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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Review (continued)
More User Submitted Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Reviews
Date: 2007-07-15
Horrible camera angles and short story hurt an otherwise decent game
You'll wish Harry had his broom when you start playing the latest EA game, Order of the Phoenix. The good news is, although short, at least this one seems finished. The previous game, Goblet of Fire came across as rushed and with several bug problems. Unfortunately, there's not too much else to applaud.
This game begins, briefly, where the book does; Harry saves his cousin from Dementors. It then skips to Sirius Black, Harry's godfather's home and meeting place for the Order of the Phoenix. There, you do have to do *exciting* things like housecleaning and packing, the chores are used to learn some of the first, basic spells. This trip is brief, however, and it's back off to school for the main adventure (and believe it or not, more cleaning!)
Gone, thankfully, is blasting things for Bott's Every Flavor Beans and buying magic cards. Now spells are somewhat more practical and using them or finding secret areas earns "discovery points" which zip out like fireflies giving you stronger skills, unlocking rewards and the ability to learn new magic. Except for a couple of instances, you play Harry--Hermione and Ron tag along. Unfortunately, they are often better at getting in the way and being an annoyance, except for the rare moment when you need more than one person to help you cast a spell.
The game area is realistic and huge; the stairs move and pictures move and talk. But the vast game area gets aggravating quickly as you seem to have always run across campus to solve a puzzle and back again. The main puzzle is rounding up the other members of Dumbledore's Army to the Room of Requirement. But most times you have to get something or solve their problem before they'll go there. (Do yourself a favor see Dean Thomas first--you can work on more than one problem at a time. Save Luna's task for last when your powers are stronger.)
In this game, one of the neat things is you cast spells by a combination of mouse-button and mouse movement--left button for normal spells, moving items, lighting torches. The right mouse-button is used for combat spells which you also learn along the way. You've got two basic key/mouse combo options--unfortunately, you can't customize these. You find your way around by using the Marauders Map. The map itself is pretty useless: It doesn't make much sense as a map layout. But click on either a person's or place's name and it not only marks where they are, it gives you footprints to follow which is helpful. Once you solve their issue, they pop off to the Room of Requirements. You will want to go back there also once and awhile to learn a new combat spell.
Along the way, you can earn bonus points by repairing broken items, revealing secret places, solving puzzles with your magic skills and other things. There are secret passage shortcuts guarded by portraits that will allow you through if you can find out their password. As with the others, you will sometimes have to perform a favor or find out something for them before they give it up. There is a Room of Rewards where you can see your progress and unlock video clips.
You can also earn points and trophies for beating the local champions at Gobstones (similar to marbles), Snap, an exploding card game and wizard's chess. Actually the wizard's chess is quite good and I don't know why they don't put out a separate set of games on this.
The biggest problem with the game is the camera angles. Harry moves strictly in the direction of the arrow, but the camera angle shifts constantly, so you're not just following the character. When the camera shifts so does the direction you're going. So if the camera turns from a back to a side view, you have to switch from the 'up' arrow to the right or left arrow. Often you're pressing two arrows (like up and left) at the same time to make curves or turns. And, if you're running (which involves pressing the shift key as well) it makes it complicated and my keyboard tended to beep in protest. Also, when moving into a room you can lose sight of the character--especially moving through a portrait hole. Or tree branches getting in the way when you're dueling with a member of Slytherin house.
It also makes spell casting more difficult by selecting the nearest item available. If there are several things you can jinx, that becomes more difficult. Or suddenly the camera angle changes and you're facing Harry instead of the item you want to cast the spell on.
The music is very nice, very much in keeping with the movie. There are several cut scenes, but not so many to make it distracting. It sounds like at least the younger actors are lending their voices to the game which is good, although it gets really annoying when Hermione keeps bleating, "Let's find Neville," over and over as you traverse across campus. I also got sick of Nearly Headless Nick and Moaning Myrtle (clicking the left mouse button makes them vanish again.)
