Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

The Half-Wit Game

Skip The Game, See The Movie

“Yo” Snyder, Games Editor HJ Playbox

The last Harry Potter game on the Nintendo Wii offered a level of immersion previously unseen in the franchise. Not only were you free to wander about Hogwarts and explore all the nooks and crannies of that famous castle, but the Wiimote gave players an opportunity to interact with the magical world of Harry Potter in an entirely new way as the controller became your wand. With a flick of the wrist you were cast spells, moving objects, and even dueling with other wizards. The controls made the experience so fun that they made up for the underpowered grahpics. The bar was set high for Half-Blood Prince, not just because of all the new features of the last game, but because of the key role the sixth book plays in the Harry Potter series. Unfortunately, the game version delivers neither the fun of the previous game nor the weight and importance of the story.

Perhaps the fact that in the last game we got to explore the castle for the first time and wave our Wiimote wand around for the first time made that game feel better than it really was. The experience was all so new and exciting and it’s hard to recapture that feeling in a follow-up, and Half-Blood Prince definitely does not recapture any of those feelings. However, that isn’t the only problem with this year’s Harry Potter adventure. For some reason, EA made some odd design choices that only serve to siphon out any fun the game may have had. For instance, you once again have the “open-world” of Hogwarts to explore, except this time much of it is locked until you complete certain quests. So in order to explore you must complete tasks which means more often than not you simply go from quest to quest to unlock more parts of the castle and therefore the game feels far more linear than the last despite the same “open-world” design.

Also, you have three main tasks in this game which you do a lot. I mean a lot. You mix potions constantly throughout the game. At first the act of lifting and pouring and stirring and fanning the flames of your concoction is kind of fun, but after doing the same task about a half a dozen times within the first hour of the game the novelty quickly wears off and it becomes quite the chore. You’ll have plenty of duels this time around, which sounds exciting until you realize if you just shake the controller as fast as you can you have a good chance of winning. Don’t worry about remembering movements for certain spells, and don’t worry about strategy, just go crazy. Again, fun in small doses, but it quickly grows wearisome. Finally there’s Quidditch, which sounds fun but really isn’t. Simply point your Wiimote at the screen, make minor adjustments in your trajectory and the game does the rest. Truth is you don’t really do much of anything when you’re flying on your broom; it’s uninteresting and tedious. As I mentioned, you do these three things a lot. So much so, there isn’t much time to do anything else, like explore the magical world of Hogwarts or do anything that’s remotely fun and interesting.

Compounding these problems is the presentation of the game. The Half-Blood Prince is one of the more fascinating and emotional stories in the Harry Potter series. You won’t realize that by playing the game. In fact, you’ll have a hard time realizing what’s going on at all. Cut scenes that move the story forward are random and often don’t have any context, so unless you’ve read the book and know the story, you’ll have a hard time keeping up with what’s going on, let alone caring about what’s going on. Considering this is a time when video games are showing just how well they can tell an involving and emotional story that players can actually interact with, this game reminds us of a time when that wasn’t the case and games were incapable of carrying an involving narrative. Pity.

I mentioned that The Half-Blood Prince gives players the chance to wield their Wiimote like a wand, which inevitably raises some very important questions. It’s only fair to ask if this new level of immersion presents any danger; if mimicking the actions of casting spells is more dangerous than just pushing a button. Well first of all, I’d say this would be more of a concern if the controls were more precise. As it is, you don’t really need to worry about whether or not your mimicking and sort of spell casting because most of the time all you’re really doing is just shaking the controller as fast as you can. That’s more poor gameplay design than anything else, but what about the idea of mimicking spell casts with your controller, is that something that should be worrisome? The Bible is very clear on the issue of magic and how it’s something we should neither dabble in or play with. The fact that the Wii version of Harry Potter involves motion controls is a very subtle step from the magic of Harry Potter being something that’s just passive fantasy to something one interacts with. Are the spells real? Could you accidentally cast one playing this game? No, not likely, but parents should nevertheless consider whether or not they want their kids waving around a game controller like wand, even if it is just a game. Is that any worse than just pushing a button to cast a spell in the game? Well, I’ll let you debate that, but it certainly isn’t any better.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was a disappointment to say the least. After the surprisingly good time I had at Hogwarts on the Wii in the last game, I had high hopes for this one. Those hopes were quickly dashed in the tedium of repeated tasks and a general lack of any improvement from the last. In fact, there were plenty of areas where this game was a step back. If you want to experience the wonder and emotion of the sixth Harry Potter adventure, you’re much better off seeing the movie than playing the game. This game is a muddled mess of random, tedious elements that is completely lacking in whimsy, fun and magic (ironically enough).

Score out of 7:

Graphics: 4 - It obviously doesn’t compare to the other high-def versions, but also does’t live up to the better looking Wii games. This story is darker, but that somehow translated into muddy looking graphics. Character animations are stiff and robotic, and even the special effects for your spells are all that special.

Sound: 4 - Voice acting and sound effects are only average, but the music is good.

Control: 4 - Plenty of motion controls for mixing potions and casting spells, but especially in duels, you really only end up shaking the Wiimote instead of using precise controls. Still, the Wiimote and the Nunchuck respond well to the motions you use.

Gameplay: 3 - Mix potions, duel, and fly around on a broom. This gets tedious, monotonous and isn’t a lot of fun. You can explore Hogwarts, kind of, and you’ll do plenty of quests for people, but they unusually involve one of those three tasks.

Story: 3 - The story of the Half Blood Prince is one of the more interesting and emotional stories of the Harry Potter series; but you’d never know that if you just played the game.

Content: 4 - There’s some mild snogging among the characters and mild violence in the duels. Plus there’s the issue of whether or not interacting with with magic spells by using motion controls is a bad idea.

Final: 4 - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince just isn’t the game it could have been. Somehow it’s lost the fun and whimsical, magical feel of its predecessor. Worse, it doesn’t even begin to do justice to the story it’s supposed to be telling. This is a game that may entertain a half-wit, but not many others. This year you may want to skip your visit to Hogwarts.