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

Harry Potter fans are being spoiled this summer. More cynically, you could say that everyone's trying to cash in on the Potter craze before the series finishes and everyone moves on. It seems to be a bit of both an even share of quality and rubbish products hitting the market. EA is getting in on the action with a game to tie-in with the latest film – Order of the Phoenix. EA's efforts have, in the past, been rather hit and miss with the Potter film tie-ins so on which side of the cash-in does the latest instalment fall?

Rising from the ashes

The game starts, as does the film, with the Dementor attack. After fighting them off it's straight to the home of the order where Sirius will guide you through the tutorial section. It's here that the flaws start to become apparent in this game. You're guided through learning spells via cutscenes rendered with the in-game engine. These are voiced by the film actors which helps, but is about the only redeeming feature of the scenes. The characters don't move well, there are huge pauses between sections of speech and the scenes drag on for too long. Some of the scenes are taken from the film and some from the book but they all share the same sense of being over long and poorly put together. It shouldn't be too big a deal but there are so many cutscenes that it does start to become tedious. The training isn't much help either. The spell is demonstrated and then you have to repeat it a few times to prove you get it. Sadly, the mouse movements on screen that train you are extremely vague. Fortunately, the spells are all listed in the instructions so you can work out how to perform each one.

Wizards stick together

As you run around exploring Hogwarts you'll be delighted with the level of detail. From the moving grand staircase to the talking pictures and all of the rooms you'd expect to find. Ron and Hermoionie are always at your side helping you with some of the spells and providing hints and tips if you get stuck. As you progress you'll find that you can use some of the pictures as shortcuts. They don't save much time on your journeys but it's a nice touch. You'll also earn discovery points as you cast spells and examine items. These are used to unlock rewards. When new stuff is available, Myrtle will appear and tell you. You can then go and enter the room of rewards to take a look. This is pretty irritating after the first go. The worst part is that to enter the room you have to examine the painting. This causes the you to go into a brief, which you cannot skip, script section with the painting moaning about having to open for you. It's the same every time and I couldn't find any way to get into the room without sitting through it.

Spelling challenge

Casting spells is a big part of the game as you'd imagine. There are two types, combat and non-combat. The combat spells are used for the occasional duels and the others are used for making your way around Hogwarts and improving your experience points. Hogwarts is the main selling point to Order o the Phoenix. It's almost all faithfully recreated which is a blessing and a curse. Fans of the series will love exploring the extensive grounds. Sadly, they'll soon get bored with it as it is huge. The main part of the game sees you trying to establish Dumbledore's army. To do this, you have to run around the grounds and tell everybody where to meet. There is a map which tells you where everyone is. When you select the next person it prints footsteps on the ground for you to follow. Sadly, the footsteps are black and don't show up too well and don't show up very far ahead of you. That means that once you get running you have to keep stopping to let the footsteps catch up. On top of that the camera angle is controlled by the computer and it often picks a perspective where you can't see yourself so you have to guess where the steps are leading.

Taking control

All in all the control system is pretty flawed. Using the keyboard and mouse is pretty useless as you have to use the cursors to change direction, the mouse doesn't control the camera. The mouse is just used to cast spells. It's not really up to that challenge either. The gestures are quite simple but the game still tends to cast the wrong spell at times. As you run around Hogwarts you can use the non-combat spells to repair vases, light lanterns and move the curtains to reveal chess pieces. This breaks up the monotony of running around Hogwarts looking for people but it seems weird that the highlight of the game could be lighting a lantern. Once you do find the people most of them can't make it because of some problem. You then have to enter a mission to help free them up so they can attend the meeting. That generally either involves casting a couple of spells or searching Hogwarts for something.

Them's fighting words

The other types of spells are combat ones and these are used for wizard duels. These are very infrequent so you won't have much use for the spells. The casting is the same as for the non-combat spells but you hold the right mouse button instead of the left. When you do get involved in a duel it's basically a game of casting one or two spells repeatedly until the game tells you the duel is over. There's very little feedback of feeling of being in combat. So the exploration and task side of the game is dull and the combat part is tedious. That's not all there is to this game though. There are three mini games that you can play at various locations around the campus. These are wizard chess, gobstones and exploding snap. Wizard chess is regular chess with animations like the old battle chess games. Gobstones is a marbles game where you flick the mouse down and up to flick a marble into the pit. Exploding snap is a basic card game where you either select pairs or win when two cards the same are turned over in succession. These provide a distraction but aren't really the game you're expecting to play.

Your wizard army needs you

Given the undoubted popularity of the franchise, this game is certain to do pretty well. It's a shame really as EA could have done a whole lot better. The control system could be a lot better, the animation could be better and the cut-scenes could be better. Then there's the actual point of the game. You spend the bulk of it running around Hogwarts casting the same spells on the furniture finding people and then sometimes helping them. It's not the greatest premise for a fun time and it pans out as well as you'd expect. For the serious Potter fans, I suspect you'll get a few kicks out of the detail that's been put into the presentation of the school and it's grounds. I doubt that this will sustain you through the whole game. Once you've seen it all, there's very little worth continuing for. If you do press on then the game really isn't that challenging. If you don't get bored of the scenery you will get bored of the repetitive tasks. And if the tasks don't get you, the rather poorly animated and scripted cut-scenes will. All in all, EA, I'm giving you detention. See me after class, I have some lines for you to do.