Also while you're solving problems for the DA members you've got to try and get homework assignments completed (yay) and can later go back to complete your O.W.L.S. if possible, I found this extremely frustrating again because of the camera changing angles and trying to highlight the correct item to cast in a timed test. There is one more Christmas visit at Sirius' and there are a few good battle scenes toward the end, but the ending is basically an anti-climax. You have one more search after the battles and you can wander around trying to collect all the points, but by that time you're probably ready to head back to the land of muggles.
Date: 2007-07-14
Oh, for the old controls!
I loved the first three, of course. I was disappointed and angry enough to write my first review for the fourth and here we are at the fifth. I guess I just don't understand gaming. I thought it was the fun of the adventure, not the expertise of the controls. I can't play it. If I could just get Harry to run in a straight line, I would be very very happy. I won't buy more of these games. I didn't grow up with gaming so my hand/eye coordination is not expert. I'm not even sure if it were, if I could play the game. I'm very disappointed. I even waited to read a couple reviews before I bought it. I confirmed it was an adventure game, not an action game, so I made the plunge. Com'n now. Who can use the controls? Oh, well. The graphics are well done. I agree the sound doesn't coincide with mouth movements which can be very irritating but,hey, I'm so irritated at my inability to move the characters, how can I be mad at EA for a synchronization problem? If you're good with controllers, you'll probably like this game. I'm not, sooooooo...
Date: 2007-07-10
Where Is That Harry Potter Magic?
Like most players of the PC versions of this series, I absolutely LOVED the first 3 games. But when all the reports of how horrible the controls and game play was for GOF I was sufficiently scared away from buying it. For months that is. I did eventually break down and bought the game cheap after it had been out for a while. Expecting the absolute worst, I was definitely surprised at how much I actually liked it. It was different from all the previous games and did require the use of a controller which I had to buy to play it properly. But I did find I was happy with the game. It's because of that I did not wait for the reviews of OOTP but went ahead and preordered it. I just started playing it today, and I'm already thinking about puting it up for sale.
The controls on OOTP are absolutely TERRIBLE! Even with a controller. It's incredibly difficult to aim, cast a spell (especially Wingardium Leviosa) and even just to walk is a royal pain! You can't even look up or down, at least I haven't found a way to.
I tried using the keyboard after I found the controller so problematic, but that was even worse. So I went back to the controller.
Aside from the controlls, the game play is at times choppy even on a really fast comp. The characters are not impressive, the attempt to digitize the original actors, doesn't always work, like Hermione looks pretty bad. And watching the missmatched mouth movements on ALL the characters can make you cringe! >_<
But I suppose I could overlook all of that if the game were engaging. Granted I've only just started the game, and just got to the part where they have their first DADA Class, but so far I really haven't done anything. Swept a few patches of leaves and repaired a couple of things.....played a game of chess, and a card matching game aka "Exploding Snap" but that's all. Maybe the game play picks up as you move along, but at this point in the other games, loads of stuff would have happened by now. Moaning Myrtle keeps appearing talking about all the cool things in a hidden room, but so far I haven't gotten the sense of any place to really explore. There are some doors still locked, but the game play is such I don't even have the anticipation to know what's behind them as I would in any of the other HP games.
I'll play some more on it, since I went and spent the money, but I definitely don't see myself finishing this game as of right now.
Maybe this game is more fun on a console, but looks like the HP series is dead on the PC. :(
Date: 2007-07-10
A Disaster
I have been a fan of the Harry Potter game series since the beginning. While I quite enjoyed the first three games, the last two have been a let down. Firstly the biggest complaint I see is that the controls are awkward. I agree with this but when you are involved in the game it is easily looked over. The thing that really bothers me is the fact that if you are a person who has not read the book or seen the movie you will have no idea at all what is going on. Most times when an event happens it is assumed you already know the story. Nothing at all is explained and most things are left open-ended. There was no effort put into making the game understandable to those who have not read the book. Also in this version there are no classes to go to or mini-courses to complete, you just have a few O.W.L. challanges. If you are a fan, by all means buy this game, but if you have not followed the series, don't waste your money.
Date: 2007-07-09
Once again...
EA didn't exactly learn their lesson from the GoF. The control sucks...while an improvment to GoF, it's not worth buying.
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