Potter, even if the player has seen the movie; they’d no doubt get confused at one point or another. But sadly, this particular game doesn’t withhold a strong story-telling ability. This is mostly due to the fact that many rather important events from the story are omitted out of the final game, and even worse, pointless extra cutscenes that don’t occur in the movie are added in instead. This in itself, really brings the game down.
In terms of changes from The Order of the Phoenix to the new Half-Blood Prince, it’s not all evident, and at times, not all positive. The duelling system is one particular aspect of the game that’s been looked at most in terms of alteration. Thankfully, it’s now been accessorised with an obvious health indicator on both yourself, and your opponent. Plus the ability to cast spells faster makes for a more rapid duel. Unfortunately, as I mentioned not all changes are for the better. There’s not as much freedom in terms of spells anymore – they’re split into two categories: General spells and Duelling spells. Therefore the duelling spells obviously are for duels only, meaning you cannot just randomly initiate a duel with a wandering student around the Hogwarts grounds. EA have taken this into account however, and incorporated duelling clubs for each school house – this allows you to duel against varying opponents. The satisfying activity of exploration in the previous game has also been knocked down a few pegs by the newest instalment. Unfortunately for budding explorers, and also, the games replay factor, the Hogwarts castle is essentially the same as it was in Order of the Phoenix. This simply makes it feel as if you’re playing the same game, but just with a new storyline to keep you entertained for a while.
New additions to the game are potion-making and the loveable sport of Quidditch. If you enjoy complex mini-games then potion-making is for you, plus this is a good example of positive use of the Wii Remote and Nunchuck. So really, this is a very positive addition to Half-Blood Prince and works very well with the control system. Quidditch however, really does let the side down with a repetitive mini-game involving guiding Harry through air-rings in order to gain enough speed to catch the Snitch – which is then simply caught automatically. This is evidently not an aspect that has been paid much attention to, and seems ineffectively tacked on to the overall game experience.
Graphically the character design is actually rather impressive for a Wii game. The character models effectively convey a likeness between the movie’s actors and the game’s answer to them. Everything about the physical appearance of the environments, spells and cutscenes don’t pose as anything to complain about – which is very nice indeed.
Music is also a positive aspect which even manages to add a selection of the movie’s soundtrack into the video game. Plus many of the game’s characters are voiced by the movie’s actors, making for a much more believable experience.
Overall the Half-Blood Prince is a decent game, especially for a movie tie-in of course. But it must be said that this really is a game for fans of the books and/or movies because there are frequent references back to previous instalments, which are needed to understand particular points of the game. Though if you bought Order of the Phoenix you will most likely be disappointed by the lack of change to Hogwarts castle and in comparison to previous instalments of the game; Half-Blood Prince does come to mind as a bit of a weaker effort in the series.
VideogameUK verdict: 7/10
