Who would have thought that a Harry Potter game could be decent? It’s certainly better than the ‘walk around, wave wand, walk around’ fest that previous outings have consisted of, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 is a bit more than that and appears to look rather good, too. Prepare to suffer from a bout of disappointment as the illusion is not as it may seem.
The point of the game is to go on a quest to locate and destroy Voldemort’s Horcruxes, sounds simple enough, yet as usual, there are the usual hinderances such as the oh-so-nice-sounding Death Eaters which, when you think about it, sounds like they eat death and therefore, are good.
Wouldn’t you like something that takes death away, leaving you to live as long as possible? Anyway, that’s not what they are, but maybe they hold some kind of secret behind Voldemort’s immortality of which Harry (you) along with Ron and Hermoine have to destroy.
It’s not really that difficult to see just how well the graphics match the style of the film, being all dark and twisted as it is and kind of has been for the last couple of films. It’s playable with the Kinect, meaning that instead of sitting quietly and twiddling on the pad, you can stand up and flail about like you were Harry himself, but since this reviewer lacks the latest Microsoft Xbox 360 pieve of technology, it would be silly to say anything other than you pretty much wave your arms around to cast spells and perform magic.
The movement of the characters is smoother than in previous experience and as the franchise progresses, so do the likeness of the characters which is a bit better than before and it’s that attention to detail that helps make the game more enjoyable. At least, that’s a theory which, in some cases can be true and hey, what’s wrong with having fair visuals matched with nice gameplay?
Well, nothing if they aren’t masked behind some kind of grainy filter. You may be saying that it’s all about the gameplay and graphics aren’t that important, indeed that is true, when the gameplay is repetitively tedious and apparently quite tiresome if you play by Kinect, neither graphics nor gameplay come into any relevance if the exhilaration isn’t present.
As most people or at least, gamers know that movies made into games can be rather mediocre and few surpass all expectations to become triple A titles. Deathly Hallows Part 1 just about passes as a playable book to movie to videogame due to a relatively entertaining mix of the usual third-person wand action and bouts of stealth via the invisible cloak and an ability to lob potions, grenade style. If you couldn’t lock-on to enemies, then the game would have been that bit harder and a bit more insufferable, but as it is, and as many others have said, it’s not the best of the Harry Potter series which is a shame.
You will really need to be a hardcore fan to appreciate what the game is trying to be, unfortunately, to recommend this would be misleading. There will inevitably be a part two and we can only hope that any and all criticism will be taken on board to be took into consideration of how and what they can improve upon and provide a product worthy of the multi-million empire that is the Harry Potter franchise.
Wednesday, October 16
