Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix review (PS2)

Hogwarts is a very impressive place, moving staircases, talking portraits, to mention the fact that it's huge and set in a rather splendid countryside location. All of which you get to see, and see again in this latest instalment in the Harry Potter series. You see this game is an interesting lesson in game location design, the developer really went to town in putting together an impressive, expansive and wonderfully detailed background to your gaming experience. Unfortunately it seems it forgot to include the gaming experience to go with it.

Wii bit better?

Now in an attempt not to be too harsh here, I'm going to start with the positives, as i just said the depiction of Hogwarts is good. You can add to that the improvement in the control system for casting spells. Where as previous games have simply required you to press a single button to cast a spell, in this version you move the right analogue stick in a way that represents the gesture your character makes with the wand. This adds slightly to the feeling of immersion, however I couldn't help but feel this was done with the Wii in mind.

Graphically it's not too bad on first glance, but very quickly even the less observant players will see graphical glitches appearing. Also the lack of expression on the characters is quite disconcerting. Each character appears to have one facial expression which they wear throughout the entire proceedings. The cut scenes are slightly smoother, many lifted from sequences in the movies, and here is where the real complaints begin.

Lost in translation

This game is based on the movie, which in turn is based on the book. In order to make the movie they stripped out some of the content from the books, they do this in order to be able to transfer the story from several hundred pages to under three hours of film. When they do this they make an effort ensure that the story still makes sense and will continue to flow on screen, and trying to ensure that if any explanations are left out, then they don't impact to heavily on the viewers understanding of the movie. A similar thing has happened in the transition from movie to game, unfortunately it seems less care was taken over keeping the story intact. Playing through this is a very disjointed experience. The tasks you are set feel disconnected from the main storyline, which itself feels to be strung together by a series of movie tie-in scenes. I have both read the books and seen the movies and i still struggled to make sense of the storyline through the game.

Moving on to the game mechanics and the problems just continue rolling in, the mechanism for spell casting may work quite well, however Ifound actually getting Harry to focus on the correct object, to be a bit of a hit or miss affair. The spell casting is just one example of where an interesting idea is not particularly well implemented, a further great example is the method of navigating. Now Hogwarts is a big place, and many areas of it look similar, meaning it's very difficult to get to know the layout without some form of reference, which you are provided in the guise of the marauders map.

Disappearing footsteps

For each task Harry has to complete, the relevant target character will appear on the map. You can then select that character and a set of footsteps will appear on the ground guiding Harry where he needs to go, it's a nice little tie-in between an idea from the book and a navigation solution in game. Unfortunately the footsteps go at two speeds, one which appears to be slightly quicker than Harry walking and the other slower than him running. Which means that when you start Harry off running down a corridor you find yourself having to stop every once in a while to let the footsteps, which are supposed to be guiding you, catch up. Add to this camera angles which frequently show you a wall rather than where you character is actually standing and it can quickly become more than mildly annoying.

All in all I found this an incredibly disappointing and frustrating experience, and considering I have played most of the previous Harry Potter games, and have been known to defend their merit as no-brainer gaming experiences, that's a real let down. When people talk about rushed development and the consistent let down that is movie license games they could easily look to this title as a prime example. It's hard to recommend this, even to die hard Harry Potter fans.