Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix is a game crafted for Potter fans.
It assumes that you’re very familiar with Harry, his friends and enemies, and
the storyline of the book or film. There are very few cutscenes in the game and
those that are included do more to serve as bookmarks to let you know about
where in the story you are than as a way to convey the story. If you’re one of
the undoubtedly few people who haven’t read the book or seen the film, you’re
sure to be hopelessly lost when it comes to the game’s story. Those of you
intimately familiar with all things Potter are in for a treat, though.
The game dispenses with a rigid story-based structure to set you free to
explore the Hogwarts School. From the Defense Against the Dark Arts tower down
to Snape’s Potions classroom in the dungeon, from the Gryffindor common room out
to Hagrid’s hut, the entire school has been recreated. There are plenty of
sights to see, secrets to find, and mini games to play. The halls are filled
with students and as they walk by you can hear them say hi to you (or just as
likely insult you) or you can overhear them conversing with each other as you go
past. It’s the most immersive representation of Harry’s world to date, and this
alone will be enough to make many Potter fans quite happy with the game.
It wouldn’t be Harry Potter without any magic and The Order of the Phoenix
puts a small assortment of spells into your hands. Casting spells is pretty easy
– you pull your wand out and then move the right stick in various directions as
if you were wiggling a wand. You’re not free to cast spells on anything you’d
like; the interactive objects have all been predetermined by the game designers
as well as which spells will work on them. A handy autotargeting button will
lock on and cycle through the objects on which you can cast spells to make it
easier to pick them out. I’ve played the game on several systems and I have to
say the spell casting works the best on the PlayStation 3 - I didn’t encounter
any of the target lock issues or spell casting problems that I ran into on other
systems here.
While there are plenty of things to find and cast your magic on, not very
much of it is all that challenging. Lighting every torch you see, pushing
curtains aside to see what’s behind them, and other such activities won’t
challenge many but the youngest of wizards out there. The story-based missions
aren’t that challenging either, requiring you to do a lot of fetching of items
or carry messages from one character to another. This isn’t the sort of game you
play for the challenge; you really do need to be a big Potter fan to enjoy it.
The biggest disappointment I had with the game was with the wizard duels. A
wizard duel should be an exciting event, with spells and counter spells being
cast with furious abandon. In this game, though, they play out more like a mini
game in which you spend most of your time shuffling from side to side to dodge
spells while twirling the right stick to fire off your own spells. It’s not
technically button mashing since you’re working the stick the whole time, but
you can pretty much flick the stick around to fire spells off at random and
still win all of the wizard duels.
The Order of the Phoenix is best left to loyal Potter fans and younger
gamers. Those with only a passing interest in the film will probably get bored
with it long before having to face He Who Must Not Be Named.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated:
82%. A treat for Harry Potter fans.
