Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

You'll wish Harry had his broom when you start playing the latest EA game, Order of the Phoenix. The good news is, although short, at least this one seems finished. The previous game, Goblet of Fire came across as rushed and with several bug problems. Unfortunately, there's not too much else to applaud.

This game begins, briefly, where the book does; Harry saves his cousin from Dementors. It then skips to Sirius Black, Harry's godfather's home and meeting place for the Order of the Phoenix. There, you do have to do *exciting* things like housecleaning and packing, the chores are used to learn some of the first, basic spells. This trip is brief, however, and it's back off to school for the main adventure (and believe it or not, more cleaning!)

Gone, thankfully, is blasting things for Bott's Every Flavor Beans and buying magic cards. Now spells are somewhat more practical and using them or finding secret areas earns "discovery points" which zip out like fireflies giving you stronger skills, unlocking rewards and the ability to learn new magic. Except for a couple of instances, you play Harry--Hermione and Ron tag along. Unfortunately, they are often better at getting in the way and being an annoyance, except for the rare moment when you need more than one person to help you cast a spell.

The game area is realistic and huge; the stairs move and pictures move and talk. But the vast game area gets aggravating quickly as you seem to have always run across campus to solve a puzzle and back again. The main puzzle is rounding up the other members of Dumbledore's Army to the Room of Requirement. But most times you have to get something or solve their problem before they'll go there. (Do yourself a favor see Dean Thomas first--you can work on more than one problem at a time. Save Luna's task for last when your powers are stronger.)

In this game, one of the neat things is you cast spells by a combination of mouse-button and mouse movement--left button for normal spells, moving items, lighting torches. The right mouse-button is used for combat spells which you also learn along the way. You've got two basic key/mouse combo options--unfortunately, you can't customize these. You find your way around by using the Marauders Map. The map itself is pretty useless: It doesn't make much sense as a map layout. But click on either a person's or place's name and it not only marks where they are, it gives you footprints to follow which is helpful. Once you solve their issue, they pop off to the Room of Requirements. You will want to go back there also once and awhile to learn a new combat spell.

Along the way, you can earn bonus points by repairing broken items, revealing secret places, solving puzzles with your magic skills and other things. There are secret passage shortcuts guarded by portraits that will allow you through if you can find out their password. As with the others, you will sometimes have to perform a favor or find out something for them before they give it up. There is a Room of Rewards where you can see your progress and unlock video clips.

You can also earn points and trophies for beating the local champions at Gobstones (similar to marbles), Snap, an exploding card game and wizard's chess. Actually the wizard's chess is quite good and I don't know why they don't put out a separate set of games on this.

The biggest problem with the game is the camera angles. Harry moves strictly in the direction of the arrow, but the camera angle shifts constantly, so you're not just following the character. When the camera shifts so does the direction you're going. So if the camera turns from a back to a side view, you have to switch from the 'up' arrow to the right or left arrow. Often you're pressing two arrows (like up and left) at the same time to make curves or turns. And, if you're running (which involves pressing the shift key as well) it makes it complicated and my keyboard tended to beep in protest. Also, when moving into a room you can lose sight of the character--especially moving through a portrait hole. Or tree branches getting in the way when you're dueling with a member of Slytherin house.

It also makes spell casting more difficult by selecting the nearest item available. If there are several things you can jinx, that becomes more difficult. Or suddenly the camera angle changes and you're facing Harry instead of the item you want to cast the spell on.

The music is very nice, very much in keeping with the movie. There are several cut scenes, but not so many to make it distracting. It sounds like at least the younger actors are lending their voices to the game which is good, although it gets really annoying when Hermione keeps bleating, "Let's find Neville," over and over as you traverse across campus. I also got sick of Nearly Headless Nick and Moaning Myrtle (clicking the left mouse button makes them vanish again.)

Also while you're solving problems for the DA members you've got to try and get homework assignments completed (yay) and can later go back to complete your O.W.L.S. if possible, I found this extremely frustrating again because of the camera changing angles and trying to highlight the correct item to cast in a timed test. There is one more Christmas visit at Sirius' and there are a few good battle scenes toward the end, but the ending is basically an anti-climax. You have one more search after the battles and you can wander around trying to collect all the points, but by that time you're probably ready to head back to the land of muggles.

