Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

At least, it isn't about the games from "1001 Arabian nights", because getting at number five, my pleasure is already a bit diluted and don't have fun anymore.

As in the book, it's another school year at Hogwarts. But, when its reading brought me emotion, this video game leaves me cold. The blame goes to the developers who think above all, chores list, challenge, beat the game, etc… I'm really fed up with the things to collect, the tasks to do.

On the other hand, the graphics have never been so beautiful: it's really a virtual visit of the sets on the movie. But, as the school is huge, five minutes later, you are tired from running in the corridors.

This time, the gameplay is very easy thus you can't be stuck. The only difficult moment for me was to levitate some pack of food up a hill. The final level against Voldemort is playable so it's OK. However, the commands for magic are awful with a mouse so everything has to be done with the keys.

In conclusion, a serious improvement from the previous one (Goblet of fire) but not very inspired!

Hate. Let me tell you about how much I have come to hate this game since I began to play it. There are 86 Billion neurons in wafer thin folds and creases that fill my brain. If the word "HATE" was engraved into each and every nanoangstrom of those tens of billions of neurons, it would not equal one one-billionth of the hatred I feel toward this game and the developer team that brought it into this world at this micro-instant.

To say that this game is flawed would be the biggest understatement of my life up to this moment. The PlayStation 3 version of this game is the single worst experience of my life. The only possible way for me to express my hatred and loathing for this game in its entirety is to go through it step by step, so lets get to it.

1. The bulk of this game is running slowly back and forth doing fetch quests for other students to make them go to the room of requirement, if it isn't then let that be a testament to how much of a drag it is to get them to go there that I forgot everything that comes before that section of the game, but even after that you're still doing that same thing for nearly every single mission and any other type of mission is usually even slower and more annoying which leads into my nect problem.

2. The combat system is clunky slow irritating and a terrible gimmick. Not that needing to fight students is annoying (though it is) but it's that the parts where you do fight is so damn few and far inbetween you wonder why the hell they're there to begin with, and if that wasn't bad enough the combat system itself is a broken mess! Who on the dev team thought that it was a fun smart or interesting idea to make every spell and attack be bound to the right analogue stick!? Because of the spells being bound to the right analogue stick you 1) have no control over the camera and need to wrestle with it constantly just to get where the hell you need to go and 2) constantly send off the wrong spell most of the time. What's that? You wanted to cast Stupefy? Well too bad pal, you just cast Levicorpus and Protego 10 times instead. Ontop of that because you need to spin around the stick to get the right spells out the enemies can cast way more spells than you way faster, it makes it complete hell to fight even with companions helping you, even worse is when you do get hit it knocks you on your ass for about 10 full seconds which lets the enemies just pummel you with attacks and kill you piss easy, which also reminds me, you have no indicator of how much health you have, no healthbar no animation no screen effect nothing, and more often than not you dont't get the chance to just try the fight again, no you get sent wayyyyy back and need to run all the way back to the fight which in some spots can take about 10 real life minutes to get back to because of how slow you move combined with the npc's everywhere blocking your path and fighting the camera to show you where to go, just to get your ass handed to you again! It's even worse when it's a fight that you are required to beat to continue the game.

3. The characters Never. Shut. Up. They're all always running their mouths making fun of you or complaining about you or a thousand other things to do with you. But it's even worse when you talk to Hermione and Ron, your two companions and "hint system" that you're supposed to ask for help whenever you get stuck somewhere or forget what to do or just need to know where generally to go. Most of the time these two are useless and just repeat what the quest is or yell at you to go find something somewhere but don't bother telling you or even giving you a hint to where tongo or what youre supposed to do for anything! To fully express how irritating it is I'll give and example of a mission where they're completely useless and are infact a detriment: A student has given you a mission to go find 5 talking gargoyles for his homework assignment, but they're hidden around the castle and you have no clue where they are or where to even start looking, so you go ask Ron and Hermione for help maybe they've seen them around the castle over the years, but no, they just parrot the mission and tell you to go find the statues. Even worse is while you are looking for them they never shut up about telling you to look for the gargoyles constantly reminding you thats your one and only goal to find the 5 stupid gargoyles for the little brats homework. The only thing they do during a mission like this tell you how many are left once you do find them hidden in the most obscure of spots that you would never think to look for them in. This is how they act for most of the game.

