Much better than the previous…. but still needs some work
There are several things that the Order of the Phoenix just didn’t do to satisfy the fans of the book. I am a huge fan of the series and what I found in the OotP was seemed like nothing more than a cash-in for the name. This happens on most movie games, you’ll find the company is simply touting the name and not trying to make it happen. It simply becomes another product, much like a hat or a t-shirt.
OotP suffered from this tremendously. You had uninspired levels, lackluster puzzles and repetitiveness that simply left even the lightcore fans completely unsatisfied. So, EA gets another chance to redeem themselves with this game and there certainly some improvements to say the least.
The first thing you’ll notice is the incorporation of a solid storyline. Unlike the OotP, EA knew this time around that the storyline from the movie had to be gently and selectively placed properly amongst the gameplay. So, you might have to solve puzzles along the way, but you’ll use the storyline as motivation to complete those puzzles. For example, when you’re searching after Malfoy to see what he’s up to half-way through the game, Crabbe and Goyle hinder your progression. You first have to fight them then you run into a gated area. The switch to open the gate becomes broken in the process of figuring out how to get through. If you don’t work your way through this problem, you won’t continue the story. The continuation of the story is the most vital part to the game, which makes you want to use a Repairo spell to put the switch back together then use another spell to float the switch back into place. Once that’s done, the story continues. They simply didn’t do enough of this in the last game, but have somehow made up for that in this one. For games based on movies you need to keep your audience going, and Half-Blood Prince doesn’t fail.
Now, you don’t immediately get the storyline at the beginning of the game, it takes about 10-20 minutes before you start it. For 10-20 minutes I was panicking thinking that there was no way they could do this again. EA has cleverly thrown in a few things at the beginning to get you use to the environment, controls and extra purposes for being there. One thing they introduce you to at the beginning is crests that lay everywhere on Hogwarts campus. There are full crests and mini-crests. The full crests unlock secrets and gameplay (such has dueling — which was huge this time around). The mini-crests can be gathered by the boat load and usually end up as full crests when you collect enough of them. They also unlock objects and secrets, but most of the time they just equal out to be full crests. You’ll find the crest meter on the upper-left side of your screen as you play. I like this sort of side quest because it allows you to do something once the game is over. The only problem I have with the crest quests is that to complete the quest you must obtain 150 of them. Most of the crests are hidden and easily accessible. The others are put in secret areas, such as behind spider webs or nailed to a wall, that are time consuming to look for and figure out how to obtain. 150 of these is a bit too much as well. I played through the entire game and felt like I got my share of them and ended up only getting 32 in 5-7 hours of gameplay. 32 out of 150, that’s pretty lousy. Anyway, that’s a huge drawback to what could be a very cool side quest.
Getting into the actual gameplay, you really get it delivered four different ways: Exploration, dueling, potion mixing and flying during Quittich. There’s not much else to report about the game. The exploration is the longest part, as you’ll want to find the crests around the castle, the mini-crests in lights and paintings and exploring Hogwarts itself. Exploration is nice because it shows you the large amount of detail that EA/WB really put into the game when they were creating it. The depth of the world you live in during the game is absolutely enormous. You get the full spectrum of Hogwarts from the grounds, to the castle, to the sleeping quarters, the Quittich arena, all the way to Hagrid’s house, you get all the details. They simply didn’t leave anything unturned. Now, depth is good, but traveling in the world is a bit tiresome. As you progress through the game you obtain the ability to walk through paintings, which are essentially shortcuts. They allow you to get to places quicker, but you must progress in the game to do so. EA/WB doesn’t spare you the traveling time at the beginning, they give you two feet to walk with and nothing more. If you decide to run through things, turning your character (Harry, Jenny, etc.) is like turning a car that’s going 120 mph. You have to basically drift around corners (just like in Tokyo Drift), which is highly annoying. You will constantly bump into things and it should have been a lot tighter than it ended up being. Not to keep spiraling here, but that brings another issue into play which is the use of any type of guidance system. Instead of a mapped area onscreen, you have to call up Nearly Headless Nick for directions to each quest that you are presented. It’s fine because he leads the way to the quest, but it’s really quite annoying not having any bearing to were you are onscreen. You literally won’t know where you’re at, rather you’ll have to put faith in the ghost guide to get you to your place of choice. Again, it’s really kind of annoying. That’s a huge issue, but one that can be rectified with the use of Nick.
The exploration part comes in pretty heavy with selected quests that follow the storyline. For example, you’ll do things like lead Ron to Professor Slughorn’s room to help him get a love spell out of him. Ron is out of his mind during this walking session and you must safely get him to follow Harry. It’s not terribly difficult, but it is yet another good way to learn Hogwarts. This is mostly how the exploration portion of the game leans.
