Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Posted August 17, 2007
If there is one game that had the potential to dazzle people with its unique use of the Wii Remote, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix should have earned that title. Sadly, what could have been a wand waving good time ended up skirting the line of mediocrity due to a seemingly endless barrage of fetch quests. While OotP is definitely one of the better games to be based on the Harry Potter phenomenon the possibilities of what the developers could have done with this unique platform left a large void of disappointment.
By nature of this review there may be some spoilers contained within the text – so if you’re one of the few people who has not yet read the book, or gasp, seen the movie what you read may ruin some surprises for you. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
No surprise here, you generally play as the titular character Harry, and the game picks up in the fifth year of his education at Hogwarts. This time however, Hogwarts a fully realized and interactive place. The Grand Staircase in all of its portrait and shifting staircase glory are here, and you will be spending a lot of time navigating this area. So get used to the locations of rooms and quickly learn to identify the portraits which will allow you speedier travels through the school. Gaining access to these passages are but one method of forcing you to perform some mundane task, be it talking to a different portrait, finding some elusive item or even using your Reparo spell to tidy up the grounds of Hogwarts.
A large portion of the game is dedicated to the recruiting of Dumbledore’s Army, a ragtag group of students who rebel at the lack of real world spells they need. So as the man of magic, it’s up to you to gather these students in the hidden Room of Requirement and teach them some offensive and defensive spells. For those who remember the books, the number of students in Dumbledore’s Army is a substantial one, and the game keeps true to that list. So imagine if you will, rounding up nearly thirty students who are scattered all over the grounds of Hogwarts. What would be the best way to do this? Ah, yes – the Marauder’s Map. Once you select a student as your active “quest”, a short trail of footprints will lead you from your current location to your desired location. These footprints come in very handy while navigating the Grand Staircase, and will even indicate when a shortcuts is available. Once you reach your destination things are not all jelly beans and golden snitches, as you likely will have to speak with either the student you want or someone or something nearby who needs you to run an errand for them. Can you imagine the level of tedium?
Oddly enough, a fair portion of time in the game will be dedicated to hunting down discovery points which unlock content in the Room of Rewards, essentially a trophy case to prove you’ve slogged your way through this misstep of a game. Repairing broken statues and dealing with persistent ghosts who insist on flying though you can, and does get old mighty quick for adult gamers. Younger gamers, well we all know what can keep them entertained. In addition to controlling Harry, you’ll also get to play as a couple of other characters briefly, including a couple of the Weasly boys and as Albus Dumbledore himself.
The game does look and sound pretty decent for a movie tie in game. Over 22 of the characters are voiced by their movie counterpart adding to the authenticity of the title. Seeing as Hogwarts is finally realized in a game, over 80 locations from the books and movies have made their way into this title, and all look as expected – be it the Herbology greenhouses or Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom stall. While not the prettiest game to grace consoles this summer, Order of the Phoenix is more than capable of immersing you in the magical world of Muggles, wizards and witches.
Now for the controls which are by far the most important and entertaining aspect of this title. Basic movement is covered by the nunchuk add-on and no major flaws were noticed in that aspect of control. The real fun and subsequent disappointment lies with the spell control. Spells are divided into two camps, offensive and not. The offensive spells include classics like Stupefy, and are generally quite fun to cast. Rotate your wand/Wii Remote clockwise to perform once spell, then flick it forward for another. The other group of spells sadly uses the same set of motions as the offensive spells, and is generally used for less than fun tasks, such as making beds in the dormitories or repairing aforementioned broken statues. The responsiveness of the spells was generally speaking spot on – I did notice some concerns when issuing the Wingardium Leviosa, one of the few spells which utilizes both controllers. The spell required jerking both upwards (it is a levitation spell after all), and either my timing was off or the sensitivity of those movements needed tweaking because it usually took the third or fourth attempt to register the spell. Oh well.
The biggest disappointment was the lack of dueling other wizards with wands ablaze. The short sessions were few and far between, and usually ended up being unsatisfying after dreaming about wizard wars for the past few years. But if you want your magical game fix, you can play some Wizard Chess, Exploding Snap or Gobstones. The occlumency lessons with Severus Snape make an appearance in the game as well, which involves a mini-game where you must deflect Snape’s wand by maneuvering your own.
For Harry Potter fanatics, OotP is one of the better Potter games out there. To be able to walk all over the grounds of Hogwarts and interact with tons of characters and locations from the books is a very enjoyable experience. Sadly, the fetch quests and general running around trying to find all of these characters is what makes the game slow, boring and a chore to play through. If not for the motion control that the Wii offers, I would easily have rated this game lower than I have; but the Wii controls are for the most part excellent and one of the shining elements in the title. Unfortunately, everything can’t be perfect and this game is far from that. Fans who must have the game can rest easy, as long as they don’t expect too much more than a romp through Hogwarts they’ll be entertained. I personally was looking for an overall entertaining game and really didn’t find that, making this title best suited as a rental.
