Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - Xbox 360 Review

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Hello, need reader canary talented really.

The above mess is a Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince video game experience. And I know despite what I write, if you're here you will end up playing the game anyway, hoping I'm mistaken. I will continue if only to persuade you to rent the game at best or wait for the inevitable, monstrous price drop.

To Begin The Story, Characters, and Sound:

If you needed to write a report on the Half-Blood Prince film, this video game wouldn't even be acceptable as cliff notes. Scenes cut in and out, not caring about anything silly like making sense.

The video game starts with a random brush up with Quidditch at the Burrow and then bipolars you straight to the scene in Diagon Alley with Draco Malfoy. Why? That question should be read as a scream.

And from there you jump from moment to moment like a mental patient, who isn't improving.

As far as the characters in this cliff note of cliff notes, everyone is at least acceptable or great. Great, as in the case of when the film actors lend their voice (the focus being on Rupert Grint-Ron). The acceptable being characters like Snape and generally the look of everyone. There is one huge exception: Hermione. The actress who lends her voice is fine, but the rendered character looks nothing like Emma Watson. She looks more like Mema Witson, and while she's a great girl and all, Mema isnt in Harry Potter. The real problem is that Harry and Ron look reasonably similar to Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint (having gone through the work in the previous game, whereas Emma Watson did not, to my knowledge) so Hermione, aka Mema Witson, stands out.

The music of the games is always either nice or fantastic. This game favors more toward simply nice, but whoever thought that adding a record scratch to highlight an awkward moment between Harry and Ginny was a good idea; way to stand out, my man. That was truly A+ dumb.

Well, I'd love to continue with my review, but I need to have a duel.

The Middle, Gameplay?:

The Order of the Phoenix game had 3 things going for it: a beautiful Hogwarts, most of the film actors participated, and the painting that loved Chops and Gravy. Yum yum yum yum, gravy. This game?

Duel, quidditch (by which I mean flying through stars), and potions. Potions, duel, quidditch, punch making? Duel, potions, duel, quidditch. That is the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince game.

And while dueling is far more refined here than in previous games, it pops up everywhere, and all you need to do is knock your opponent down once with Expelliarmus (yes, I looked up how to spell a lot of things in this review) and it's game over. And while potions can be fun, these are side games and side games do not a video game make. I get the feeling that, oh hold on. I need to duel again.

As I was saying, if EA would just put itself in a timeout and make a game based on several movies, we'd actually get an inspired gift of a game as opposed to these socks we keep getting. Or even if they, oh, I don't know, gave a damn? EA has done a Quidditch game before, so why isn't there at least a full on game here instead of Harry going through stars? Why can't we control other characters in actual mission, versus doing the same things Harry does (how fun would a thought out Luna side-mission be?). And whereas Order of the Phoenix was nothing but a list of chores to do, Half-Blood Prince is the same only with your mom running out of patience with you. GO PRACTICE QUIDDITCH NOW!!!!.

The only beauty comes from a very beautiful source, the character of Luna Lovegood. As you're lighting fireworks, and trying very hard but unsuccessfully to get a great look at Hogwarts lit by the exploding color wheel, Luna pleads "I wish fireworks didnt have an end."

The End:

This game was supposed to be released in November '08, as was the film (damn you Warner Brothers). But stock market greed from Warner's pushed the due date to June '09. And what did EA do with that extra time? Worked on Madden 11?

But that's irrelevant. To EA, this game was never meant to be anything but a cash grab, and all the extra time + 1 would never have made it any better. Ever since the Prisoner of Azkaban game, EA's effort with Harry Potter has equaled my effort in personal grooming when I was 12. Let's say, not so great. But the films and the books have been about love and bravery and effort. Where is any of that in these games? Where is it?

I really want better things to say, but ..... I solemnly swear this game is no good.

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Let me start by saying that I did not like the Order of the Phoenix video games they were a lot of running around for nothing. If you did enjoy that game, you will love this improved game which incorporates what seems to be a completely explorable Hogwarts. As you wander you collect school crests. There is a storyline that sort of follows the book and you can wander off from the storyline to do other things.

There are three main game types incorporated into the storyline that you must participate in: making potions (like Cooking Mama); Duelling club (wand dueling); an Quidditch skills (mostly fly through hoops at high speeds). None of the games are particularly difficult which is a good thing for younger players. The game is rated 10+ and that certainly is appropriate as a 10 year old could play this without a problem. Advanced gamers may find everything a bit too easy, but it is still fun and visually interesting.

PROS: free-roam Hogwarts which feels very accurate; character voices/acting is decent; duelling is a lot of fun especially with the Death Eaters; multi-player.

CONS: potions is like Cooking Mama it is a big part of this game; still lots of wandering the castle but with a great guide Nearly Headless Nick and many portrait shortcuts; Characters don't look exactly like the actors but close enough where you will forget this after a few minutes.