Now, Dueling was a huge addition for this title, as it comes up more often than Quittich. You learn how to fight during the game as training for the storyline and ultimate fight towards the end. It starts out simple then it gets harder and harder from there. Eventually the dueling does hit a wall, as you can only add around seven techniques to get you through a dueling match. Once you master those, it’s simply a matter of putting them to good strategy. To be honest, I think out of all the duels in the game I was killed maybe twice. It was good, but certainly not great. I think there could have been a few more details added to the process, like not allowing your opponent to pummel you while you’re taking your sweet time getting your butt off the ground. The ability to quickly get your character up off the ground in a short amount of time would have been great; add some button combinations to help to speed up the process. It certainly wasn’t a perfect thing, but it did entertain, especially during the storyline fights (doubly especially at the end). There was a single moment in the game which allowed you to fight without being in a dueling situation. I won’t spoil it for you, but it is intense, although it is restricted in movement.
The Quittich portion of the game is probably the most disappointing and most frustrating of all the methods of playing in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. You are basically given a track to fly on, which you can’t fly freely off (not that you would want to because the snitch is bastard to catch). On this track you must basically go through a series of star shapes (literally through them) and follow the snitches pattern. The problem is that if you miss more than four or five stars you more than likely lose the match. The stars start off as green, but if you don’t make contact or go through the stars then they go to yellow to red and eventually to black which ends the match (and you’ll have to start over again at a given checkpoint during the match). Everything was fine until I got to Jenny’s match which sets the stars further and further apart as the match progresses. The problem here is that if you miss two stars then you’re going to lose. It’s frustrating because you have no way of speeding up and no way of getting off track to take a shortcut. You’re at the mercy of the computer’s rules and there’s nothing changing that.
Finally, the potion making portion of the game is simply a blast. This is by far my favorite part of the game because it gives you the complete freedom to screw up, a time limit and an unnatural sense that you could kill your character if you force them to do the wrong thing. The ingredients aren’t the same either. So, everytime you make a different potion, you have new stuff to use that requires you to do different things. The game is also unforgiving, which makes potion making even more of a challenge. It not only provides you with ingredients, but you have to use them properly, have to prepare them properly and you have to do things like heat up the cauldron or mix quickly to make your formula just right. Basically how it works is that you get a running list of directions on the bottom right-hand side of the screen. You have to do what the recipe asks in the way it asks. One false move and you’re toast, or worse you get a nasty cloud of crap sprayed into the air (which you clear away by tapping L2/R2 rapidly). The only knock I have on this is the angle in which you dump material into the cauldron. It can be deceiving at times when you’re trying to guesstimate where the material is in comparison to the cauldron’s positioning. There were many times where a rat’s liver ended up off the table because of a poorly estimated view. Other than this, I simply loved this part of the game. It was just what the witch ordered.
Pretty and fun, is that possible?
Like I stated before, the environments are huge. They are very detailed and they are extremely recognizable from the movies and probably from a few imaginations out there in the fan world. You get some very accurate details, ones that relate very well to the movies. The most amazing part about the game is that the environments rarely need pre-loading to occur. So you’ll be able to see things from a large distance (like the Quittich training grounds) and have basically no loading occur. That’s amazing considering this isn’t Metal Gear Solid 4 and games like Oblivion don’t do this. This is a movie license! It isn’t suppose to look this good! Go figure. Anyway, moving on to the character models, you get some detailed models, but not overly detail. They’re sporting second generation graphics, as the facial features look pretty good, but there isn’t any details like what you would find in Solid Snake’s face. The models are generally spot-on the actors and look pretty good. While there isn’t any flowing hair on the characters, it still looks good. The voice-overs are well-done as well. You know they’re good when you’re wife walks through the room and asks, “Wow, did they get the actors to voice this over?” No, they didn’t, but it sounds really close. My only complaint in this area comes with both a graphical and voice-over problem. Dumbledore sounds fine, but his lips don’t move. He talks and not once do his lips move. That’s amazing because everyone else has not problem moving theirs. Again, go figure.
So, in the end, is this fun? Well, in comparison to the last HP game, yes. By itself the title still needs a bit more tweaking to be really good. I like the fact that they have balanced out the gameplay and story; this was a huge problem in the last and it is almost rectified here. I really like that they encourage you to keep playing even after the 5-7 hours of gameplay is done with. They encourage you to complete more potions, duel more people, fly in Quittich and keep searching for more crests. They basically beg you by ghosting out some options in the clubs (dueling, Quittich, potion making) to keep you from stopping. They have done enough to make the entire experience fun and not simply a watered down movie license. My big issue here is that if it were $39.99 it would be a gem. Because the game is $49.99 (which is still cheaper than most PS3 and 360 titles), it may keep you from purchasing it immediately. I would definitely rent to see if it’s your cup of tea before buying, but know that it’s certainly more fun than previous versions that EA has published. I just wish it was a tad bit cheaper.
I’ll end it on this, I also wish that there was online dueling. I’m sure that it would have been huge. I’m shocked that the online dueling didn’t make it considering that EA/WB put so much emphasis on it in the game. Can you imagine playing people in a duel across the lines? It would be simply fantastic. Maybe they will sport this in the last game based on the HP movies.