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

Mike Bantick
Thursday, 30 July 2009 05:28

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.




6.5 Pointy Hats out of 10