Harry Potter 5: The video game

[Ditto]

Has anyone bought this game yet? I don't have any of the next gen consoles, and I will be unable to take advantage of the coolness that is using the Wiimote as a wand. (Once they make a Star Wars game with Wiimote lightsabre combat, life will be complete!) I downloaded the demo of the game for PC, and it's incredible. After the huge disappointment of HP4 (the game, and the movie too now that I think about it), this new game is everything you could ever hope for in a Harry Potter game.

It's designed in the much-touted 'sandbox' format, allowing you to wander around the whole school and its grounds, endlessly levitating benches or lighting books on fire if you don't feel like advancing the plot. The environments are so finely detailed - and locations keyed to blueprints taken straight from the movie sets! - that it feels very much like you're walking around Hogwarts and looking for your own misadventures. The camera control is pretty shoddy, and a few of the characters sound a bit off (though several movie actors provide their own voices), but the sheer scale of awesomeness in gameplay and replayability (three difficulty levels add fun, if you're tired of exploring nooks and crannies) totally outweight these nitpicks.

The demo is limited to 10 minutes of gameplay, which is incredibly annoying. I've never played a demo with a time cap before... there are obstacles preventing you from exploring beyond the first four or five rooms, why would they could out of their way to present an annoying play experience for your first exposure? I've cleared every area of 'discoveries' except the Gryffindor common room, which apparently has discoveries hiding in every book and sofa cushion... I've only gotten to about 35% in my trials.

Thoughts? Reviews? Information for those poor souls who are living with only the knowledge of the teaser to satisfy their Harry Potter lust? :smallsmile:

[Fishies]

It's designed in the much-touted 'sandbox' format, allowing you to wander around the whole school and its grounds, endlessly levitating benches or lighting books on fire if you don't feel like advancing the plot.

:o

Now that is pure awesome.

[Ditto]

It's to its credit that I've played through it a dozen times (stupid 10 minute limit!) just to fish out each widget in the stupid thing. The different effects you can create are pretty clever. Also, everyone talks to you! It's different according to each house, and there are actually lots of different sprites for background students. (Are 3D things still called sprites?) You actually get points for talking to this one guy enough times - after which he's annoyed and wants you to go away. He was trying to steal your answers for his Potions essay or something, serves him right. :smalltongue:

[Fishies]

Wow, it sounds so awesome. I wish I had a Wii.

(And I think they're called models.)

[Ditto]

Yeah, I was kicking that word around in my head, too, but sprites is much cooler. :smallsmile:

PC, man, PC! Do it now!

[tgva8889]

Actually, they are called Character Models in 3D games.

And this game seems like it would be amazing, so I'm hoping to play it through once I get a Wii.

[Alex Kidd]

Actually according to Kotaku (http://kotaku.com/gaming/impressions/harry-potter-ootp-wii-273935.php), the Wii version is a very sloppy port of the 360/PS3 versions. The controls are done well but the graphics and more importantly the camera are apparantly so bad it's nearly unplayable. It also apparantly butchers the story.

[Ditto]

Yeah? That's no good... the PC version was annoying, since you sort of had to build up momentum when you're walking anywhere, which can make corners tough if you're moving at speed, but hardly unplayable. IGN had nice things to say about it, and the storyline as described by The Leaky Cauldron's stories didn't sound bad at all. Sort of repetitive, doing find-the-item tasks to collect DA members, but for the chance to live in Hogwarts I'll deal with a little monotony. I mean, imagine what life is like if you're some poor second-year Hufflepuff NPC. You're a second year. You're a Hufflepuff. You're an NPC. You're a Hufflepuff. Life sucks, and find-the-item quests would be a welcome diversion.

[Katonta]

The game's OK for the Wii. Yes, it is a little monotonous with the "find the item" quests. but at least, so far, they haven't had the same quest twice. I'd say that, so far, my least favourite thing in the game is either the camera, or Myrtle. I don't know if this happens in the demo, but after every level of discoveries she shows up, no matter where you are, and says, "There are new things in our special room, Harry. Why don't you go and see?" And then she laughs this incredibly annoying laugh that is a mix of little girl, embarressment, and "teeheeing". Every Level! At the end of five levels of discoveries, it makes you want to kill her again.

But, other than that, its pretty good.


Edit: I take back a lot of what I said, now that I am further into the game, I do not like it very much. The camera isn't so bad its unplayable, but the controls are a little messed up, I use the Wii, so it might have something to do with the system, but the wiimote doesn't like to use the right spell. In a duel, I can rarely cast Expeliarmus no matter how hard I try, and there are quite a few bugs in it. For example, in order to recruit the DA members, you have to a task for them, Cho's task was to get an owl from the owlry that wouldn't come down for her. When I tried, the owl wasn't there period. When I tried to leave, the game had conjured an invisible wall that wouldn't let me leave and I was stuck trying to find an owl that wasn't there. Collin's task (mr. camera fanatic) was to get his camera down from the roof. I climbed to the top and used Wingardium Leviosa to bring it to me and than used it again to bring it down. When I tried to give it to Collin, he wouldn't notice it was there, I would bash him on the head with it (via Wingardium Leviosa) and he would not notice. attempts to talk to him would result with the same message that he had faith that I would somehow get it down from the roof. When it was right next to his leg. If you get this game, do not get it for the Wii. There, that was a long edit.