Overall it is a must for an HP fan even if you did not enjoy the prevous games. The XBox controls are great. The music adds to the experience though I'm not sure if it's from the film. Replay is available in Potions, Quidditch and Duelling. Also, once the storyline is complete you can wander Hogwarts in Endless Day mode to find all of the crests.

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in my endless optimism that someone will finally make a really great game i had a flash of hope for this one. i think it was maybe sometime last fall or late last summer, and it was because it had two things going for it. first, the previous game, order of the phoenix, created a big, thorough, really well done, hogwarts. i mean the game was rather bland and sometimes tedious, but in my fantasy of optimism i could say "hey, they've invested all their effort in the basics of this world then ran out of time and money, but next time they have all their groundwork already laid down for themselves!" then, second, the movie got delayed and so must follow a delay on the game, giving them a half year free time to work on this.

enter reality; small companies might put it all on the line with mild resources, but, when they succeed they get bought up by large corporations whose pure and overwhelming interest is wringing money out of everything they touch. they're not even that great at doing that, just powerful and remorseless. this game was made by a very large corporation. you can feel it. everything in it is just good enough and not an inch more. you got your nice environment that you can explore and collect crests. a bit thin, but at least it's some reason for exploration. the crests unlock, well, useless junk as far as i'm concerned (unlockable rpg ish skills would have been great here, but, oh, thats too much effort and the movie book connection here will sell most of the games). the story is all sort of random and disjointed, more for alluding to things you should already know, and you sort of careen your way through it by going to locations (exploring, sort of, though where the next place is is very clear if you employ headless nick to guide you) and triggering off the minigame cutscene progression elements. these are built around the said minigames: potions (a fun minigame that could have been really good if just a smidge deeper), dueling (yeah yeah, it's okay, a shooting thing that feels more like a fighting game, all sort of foramalized), and quidditch (race through hoops for the illusion of quidditch, not my favorite but not terrible). that's it. really. i'm not finished w/ this game yet (may or may not happen), but there is no way, i mean no way, this game is going to be suprising me at this point. it is incredibly rare i am suprised by a game anyway. they're all so conservative! arrggh! so, this is another. ah well...

Honest reviews on Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - Xbox 360

In my review of the videogame for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I asked EA to quit killing their games by concentrating more on getting them out by a certain date rather than focusing on the quality they end up being. I had a little bit of hope that the delay of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince would lead EA to keep working on that movie's videogame. I was hoping they would make the control work better, on integrating story and game better, and do away with the jarring transitions from the last game that kept ripping away the immersion factor.

Well, here we are six months after the initial release date and we are left with probably exactly the same game we would have gotten six months ago. While the initial hour was much better designed that Orders mess of an intro, things quickly devolve into the same trial of 'go here, mix this potion, fight this duel, trigger this cut scene' that held back the last game from greatness.

Again the main shame of all of this is that EA and their developers obviously spent a great deal of time making an accurate representation of Hogwarts. Somewhere along the way they just simply forgot to add the life and energy to turn this lavish environment into something worth exploring beyond the scope of just making your way to the next mission.

There are crests to find and clubs to join, but none of this really goes far in making you feel like a true member of the Harry Potter universe. Instead you are really just a casual observer with little to no control over the events taking place. The biggest offender is Quidditch, which sounds like an awesome addition until you realize that all you do is fly through rings over the course of a scripted flight path. Boooorrrrriiiinnnggg!

While Hogwarts itself is a site to behold, even if the 360 version simply feels like the Wii version in a better resolution, where the game truly looks butt ass ugly is the character designs. Words cannot begin to describe how awful most of them look.

I did have a bit of fun playing this game... OK maybe 'fun' is not the right word. If I am going to tell the truth, I am enough of a Harry Potter fanboy that even this meager offering of the Potter universe is enough to make me feel like I got my $50 worth out of this game, but I seriously doubt that most will feel the same.

At this point I think the only way we will ever see the epic Harry Potter videogame that could be made, is when the movies have finished releasing and someone can make a game free of sticking so drudgingly close to the movie's script. If a developer took this code, fixed some control issues (really, calling what this game offers 'targeting' is an affront to the word), was given freedom to expand beyond just the key scenes of the books and then took some more queues from the Rockstar game Bully then I think we could have a truly great Harry Potter game. For now all we get is thisa game that is destined to attract only the most loyal of Harry Potter fans. It might be enough for EA to make a profit off of, but surely more effort could have landed them a game that branched out beyond just the Potter faithful... it might have made them oodles of cash as well. It is just too bad that EA does not see things that way.

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I loved the last Harry Potter Game (Order of Pheonix) and this game just does not compare. I went against the other reviews and bought it any ways and it was a mistake. My best advice is to rent it rather than buy it! You don't have to really solve puzzles in the same way you did the last game. You simply have to find the crest, and for the 25,000 mini crest you need you simply wave your wand at glowing objects (which gets incredibly annoying). Disapointed for sure!