5 Responses to “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”

• By Susan Benett on Jul 28, 2010

  Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for the Wii is, in my opinion, a very bad game. The bad parts of this game are that the view is annoying and random, it skips over major parts of the story, teleports you at random points (for example I was in Occlumency class and then less than a second later without any explanation in the Order of the Phoenix headquarters at Christmas), has hardly any action, no puzzles, and is made up mostly of running around Hogwarts collecting students for this or that. The students who you are supposed to collect can never come with you until you do some stupid task for them. The good parts are that the Wii motions usually work and when they do work it feels a lot like you are actually holding a wand, the graphics are amazing for the Wii, and Hogwarts is gigantic and thoroughly detailed. All of those pros have a bad side to them though. When the Wii motions don’t work it is really annoying, the graphics are only good from far away (when you look at close-ups things look really weird), and because Hogwarts is so big it makes the tasks insanely hard because you often need to go across the whole entire building looking for things or just getting something across the building. There’s good music, but for some reason it usually isn’t playing. Every word is voice-acted, which is a good thing, but there’s so much unneeded and random talking in the game that the voices get really annoying. There are a bunch of unlockables, but no real reason to get them. You get videos and stuff when you find enough hidden stuff, but they’re sort of boring.

  Overall the only really good thing in this game is the amazing recreation of Hogwarts. If the price goes down somewhere around 5$ this game might be worth thinking about just so you can explore Hogwarts, but at any other price it just isn’t worth it.
  
  Rating: 2 / 5
• By pvam on Jul 28, 2010

  I am a huge harry potter fan, yet this game is the worst game I have ever played in my entire life.
  
  Graphics: Of course because it’s on the wii the graphics are worse than the other systems and made me wish that I had bought the 360 version.
  
  Gameplay: Horrible, absolutely horrible, you don’t have control after you cast the spells, targeting the item you want to cast a spell on is impossible because the targeting system auto-locks on the first thing it sees and wont let you choose something else unless if you turn away and look somewhere completely different than where your target is.
  
  Camera: The camera was made by a druggie with no programming experience. It is unmovable, and only goes at the angle it’s supposed to be about 20% of the time. Moving on stairs is hard, casting spells is hard, and some times during conversations all you see is the gray from instead of the person you are talking to’s head.
  
  Overall: This game will make you hate Harry Potter.
  Rating: 1 / 5
• By A. C. Kraus on Jul 28, 2010

  This game is so much fun on the Wii. Other consoles require weird key combinations to cast spells, but with the Wii Remote and Nunchuck, you actually feel like you’re holding a wand, casting spells as you complete the adventure at Hogwarts! The only drawback is the fact that all the deuling scenes are fairly pre-programmed (it’s not really possible to lose…they sort of play out and then they’re over). But the complete freedom to explore and the amazing graphics more than make up for it.
  Rating: 4 / 5
• By D. Webb on Jul 28, 2010

  That’s what they should have titled this game, because that’s practically all you do–float things around, with a few brief duels thrown in. Oh, and a lot of wandering back and forth to different parts of Hogwarts, looking for people.

  I was very disappointed in the last game (Goblet of Fire) but had high hopes for this one, especially with the Wii. And while it is a fun novelty to use the remote like a wand, and the graphics are great, the game itself is a bore. I would also say it’s too short, but I won’t because given how dull it is, short is a blessing.

  There’s no running, no jumping, no puzzling out what you’re supposed to do. Now that the game designers have showed off what wonderful graphics they can do and what fun it is to use wand movements, maybe they can turn their talents to actually creating an enjoyable game next time.
  Rating: 3 / 5
• By D. Breakey on Jul 28, 2010

  I so wanted to really like this game. Really.

  The production values are, overall, excellent; obviously, a great deal of care has gone into the experience and presentation. Finally, we have a Harry Potter game that does a decent job (not perfect) of capturing the ‘feel’ presented through the movies.

  Unfortunately, this care didn’t extend to the actual game itself.

  Don’t get me wrong; the game is decent, if a bit short (I could probably have finished the core storyline in under eight hours; as it is, I’ve breezed through it in under 20, even with extensive exploration [over 80% completion]).

  Unfortunately, though the book is clearly targeted at older children, the game is still firmly set within the province of younger gamers; experienced gamers will not likely find this one challenging at all, and the plotlines are reduced to almost absurd simplicity.

  Visually, however, it is magnificent; the sheer scope of it all makes the whole experience actually feel authentic, and the fact that you can move from one end of Hogwarts to the other with no load screens or other delays only improves the immersiveness of it all.

  Controls are acceptable, although a little finicky in places. One tip I can offer: to target an item for a spell, hover the on-screen pointer over the item (until the remote vibrates briefly to indicate a ‘lock’) and tap the B-button. This is often quicker than tapping the B-button to cycle between available ‘targets’. Items that cannot be interacted with, or which you have performed all possible interactions (many times, you can interact with a given item more than once, in different ways) will no longer ‘lock’.

  All in all, this is a wonderful addition for any die-hard Potter fan, but it is likely to disappoint the serious gamer. It feels less like a real game and more like a set piece.

  This is especially noticable after the main story is finished, yet all the students are still reacting as if it is all still going on (“Umbridge is wonderful; I hope they sack Dumbledore soon!”).

  The silver lining to all this is simple:

  Now that they’ve done such a good job on the presentation, maybe the next game can use it as a base so they can focus on the actual game itself.

  Further technical details:

  On startup, the game appears to insist on activating all available remotes registered to the console, even though this is, as far as I know, strictly a single-player game. Additionally, if a second remote is activated, be careful about turning it off; the game does NOT properly handle this, and instead turns off the console. This is a usability oversight which is seriously disappointing (I’ve tried several first-party titles which only permit the P1 controller to actually turn off the console; this is MUCH better).

  It’s also a minor frustration that it does not automatically detect the presence of the nunchuck attachment; instead, it puts up a screen advising “You must attach the nunchuck to play this game” on every startup. Granted, I’ve yet to see a third-party title handle this correctly, so it’s not an unexpected nitpick, especially given the relative youth of the Wii.
  Rating: 3 / 5

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