4. The Marauders Map is a useless guide that tries to force you to take routes through the game that you can't even access because you don't have the password to the paintings. "Well you don't have to follow the rpute it takes you just walk there yourself" good luck trying to navigate around this giant maze without getting lost every minute that you spend trying to get from just one area to the next, and even when you do get the passwords for the portrait doors they just take you all over the place and usually never where you expect them to. Example: Where do you think a portrait in a hallway by a courtyard in the middle of the school would take you? Did you say "To a boat house on the edge of the water a mile and then some away from that courtyard"? Then you got it right! Whose idea was it to make them take you to the weirdest possible areas when you finally are able to use them? It's a complete mess, which is fitting for them I suppose because this entire game is a mess.

I can keep going, I could go on for even longer from here, but I feel I've wasted enough of my life hating this game and wasted enough of your time explaining how god awful this game is.

Please god if anyone see's this review, don't buy this game. I got this copy of mine from a bargain bin at gamestop for like 4 dollars and I still want a refund because if I got those 4 dollars back I could go out and buy myself something like a chicken sandwhich, and i can garauntee that chicken sandwhich would have brought me infinitely more joy and fulfilment than this game ever has. If you ever run into a copy of this game somewhere, your best option is to just run in the opposite direction of it.

I have to say, with my experience with Harry Potter games, from playing the first one on PSone to playing the horrible Goblet of Fire on PS2. I got this game after finishing the Prisoner of Azkaban. This is a really good Harry Potter game to play, as you can explore Hogwarts and other places, find secret passages and go on quests. The new way of spell casting is excellent as well...even though sometimes you can accidentally cast the wrong spell with the right-analogue stick. It's a fun game to play and tones of things to do! Duelling is fun to do as well, as learning spells is easy and difficult at the same time. Collecting discovery points is a good system and the awards you get...are alright.

Overall, I'd give this game 8 out of 10, the graphics are alright, could of been a little better with the character design, but the game play is really good. It's a good game and I think picking it up one day is a good idea.

(This comment is on the Wii version) The Wii, I think (and others probably think so too), is the perfect system for this game, and maybe for the next 2. The controllers on the Wii now make it feel like YOU'RE the wizard that's casting the spell, which is quite fun and cool. The graphics are amazing and the place looks just like in the movie. There's so much detail and so much to explore. I'm also glad that the real people from the movie (most of them) voiced the voices in the game. Another thing is that there are some things fro the game that actually go with the book, things that weren't in the movie. But there are some bad things too, like the camera was kinda bad because it sometimes gets the wrong thing that I'm aiming at, the game seemed a little rushed and like 3/8 (maybe more) of it is just scenes and skips around and stuff. But overall, this is a great game, I'm not sure how it is on the PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, or the PC, or any other system it's on, but it may be great because how much more of the castle and stuff there is to explore. But I recommend the Wii version because you get into it so much more than the others. Oh, and another thing, people, why are you reviewing this as the movie? This is the video game page! That's why in parenthesis it says VG.

I got this game as a birthday present for my Nintendo DS. OK, I know people might say its lame and boring, but actually for me, I found it rather fun.

Lets start off with the graphics. Sure its a bit blurry and cartoony but hey! Do you expect game platforms such as the GBA, DS to just whip up outstanding graphics when its Harry Potter? Come on guys, its not a big deal and it's the gameplay that matters!

Secondly I LOVE the mini-games. My favourite are the classrooms games (Charms, Potions, Herbology especially!) and I also like the After-School Games. Exploding Snap was cool, I love Gobstones but Quiddtich was the best! Well, I started off as a poor player but ended up completing all the levels and winning every match against Slytherin! Boooooooooo Slytherin!

And the missions! I know sometimes you just run around Hogwarts but isn't it fun to just explore and plus there's Wizards Cards, Gobstones etc. which are scattered around Hogwarts to be found! Besides some of the missions were awesome! Like retrieving members of DA, making potions to cure creatures, exploring the OoTP Headquarters and duelling! Speaking off duelling the climax of the game is really cool! I got past the Death Eathers, Bellatrix and You-Know-Who... Voldermort! (Actually I was stuck for ages at the part when Sirius and Harry are duelling against 3 death eaters, but I found you just had to cast Flipendo trio at them!)

Now I completed 86% of the game. And I'm on the final and hardest mission! You have to retrieve all the Wizard cards, gobstones and Berti Box Beans in order to finish the game! I practically looked EVERYWHERE but I still need to find 5 more - it's VERY hard!

Overall, one of the best games I've ever played! And if you're put down what everybody is saying about it don't be! Just take it from me, a person who nearly finished the game and I say, its awesome!

Thanks game creators! I love it!

*********/********** stars

(9/10 stars)

~Kalendra