The graphics are excellent. They rendered it so close to the movie and the movie cutins are a nice feature. The game play is fine although not as creative as Sorcerer's Stone, Chamber of Secrets and Azkaban games. After the central game is done, you can still run around making points and finding the things you didn't accomplish during the game.

The main negatives, and they are major which interferes with the enjoyment of the game, is that instead of designing it to use the mouse to move Harry around, you have to use the keyboard (either the ASDW keys or the arrow keys) and then move your hands to the mouse to case spells. You also cannot move Harry while casting a spell, he has to either cast a spell or move, which messes up being able to avoid being hit and/or aiming correctly. To make a combat spell, you have to use the mouse but the hold down the right button, which after a very short time gets to be impossible since those fingers are the weakest but in order to win combat you have to keep using those fingers. Combat was better when you used the mouse to aim and then the Ctrl key (or Alt key) to blast the spell (aka the first 3 games). Also, some of the things you should be doing are NOT intuitive; when Fred & George are flying around the Grand Stairway, not sure if I was suppose to be doing anything since nothing I tried seemed to make a difference but that sequence was so long, I'm pretty sure I was supposed to be doing something.

If they could design the games using the keyboard less, since most people these days use a mouse or touchpad (or the equalent thereof) for moving the cursor around, that would improve gaming about 5000% and make it actually fun to play. Trying to move Harry turned into a very frustrating experience and my Harry spent the whole game moving like he was either drunk or drugged. I was also a little disappointed I couldn't cast spells on Hermione and Ron who often would get in the way. It would also have been nice if they would allow the player to designate which keys did what (ala Azkaban). I was also disappointed that I could not use my Logitech Precision gamepad.

I'm surprised to see the extreme harsh reviews. Hmm... I know many complained about the controls for Goblet of Fire. I really didn't mind them; I actually kinda liked how you didn't need a mouse, and felt they were relatively self-explanatory. But for this game, the other reviews aren't lying... the controls take quite some getting used to. Overall, I still felt the game was quite fun, and worth the time to play. Also note that the exploration of the castle and the grounds from games 1-3 is back in full force, and the GoF set up is no more. Here's the breakdown review:

Graphics: + + + + + 5 stars easily. Gorgeous game, great resolution compatibility, and the magic is really there. Best part of the game.

Cutscenes: + + + 3 stars. They get their own category, because they were pretty much cut out of the last game. Back are the color cut scenes with the characters actually acting out the story. I like them, but they lost a star because they often look very fake. For instance, one character will be talking, and his mouth won't start moving until the sentence is over. Little things like that take away from the cut scenes a lot.

Gameplay: + + + 3 stars. I'm not going to go into much detail on this since I haven't finished the game yet, but from what I've seen it seems relatively fun with enough side adventures that you enjoy them but don't get distracted. I'm a little sad that they took away the ability to play as Hermione and Ron as that was one of my favorite parts of the game in GoF. Also, you spend so much time just getting to classes and running around the staircases... it gets quite annoying.

Controls: + 1 star. They really are the downfall of the game. You don't even use the arrow keys to walk, so to move forward you hit "w". Instead of just running by holding down the forward key, you have to hit and hold shift... so just to move Harry around, you are holding "shift w", not to mention when you want to shoot a spell you have to hit an arrow key to aim, then grab the mouse to perform the spell. Pain in the rear.

Fun: + + + + 4 stars. It's an enjoyable game simply because it's so exciting to see the magic of the fifth book on your computer screen. It's fun to be able to play through it as though you are Harry. The game sticks relatively close to the book plot, and probably insanely close to the movie plot. Oh, and shooting the spells is rather fun because you actually have to move your mouse in a way that makes it so they you cast the spell.

I really think the super negative reviews were way too harsh. The game isn't the most exciting, once you figure out the flow is goes by relatively smoothly. I'd say it's not worth buying, but probably worth getting in the holds queue line at your local library to try it before you commit your $30 to it. (Plus it will keep you entertained until Deathly Hallows comes out July 21st.)

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 57 reviews  3.1 out of 5 stars