No. 1 Story

Mobile operators get fixed price spectrum renewal in $3b Government windfall

The Government has offered Australia's three mobile operators, and vividwireless, renewal of their existing spectrum allocated on 15 year licences in the late 90s and early 2000s at set prices, while the Government expects to rake in $3 billion.

read more

Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - spells and smells

Entertainment



Whilst many a duel can be had, by signing up for the duelling club, most encounters happen whilst wandering around the ever changing corridors of Hogwarts castle, sometimes to the players chagrin, as they are an unwanted interruption to getting to the next story progressing location.

Flying consists of- kind of - manoeuvring Harry through a series of on screen stars in a timed series of challenges to avoid in flight obstacles and nail those star fly-thrus before time runs out.  Generally this is done under the guise of Snitch chasing during a Quidditch.

Finally potions are brewed up through a series of Wii-mote waggles.  Add the required ingredients in the required order and amount.  Shake the Wii-mote and Nunchuck to heat the cauldron in increasingly complex processes, go too far and the screen fills with smoke, wasting precious seconds.

In many ways, the rather mundane sounding potion creation contains the most tension filled moments of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.  Immensely more than the bumbling approach to teen romance presented in the game.  The graphics, whilst serviceable, just don’t suffice in getting across the facial emotion attempted by the screen-play.

As Harry tramps around Hogwarts - which quickly opens up in the game and must be a joy for fans to explore – he collects Hogwarts Crests and Mini Crests, some of which take a little guile to gain access too – Harry, cannot jump you see. 

Nearly Headless Nick is pretty much on hand all the time to guide Harry to his next destination and a certain amount of leeway is given to excuse the control mechanism, which at best could be described as ‘floaty’.  Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is only a gentle test to any gamer’s skills. 

In fact it comes across as a low stress way for HP fans to relive the book and movie, and whilst they may be disappointed with the fidelity of emotion presented in the game, they will no doubt delight in being able to traverse Howarts Castle and perhaps even fashion up little wand attachments for their Wii-motes, to truly get into the spirit. 

For the rest of us, brewing up potions provides an enjoyable escape, possibly even more enjoyable with our own real life brewed potions nearby whilst playing the game.

hphbp2.jpg


6.5 Pointy Hats out of 10

Loading comments ...



- sponsored feature -

The Death of Traditional BI: What’s Next?

How to Make Business Discovery Work for Your Business IP PABX BUYING GUIDE

Business Discovery takes its cues from consumer apps. Like Google, it encourages us- ers to hunt for and explore data without worrying about or even noticing the underly- ing technology. Their entire experience is working within an intuitive interface to get real-time, self-service results with only minimal training. ...more