By nature of this review there may be some spoilers contained within the text – so if you’re one of the few people who has not yet read the book, or gasp, seen the movie what you read may ruin some surprises for you. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
No surprise here, you generally play as the titular character Harry, and the game picks up in the fifth year of his education at Hogwarts. This time however, Hogwarts a fully realized and interactive place. The Grand Staircase in all of its portrait and shifting staircase glory are here, and you will be spending a lot of time navigating this area. So get used to the locations of rooms and quickly learn to identify the portraits which will allow you speedier travels through the school. Gaining access to these passages are but one method of forcing you to perform some mundane task, be it talking to a different portrait, finding some elusive item or even using your Reparo spell to tidy up the grounds of Hogwarts.
A large portion of the game is dedicated to the recruiting of Dumbledore’s Army, a ragtag group of students who rebel at the lack of real world spells they need. So as the man of magic, it’s up to you to gather these students in the hidden Room of Requirement and teach them some offensive and defensive spells. For those who remember the books, the number of students in Dumbledore’s Army is a substantial one, and the game keeps true to that list. So imagine if you will, rounding up nearly thirty students who are scattered all over the grounds of Hogwarts. What would be the best way to do this? Ah, yes – the Marauder’s Map. Once you select a student as your active “quest”, a short trail of footprints will lead you from your current location to your desired location. These footprints come in very handy while navigating the Grand Staircase, and will even indicate when a shortcuts is available. Once you reach your destination things are not all jelly beans and golden snitches, as you likely will have to speak with either the student you want or someone or something nearby who needs you to run an errand for them. Can you imagine the level of tedium?
Oddly enough, a fair portion of time in the game will be dedicated to hunting down discovery points which unlock content in the Room of Rewards, essentially a trophy case to prove you’ve slogged your way through this misstep of a game. Repairing broken statues and dealing with persistent ghosts who insist on flying though you can, and does get old mighty quick for adult gamers. Younger gamers, well we all know what can keep them entertained. In addition to controlling Harry, you’ll also get to play as a couple of other characters briefly, including a couple of the Weasly boys and as Albus Dumbledore himself.
The game does look and sound pretty decent for a movie tie in game. Over 22 of the characters are voiced by their movie counterpart adding to the authenticity of the title. Seeing as Hogwarts is finally realized in a game, over 80 locations from the books and movies have made their way into this title, and all look as expected – be it the Herbology greenhouses or Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom stall. While not the prettiest game to grace consoles this summer, Order of the Phoenix is more than capable of immersing you in the magical world of Muggles, wizards and witches.
Now for the controls which are by far the most important and entertaining aspect of this title. Basic movement is covered by the nunchuk add-on and no major flaws were noticed in that aspect of control. The real fun and subsequent disappointment lies with the spell control. Spells are divided into two camps, offensive and not. The offensive spells include classics like Stupefy, and are generally quite fun to cast. Rotate your wand/Wii Remote clockwise to perform once spell, then flick it forward for another. The other group of spells sadly uses the same set of motions as the offensive spells, and is generally used for less than fun tasks, such as making beds in the dormitories or repairing aforementioned broken statues. The responsiveness of the spells was generally speaking spot on – I did notice some concerns when issuing the Wingardium Leviosa, one of the few spells which utilizes both controllers. The spell required jerking both upwards (it is a levitation spell after all), and either my timing was off or the sensitivity of those movements needed tweaking because it usually took the third or fourth attempt to register the spell. Oh well.
The biggest disappointment was the lack of dueling other wizards with wands ablaze. The short sessions were few and far between, and usually ended up being unsatisfying after dreaming about wizard wars for the past few years. But if you want your magical game fix, you can play some Wizard Chess, Exploding Snap or Gobstones. The occlumency lessons with Severus Snape make an appearance in the game as well, which involves a mini-game where you must deflect Snape’s wand by maneuvering your own.
For Harry Potter fanatics, OotP is one of the better Potter games out there. To be able to walk all over the grounds of Hogwarts and interact with tons of characters and locations from the books is a very enjoyable experience. Sadly, the fetch quests and general running around trying to find all of these characters is what makes the game slow, boring and a chore to play through. If not for the motion control that the Wii offers, I would easily have rated this game lower than I have; but the Wii controls are for the most part excellent and one of the shining elements in the title. Unfortunately, everything can’t be perfect and this game is far from that. Fans who must have the game can rest easy, as long as they don’t expect too much more than a romp through Hogwarts they’ll be entertained. I personally was looking for an overall entertaining game and really didn’t find that, making this title best suited as a rental.