Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

4.9

Format Xbox 360

Developer EA Games

Publisher EA Games

Genre Adventure

6 Comments

Seven months. That's how much extra time EA Bright Light has had to tweak and polish Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince after its November release date was pushed back to June thanks to the movie's theatrical slippage. The time could have been spent perfecting one of the most valuable game licenses. Instead it seems as though Harry and company were dumped in the vanishing cupboard since the game's completion last year and left to gather cobwebs. Draco would be proud.

Like most family games of late Half-Blood Prince suffers from catastrophic Wii syndrome. The game's clearly been designed with the waggle stick in mind. From the awkward potion mixing lessons to the wand-waving duels every action mapped to the right stick would work better with a motion controller (or, better still, a combination of Natal's body mapping and voice recognition).

	Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Official trailer 1:51   Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Official trailer 1:51   Age Restricted Content Please enter your date of birth below in order to verify your age before watching this video     Verify Age You must be at least 0 years of age. Play Again? Missed something? Just watch it again.. Watch More Videos Browse related videos and see what's new & popular Share This Video Email this video, or embed it into your own web page Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Official trailer 1:51   Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Official trailer 1:51                                                                                                               DEBUG - State:  Status: skip to curtain Now playing More videos Share this   Now playing More videos Share this   Email this video to your friends Enter your friends' email addresses below, one per line. This functionality is currently disabled. Embed this video into your own page Copy & paste the HTML code below into your own web page or blog. <iframe src="http://web.archive.org/web/20090726083359if_/http://www.computerandvideogames.com/video_embed.php?id=2805" width="418" height="378" border="0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Official trailer 1:51   Now playing More videos Share this

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The problematic camera highlights the issue perfectly. In a sane world camera wobbles can be corrected with a flick of the right stick, but thanks to some thoughtless control patching this merely waves Harry's magical fleshlight about. To spin the camera you'll need to squeeze RT as well, despite the universally accepted rule of trigger-pulls initiating firing stances (in this case the magic wand stance).

But it's the giant step backwards from Order of the Phoenix which offends the most. Bastardised controls we can half accept; inferior versions of the last game's features are a little harder to swallow. Half-Blood Prince boasts none of the story progression of before - choosing instead to edit out key scenes in ways which would confuse even JK - and is so reliant on its three main mini-games there's little room for any other content.

Duelling, potions and Quidditch: at any given time you're probably involved in one of these three tasks. The first is almost a carbon copy of Order of the Phoenix's scraps (though dodging buttons replace the speedy sidestepping of 'fore), the second a cumbersome mixing game which suffers from imprecise controls and confusing depth perception, and the third a lengthy and disappointing on-rails glide to snatch the snitch. In any other title each mini-game would be little more than a side-quest.

Unfortunately in Half-Blood Prince there's no real main adventure to speak of, only brief 'run-here', 'go-there' quests to link these three activities together. Hogwarts itself is superbly recreated, in part because it was already believable in the last game. There are subtle differences but liberal use of copy and paste has helped to bash this one out quickly. As a result navigation is easy enough for anybody familiar with the series. Newcomers, however, will struggle endlessly to accept the convoluted corridors.

In lieu of the retired Marauder's Map breadcrumb footsteps you can instead call upon a (tragically voiced) Nearly Headless Nick for guidance, but to extend the time between the bland mini-games Harry can search for the Hogwarts badges. Sometimes this involves repairing broken emblems or hurling heavy objects into walls with Wingardium Leviosa; mostly it's simply a case of prodding random objects with a push spell. Glowing lamp post? Push it for pickups. Boulder? Push it. Sign? Why not... push it?

Order of the Phoenix's diversionary puzzles were a fun way to extend longevity but here the push-all tasks are lacking focus, much like the rest of the game and its pitifully pocked plotline. A real shame, especially given the promise shown in Order of the Phoenix. Fingers crossed for Deathly Hallows: Part One...

Matthew Pellett